BDA’s Digital Recipe: Overcoming CRM Challenges for Membership Growth

Introducing the BDA

The British Dietetic Association (BDA) is a UK-wide membership organisation, professional body, registered charity and trade union for dietitians and the dietetic support workforce. 

It has 11,800 members from all four UK nations and is one of the world's oldest and most respected dietetic associations. As a Trade Union, charity and professional body, it represents its members' professional, educational, public and workplace interests.

The Challenge

When the BDA approached their trusted website provider Pixl8 Group (developers of ReadyMembership) and asked for their expertise in scoping out a new CRM solution, the gravity of the situation was clear.  Their third-party CRM had stopped talking to the website.  

The BDA’s two-person membership team was wading through a daily backlog of over 500 emails from members who could no longer carry out simple tasks, such as paying subscriptions, changing grades, joining specialist groups and updating details.  The membership team logged and responded to 26 different categories of complaints via calls and email. The previous CRM system cancelled 1000 memberships incorrectly; this threw those members automatically into arrears. The BDA accounts team had to set up a separate arrears payment system.

With CRM support ending within a year, the BDA had 12 months to implement a new solution.  Their rescue and relaunch mission had begun.

The Process

Building strong relationships with partners – the ingredients for success

With an urgent need for reliable data, the BDA turned to Pixl8 for a rapid solution. Their recommendation: re-platform the BDA’s website to ReadyMembership and integrate it with Dynamics-based BlueCRM from their long-standing partner BluelightCRM. To boost internal capacity and ease pressure during a financial audit, the BDA hired a technical project manager from Equantiis to maintain communication and momentum and critically translate technical requirements to both suppliers .

Complex CRM integration and member access

The project’s scope was immense: reimagining workflows for membership sign-ups, event bookings, and online shop purchases. Data migration and website rules were meticulously rebuilt and tested. Expanded event management needs further complicated integration.

The BDA’s complex rules for membership in 60 regional branches, specialist groups, and sub-groups required seamless navigation between groups. Parent/child permissions and rules were carefully configured to ensure smooth functionality.

A partnership of collaboration and communication

The project team prioritised BDA-wide staff engagement, setting clear expectations for involvement from the outset. Weekly flash reports from COO Louise Pritchard highlighted three priorities and staff actions.

“Setting staff expectations was essential,” says Louise. “It’s important to get 100% staff engagement. You don’t want the project to be on the periphery or the responsibility of just one team.” Every team had a stake in the new systems.

Ultimately, multi-team collaboration drove success. Tight deadlines and project complexity galvanised teams to be flexible, think creatively, and deliver a fully integrated solution.

Benefits & Results 

Unified platform for efficiency

The new platform is used by all 42 team members for activities including trade union case management, sales pipeline tracking, courses, and events. Automations have saved significant time, allowing the team to focus on member engagement and new initiatives.
 

Membership growth

The BDA is progressing towards its goal of 13,000 members by 2027. Membership has grown by 9% to 11,871, and attrition has dropped from 11% to 4%.
 

Enhanced member engagement

Participation in Specialist Groups’ (which have a joining fee) has reached record levels, with membership rising from 50% to 63%. Members now manage their group activities, including events, marketing, and are creating more events, webinars and resources.

Seamless member experience

MyBDA, allows logged-in website users to update details, manage group memberships, and access bespoke insurance certificates. This has led to a 103% increase in member access and a 33% rise in traffic to the homepage.

A future-fit membership platform

The time saved in managing membership queries has been reinvested in a dedicated new role focused on drawing out data insights, analysing reports and using these to plan personalised marketing activities and setting up membership engagement baselines..

ReadyMembership has freed up the BDA team to deliver a record number of courses, events and webinars. They are excited to be working together on plans to enhance member engagement even further using their platform’s powerful personalisation tools. 

As their COO Louise Pritchard summarised, the BDA is “on the edge of greatness”.