The Striving for Success blog series features entries from our 2022 Chamber Success Competition. We hope you will learn from these user stories and how you can grow member value, increase productivity, and boost revenue while using GrowthZone’s software solutions.
The first blog post in the series featured competition entries sharing how using the GrowthZone solution increases member engagement. The following highlights responses relating to streamlined processes from using GrowthZone.
“We have streamlined processes and increased staff connection. Having everything noted and at our fingertips to share increases the empowerment of our team leading to a connection helping staff retention.
Using the notes and follow up tools really help our staff feel like we all know what is going on. When one staff talks to a member and puts the details in CM, we can watch the trail of engagement ultimately leading to member retention and also event sponsorships.”
Kimberly Caughell
Director of Business and Community Engagement
Greater Summerville/Dorchester County of Commerce
ChamberMaster user
“We use ChamberMaster and GrowthZone both, so we have streamlined all our processes, from an integrated website, to managing members, to managing events, all with payment processing. ChamberMaster/GrowthZone is a one-stop shop for all our needs, and it saves us money with all solutions under one set fee.
I would like to say, because of ChamberMaster, I was able to turn this organization around and prevent them from closing its doors. Without the help of CM, I would not have gotten us back in the black. Though a $7k profit doesn’t seem like much, it is a lot more than a negative $24k!
Overall, purchasing the CRM has been like a personal assistant to me. Actually, that is how I sold the program to the Board… it is like hiring an additional employee! My board saw the ROI and jumped on it!”
Erik Bush
Executive Director
Washington County Chamber of Commerce
GrowthZone and ChamberMaster user
“ChamberMaster has been a fantastic addition to the Tri-County Chamber. It allows us to have detailed information at our fingertips about member businesses. Processing reports and billing is easy and a time saver which equals money saved. Managing events is a breeze in ChamberMaster.
Members enjoy the ease of registration and payments. Also, having the ChamberMaster website that works with the software is priceless. We use the communication function in ChamberMaster all the time. Being able to contact all or different sectors at a click of a button is fantastic. Also, the reports are tools that give us information to use when planning for the future. I cannot imagine running a Chamber without ChamberMaster.”
Saundra Price
Executive Director
Tri-County Regional Chamber of Commerce
ChamberMaster user
“It creates a streamlined way to manage accounts, events, is easy to use, and it links up to our website. It’s a one-stop place to keep our members details that is easy to use. We like that creating an event for the chamber is easy to add and eliminates steps for the chamber.”
Sarah Freeman
Executive Assistant
Bow Valley Chamber
GrowthZone and ChamberMaster user
“We use all of the parts of the software, and it makes working in a small office doable. The greatest improvement was adding the website and having it done by ChamberMaster. We are no longer embarrassed to refer members and community to our website!”
Jacci Thayer
Executive Director
North Country Chamber of Commerce
ChamberMaster user
“ChamberMaster provides us with confidence in managing our membership. It is a stable and productive platform for our employees to use as well as our members. The integration with our accountant for month-end billing and reporting is streamlined and detailed. Reports are easy to produce and accurate. The integration with our front-end website is seamless and provides immediate updating for a wide variety of critical functions including the member directory, calendar of events, discounts, and committee/board pages.
Having a seamless package keeps our members updated and our Chamber looking professional with fresh content. The expanded member directory and advertising option for members has provided additional value for our partner members and made their Chamber membership more valuable. Members also enjoy having their logo on our directory and their listing boosted.”
Chuck Leonhardt
President & CEO
Ogden-Weber Chamber of Commerce
ChamberMaster user
“We have a new website designed by GrowthZone and it has been a game changer at our small, rural, NC Chamber!
We never used many of the features offered by ChamberMaster and GrowthZone before the new website and now we are enjoying posting events and having thumbnail pictures of the event flyers posted and for the first time we are giving our members the option the register online and pay online for the event. It’s been incredible.
We are saving employee time by not having to invoice individual participants and we can now share a link for them to go online to register instead of having to make them email us or call us, which takes up our valuable time too.
I’m so proud of our website! We have great features added like video, and a favorite feature is our social media posts from Facebook and LinkedIn now “magically” appear automatically on our website when we post. We have a lot more to learn, but it is so much easier now to go in and make our own changes.”
Michele Burgess
President
Henderson-Vance County Chamber of Commerce
ChamberMaster user
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“Adding GrowthZone software has dramatically simplified and streamlined our membership database and processes. Prior to GrowthZone, our Chamber used multiple lists in Access (which were duplicated to our amazement), Excel, QuickBooks, and Constant Contact to name a few. Any changes needed to be made in multiple places increasing the possibility of inaccurate information.
We now have a one-stop, multi-functional application. Not only does it make managing our membership easier, but we are also changing our dues and benefit structure which would have been very painful with the old ‘system’. We now have the ability to offer added benefits to our membership such as higher visibility on the website, access for members to update their information, offer deals and interact with other members.”
Sherry Hulett
Executive Director
Tomahawk Regional Chamber of Commerce
GrowthZone and ChamberMaster user
“We’re using GrowthZone to drive significant process improvements that make our member experiences remarkable and consistent. By using GrowthZone, tasks and project templates we are able to ensure our ‘member journeys’ are clear, documented, and followed by all within our organization. We’re all about working within the system and maximizing the tools within it to drive positive results. In 2017, we had an 88% retention rate and since implementing these changes after migrating to GrowthZone, we are tracking towards a 92% retention rate.
We are currently using project templates and tasks to manage our new member journey, sponsor journey, and collections journey. We are the in the process of applying this same mentality to our ribbon cuttings, ambassador team, and event processes. It has been a game changer and we’re eager to continue building out more journeys within GrowthZone. It makes life easier for our team and it provides an exceptional member experience every time!”
Britt Delo
Vice President of Membership & Marketing
Michigan West Coast Chamber of Commerce
GrowthZone user
“It has helped in many ways! We have been able to streamline all of our application processes for membership, events and community festivals. Communication with members is more consistent and tailored to their needs. Member data base and communication tracking have greatly helped our membership director to stay on top of the membership and their renewals. The ability to track communication means that members feel valued and do not go long periods of time without connection for our team. Adding in the events has helped immensely as we host 4 major community events each year. All financial and record keeping aspects of the event are much improved now that it’s housed within one location.”
Kat Hoyt
President/CEO
Darien-McIntosh County Chamber
ChamberMaster user
“Wow! As a first year President of a growing Chamber, I have to say that ChamberMaster’s functionality has really blown me away! We are able to send automated notices to our members on 30-60-90 day renewals to make sure our members know exactly when they are renewing and how to pay. Not only that, but our membership director and I are able to use email templates in ChamberMaster to welcome and thank new members, and to send warm emails to our new members to make them feel welcome as a part of our Chamber family.
We use the reports tab and the billing tab all the time! It gives such a great snapshot of where we are, where we have been, and opportunities for growth. I have been so thankful for the support from your staff to spend time with me to show me email templates and ways to create specialized events and sponsorship levels. In fact, last year we hosted the largest event our town has ever seen called Meet in the Street. It was our 40th year and we saw about 15,000 attendees. Our sponsors and booths brought us a large chunk of revenue that allowed us to serve our business community better and ChamberMaster made it so much easier for us!
I can’t thank your team enough for the support and fluidity of your platforms. As a first-year president, it has helped us look SO good!”
Liz Simpers
President
Wake Forest Area Chamber
ChamberMaster user
“Our chamber was faced with a significant transition of leadership in August of 2021. After years of outdated database tracking and an under-utilized website, we quickly jumped to GrowthZone.
For an office of two, we’ve been able to save time in our invoicing, reach higher levels of open rates in our emails and almost doubled our web traffic in our first two months with GrowthZone. GrowthZone allows for an easier user experience when becoming a member online, it is saving our admin specialist a half hour a member compared to our old system…again saving us time to focus elsewhere. Invoicing and tracking are another substantial time saver.
The great success we’ve had in 2022 is directly related to our decision to utilize GrowthZone. Just to overall ease of tracking invoices and efficiency of the online application has been a substantial upgrade. The website format allowed for not just a nicer looking site, but an easier site to search through and use.”
Matt Lofy
Executive Director
Worthington Area Chamber of Commerce
GrowthZone user
“ChamberMaster has benefited the Roane County Chamber of Commerce in so many ways. In terms of streamlining processes, when sending renewals after a payment is made, the process of printing a receipt is one click away. We can easily search invoices, search membership accounts, search events and more. It makes the day-to-day operations at the chamber much more streamlined. ChamberMaster allows organizations to add representatives to their account, increasing the number of people we communicate with through our communications.
The Roane Chamber saves money with ChamberMaster by saving time. For example, the process to print monthly invoices is quick. Not only can we print them to mail, but we can also email them and keep that as a note in their communication tab.
Overall, ChamberMaster, for the Roane Chamber, is a key component to each and every day in the office (& out with the app!)”
Lindsey Stevens
Chamber Manager
Roane County Chamber of Commerce
ChamberMaster user
“ChamberMaster/GrowthZone software has benefited our chamber and/or members in many ways. The TACC revenue has increased, and we feel it is because we are able to deliver value to our members by extending new benefits through member access to their member profiles, including posting employment opportunities and taking advantage of online payment options (for membership, events and other invoiced items).
The support we receive from the community and our members goes a long way achieve that mission; however, ChamberMaster is the most important behind-the-scenes tool we use, to get things done.”
Kelly Carey
Office Administrator
Ticonderoga Area Chamber of Commerce
ChamberMaster user
“Once we cleaned up the data and trained the staff on how to properly use ChamberMaster, we suddenly became much more efficient, we were able to get away with fewer spreadsheets which meant less opportunity for errors and duplication, and omissions. In addition, the elimination of redundancies meant less staff hours spent on the admin portion of our chamber programming and allowed us to interact and spend more time building new programming and interacting with our membership.
Often when companies look at a CRM, they look at the cost but forget to look at the cost of their employees doing work that should be automated. This is always far more costly than software, yet we take it for granted. We have saved in staff time, saved embarrassment with errors and we have also reduced our costs with our third-party accountant. All in all, it’s a win and ChamberMaster has the premier software platform for chambers.”
Janet Kenefsky
Vice President
Greater Vancouver Chamber
ChamberMaster user
“Our previous administration did not know the power of ChamberMaster and did not use it for the benefit of the chamber or its members. Our current administration, that started in September 2019, was determined to learn, implement and train our members to use all the marketing and networking tools available for them, and us, to increase revenue, productivity and networking.
Our event director loves that all the planning, registration and payments are all streamlined into one section. Super easy to manage and printing CUSTOM Name Badges for each attendee makes us look very professional!
We are still learning new features as we go along and are excited to share with our members as we do!”
Darlene Larsen
Executive Administrative Assistant
Renton Chamber of Commerce
ChamberMaster user
“ChamberMaster software has saved us time by helping us organize our member information for billing purposes and streamline our membership directory.
After looking at our options, we decided to upgrade our ChamberMaster software and use GrowthZone for our new website and payment system. This was one of the most affordable options we found since it is based on a yearly subscription instead of a large sum upfront. I was surprised at how much of the information we already had in ChamberMaster can be directed to our website which saves both time and money. We are in the process of launching our new website next month and we are amazed at how much the software allows us to consolidate.
The members module allows us to streamline our membership directory online and the one we publish once a year. This also streams directly to our website where the community can quickly find our members.”
Rachel Keith
Director of Communications
Decatur-Morgan County Chamber of Commerce
ChamberMaster user
To learn more about the 2022 Chamber Success Competition, read the news release. Wake Forest Area Chamber was awarded the $500 grand prize for sharing how GrowthZone software has helped make a positive impact on their office functions.
There’s no question that marketing automation is a hot topic with chambers.
But what is it?
Our informative guide explains what it is, and:
- Why chamber pros use it
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- How it’s like email marketing on steroids
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