This post is an advertorial written by an organization that serves the museum field. The views, opinions, and positions expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of AAM or its employees.

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How changing CRM software improved automatic renewals, gift memberships and more

“The whole point of getting away from our old systems was to get away from silos.”

For Laura Schneider, Director of Tessitura CRM at Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS), building bridges was the impetus behind the museum’s search for a new technology platform. Previously, the team used one system for fundraising and another for ticketing and memberships. This setup made cross-departmental collaboration a challenge. Managing their membership programs had become especially difficult.

The museum selected Tessitura because of its unified platform for customer relationship management (CRM), admissions, memberships, fundraising and more. Those features were designed specifically to meet the needs of museums and other cultural institutions.

HMNS also appreciated the close integrations Tessitura offers to extend its functionality, such as Donate2 and Flex2. Using these tools alongside Tessitura’s robust membership capabilities, the museum made significant improvements to its loyalty programs. Gift memberships help cultivate new museum lovers. Robust data helps target communications more effectively. And automated processes save time the team can invest in higher-impact projects. The museum’s staff are perhaps most excited about the ease and efficiency of automatic membership renewals.

Saving time and money with “truly automatic” renewals

HMNS offers an array of loyalty programs to cultivate engagement. Automatically renewing memberships provide two key benefits: They support member retention and provide a steady, predictable income. To incentivize this option, the museum offers a 20% discount on all auto-renewing memberships.

However, these important auto-renewals were cumbersome to manage in the museum’s previous systems. “The ‘auto’ part was very loose,” Laura explained.

While it felt automatic to guests because they were charged on a regular cadence, staff spent days creating manual batches and processing stand-in transactions to synchronize their fundraising and ticketing systems. “It took up so much time,” Laura recalled.

Now, the museum enjoys “truly automatic” renewals. Members sign up through a simple Flex2 form, and Tessitura instantly creates the membership. When it’s time to renew, the card on file is automatically charged, and Donate2 creates an order in Tessitura for the membership.

“Every year, we know at least a certain percentage will be there in our membership file without taking up additional staff time, without our members having to jump through hoops to purchase. It’s just done and out of everybody’s hands,” Laura said. “We don’t have to touch it again. And that’s fantastic.”

The museum’s new technology also helps them realize significant savings on transaction fees. They chose to use Donate2’s cover cost feature, which asks customers if they’d like to cover the processing fees of their transactions. The HMNS team didn’t think many people would opt in. However, their members’ willingness to cover transaction costs surprised them.

Eighty-seven percent of online donors chose to cover transaction fees for one annual fund campaign. That brought the museum’s cost to raise those funds down to a net of $28 — less than .002% of the $18,343 they raised.

Growing loyalty

While auto-renewals are important, membership acquisition is also vital for the museum’s long-term growth. Box office cashiers are trained to upsell memberships, and signage around the museum encourages visitors to apply their ticket purchase toward a membership. Fortunately, Tessitura makes that easy, too, with native functionality.

All transactions in Tessitura, whether at the box office or online, take place in real time. Membership benefits, such as free admission and discounts on ticketed exhibitions, are available instantaneously. “When you add a membership to the cart, everything reprices. And when you remove it from the cart, everything goes back to regular pricing,” Laura noted.

She shared an example of how this works on-site. “Our cashiers can promote auto-renew at the box office and show the guest a QR code for the auto-renew form,” Laura said. “The moment they complete the form, it’s in Tessitura, and they can use it immediately.”

“That was a huge thing we were looking for when debating between different systems. We were super excited to set that up,” Laura said.

In addition to supporting member discounts, Tessitura’s pricing rules make it easy to manage other offers. Those include free general admission with a special exhibit ticket, corporate partner rates and discounts when purchasing multiple special exhibits.

Offering gift memberships is another way the museum cultivates loyalty. With Tessitura, the HMNS team can collect payment and relevant details from the giver, seamlessly create the membership in the recipient’s account and see the connection between giver and recipient. “Everything’s tied together,” Laura said.

Powerful communications tools

Email and marketing automation tools integrated with Tessitura help the museum manage expiring credit cards or failed payments for recurring memberships. Previously, the team had to reach out individually to any customer whose payment failed. “We were on the phone for a solid week afterward for all of the auto-renew fails,” Laura said.

Now, the museum automatically emails any members whose credit cards are about to expire. If a payment fails, automated messages notify the customer and request updated payment information. “You can tell it how often you want them emailed afterward,” Laura noted. “We’re not having to spend a week of staff time trying to recoup those costs.”

Effective communications rely on accurate targeting, and Laura appreciates being able to build dynamic lists in Tessitura. Since the system captures every purchase, donation and interaction, it holds a rich trove of data the team can use to segment and target their messages. In addition, the team can set up scheduled or triggered sends to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of their communications.

“We could never have done the things we’re doing now in our old email system or our old ticketing system,” Laura said.

Interested in exploring powerful functionality to increase revenue from your loyalty programs? Keep reading about how Houston Museum of Natural Science expanded membership and learn how other museums and galleries thrive with Tessitura.

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About Tessitura

We are Tessitura, a nonprofit technology company dedicated to helping arts and culture organizations thrive.

CRM lies at the heart of our mission and our secure technology platform. Ticketing works hand-in-hand with fundraising, membership, marketing, education and front of house. Intuitive tools help reduce uncertainty and turn data into insights. And features such as frictionless payments, digital ticketing and integrated e-commerce help build a sustainable and accessible future. With Tessitura, organizations can achieve their goals with ease.

We work with more than 800 organizations in 10 countries. Our staff provide 24/7 support and offer guidance to grow revenue and engagement. For more information, please visit www.tessitura.com.