The professional association and trade union for the UK Dietetic workforce, the British Dietetic Association [BDA], has enhanced its membership experience after working with business and technology consultancy, Equantiis.

Established in 1936, the BDA boasts over 11,000 members and is committed to representing the professional, educational, public and workplace interests of its members, while continuing to grow its network and community.

In 2020, the membership organisation implemented a new Customer Relationship Management [CRM] system which wasn’t fit for purpose and culminated in issues around data migration and integration.

In turn, members of the BDA team were not able to effectively utilise the system, negatively impacting membership engagement and experience as a result.

To overcome this growing challenge, the BDA appointed Equantiis, a leading Consulting and Delivery Services company, which boasts a proven track record in helping organisations in Higher Education, Membership, Not-For-Profit and Public Sectors bridge the gap to their stakeholders.

On appointment, the Equantiis team identified opportunities for improvement and lessons learned from the previous CRM implementation, followed by a fully, independent guided procurement process to effectively replace the CRM system and overcome the challenges created by the pre-existing solution.

Following management and implementation of the new solution, the BDA now boasts a fit-for-purpose and integrated CRM solutions which aligns with corporate objectives.

Having also achieved 100% staff adoption and user rates, Equantiis has enabled the BDA to improve both membership engagement.

This is affirmed by the fact the membership organisation has seen a significant reduction in member support emails from 600 to 60 per week, a 2.5% reduction in attrition rates and a massive 75% reduction in compensation discounts following vast improvement in membership experience.

Discussing the success of the project, Louise Pritchard, Chief Operating Officer of the BDA confirmed: “The BDA is proud to have procured Equantiis to navigate a complex programme of website upgrade, new CRM system, data migration and integration points.

Membership organisations rely on sound, intelligible, technical, and legal advice to help steer us through negotiations with multiple suppliers. We are delighted with the end result and would highly recommend Equantiis.”

Tanya Sewell, Senior Consultant of Equantiis added: “Positive stakeholder experience and engagement is vital to membership organisations, and so when a CRM based system that is meant to improve and increase this is not fit for purpose it can create a host of challenges – from team frustration and data silos, through to reduced membership retention.

The Equantiis team and I were delighted to work with the BDA in solving this challenge and are very pleased to see that the newly integration solution has eliminated data silos, increased staff engagement and productivity, and – most importantly – has significantly improved member experience. The organisation were amazing to work with and we couldn’t be more delighted with the end result.”

Headquartered in London, Equantiis is underpinned by a team of experienced business and technology transformation consultants. Committed to helping its clients achieve maximum potential by optimising their business processes and technology adoption, Equantiis enables better client interactions and support for their most important asset, their people.