Coventry & Warwickshire Chamber Group selects ReadyMembership to power its next chapter

Coventry & Warwickshire Chamber Group has selected ReadyMembership as its new membership management platform, replacing a website and CRM that had been in place since 2016. The project marks a significant step in the Chamber’s digital transformation programme.

Clare Golby, Digital Transformation Manager at Coventry & Warwickshire Chamber Group, was brought in specifically to lead the organisation’s shift to a more modern, integrated way of working. The decision to move to ReadyMembership came after a structured tendering process, driven by the need to consolidate multiple systems (including a third-party CRM and MailChimp) into a single platform that could serve both the Chamber and its associated training company.

From fragmented systems to a single source of truth

Like many membership organisations, Coventry & Warwickshire Chamber Group had grown to rely on a collection of systems that no longer worked well together. Higher-tier members who wanted to book exclusive events had to do so by emailing the team, who would then manage bookings manually. Communications went out to all members regardless of sector or membership level. Data sat in silos across the Chamber and training company, making cross-selling between the two businesses harder than it needed to be.

“We’re a very lean organisation, and there are certain times when you really do need people to be freed up, and they’re stuck doing admin that maybe they shouldn’t be doing,” said Clare. “That’s covering both ends of the spectrum: for our members and for our internal team.”

A practical approach to AI

A key requirement in the tendering process was integrated AI, and the Chamber was deliberate about what that meant in practice.

“I get so sick of people saying ‘we need some AI’ without being able to say what they want it to do. We broke it down to the granular level: do you want predictive analytics? Historic reporting? A chatbot? And then we went to market,” said Clare.

ReadyMembership’s integrated AI capabilities (including natural language reporting, AI-assisted communications, and member self-service) matched those requirements directly. When the wider team saw demos of the platform, the response was positive: nobody said it was going to replace them. They said it was going to enhance their role.

The natural language reporting capability was a particular highlight: the ability for management to ask a question and receive a live report, without anyone having to manually pull spreadsheets together first.

Building for commercial growth

The investment is also a commercial one. With public sector funding declining, the Chamber needs its membership offer to work harder: retaining existing members, demonstrating clear value, and identifying opportunities across its Chamber and training businesses that currently go unspotted.