There have been many comments about membership in recent threads. Some of the comments have been about issues with our membership capability/processes/service and also question as to how the club can deliver better value to its members and attract more supporters to become members. Clearly on field performance will help but I know there is room for improvement.

I have a really good relationship with GM of Membership Clinton Bown and would be happy to be an advocate to pass on feedback to Clinton that he can deal with constructively.

Please put your feedback into this thread. I will take it to Clinton and report back to you.

Cheers

Stephen

Thanks Stephen.

Hopefully people will use this opportunity to express their issues and concerns and have them resolved.

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This is going well.

I'll start by saying the caps this year are actually very good IMO, so thanks for that.

The choice of membership card is also good.

Aside from that, as an out of town member I see my 11 game home membership as a bit of a donation so I'm not best placed to judge the value.

In terms of adding value for existing and new members anything that improves interaction between club and member would be welcomed.

I thought The Blue Print was a great initiative and am a bit disappointed it will be on a less frequent schedule this year (IIRC), but if there is a way to include some sort of bonus material available only to members that could be good.

Are there better ways the club can interact with members at the club, via tours, involvement in training? After training the players often practice with pot shots at goal, it would be pretty cool if members were eligible to win a chance to get on the ground for 15-20 mins and have a kick with a few of the lads. Dunno how feasible that approach might be, but even at my age I'd love a chance to do that, haha!

Any of these measures, though, need to be fully embraced by those involved. For example, let's say you had players taking members on a tour of the training facilities, or whatever, they really need to embrace it and make the members feel special.

That's it in a nutshell really. The club, from the cliched President-to-the-boot-studder need to make sure they do whatever they can to make members feel special and valued by the club. Not just an anonymous number to try and cut a better deal with the MCG, for example.

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The prime marketing focus on membership seems to be on the gross total number of memberships. Media outlets love to compare club totals, which trickles down to supporters comparing the strength of their club by directly comparing membership totals.

With this in mind, I'm interested to know why we don't focus on offering the cat and dog membership options that other, higher-grossing clubs are purported to offer.

If it's a pissing competition we're in, let's at least start on a level pissing urinal.

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........?


kindest regards tommi

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that'siti'mnotchangingthistagain......!

I should already be obvious that there is huge variation in what people want from memberships. This depends on where they live, how many games they can get to, how many games they want to get to, what money they are prepared to spend, what add ons they want, and whether they want dedicated seating, superior seating, bars and dining facilities, priority access to finals tickets, premium internet content or a host of other preferences.

I dont presume to speak for others, but I suspect the core aspects of buying a membership for most are to feel part of the club, to support the club financially, to get reasonable value (not great value), to get superior and dedicated seating, to sit with Carlton supporters, to sit with friends, to access decent bars and dining facilities, and to get access to finals tickets. And for some decent caps and scarves. We want to feel a little special.

For this reason, providing maximum flexibility by allowing members to "build their own membership" would attract more people and likely increase spend as people add on options as they order.

For example. Use a click on your membership and "add to cart" as extras

Etihad games tick number
MCG games tick number
Interstate games tick number

Reserved seating
Premium seating
Members bar access
Members dining room access
Guest passes tick number
Guranteed finals tickets (not including GF)
First option GF tickets
Premium internet content
Rooms access
Best and fairest tickets (tick number)
Cap
Scarf
Jumper
Hoodie
Apron
Jacket
(etc)

Sloppy but I'm sure you get the idea.

Pricing algoritms wouldnt be too hard to manage, and all this could be programmed into individual cards.

I've been a member on and off since 1967, and I've had all types of memberships. i think the best one I ever had was the basic social club membership at PP. Why?. Dedicated Carlton area, terrific atmosphere, no opposition supporters, cold beer in a glass, dining if you wanted it, guaranteed finals tickets, sense of belonging, sense of being part of something special. Facilities were nothing special but it felt great. If I could have arranged a guest pass occasionally it would have been even better. That was a membership! And of course we kicked everyone elses arse when we played there which helped!

Don't really want anything more by way of additional or revamped material offering/s or exclusivity. I don't think the majority of members want adititonal benefits from the club, most members just want to be a part of excellence, thats what carlton is supposed to stand for, that's the ultimate exclusivity. I want to see the bar lifetd in everything it does, excellence in communication, excellence in planning for success (even when success is not here and now). The website for example, our supporter window into the core business of the club, it took ages to get the playing list updated with the likes of our new recruites. I just want to see that the club lifting the bar of exepecation in everything it does from president to bootstudder and then communicates it to me. That's the ultimate offering. The weekly reports are great and the presenter is stunning, thats a great start.

Hi Stephen

There's one issue that I'd like to raise that I think is very important in relation to the actions of the staff working in the membership department on the phones. Over the past 2 or 3 years I've called through a handful of times to ask questions about my membership and reserved seat etc and on two occasions I've had an operator breach privacy with me by disclosing my information without validating they are speaking to me first. Now you may not think too much of it as it's me they are providing my information to but the reality is it could be anyone calling and I would very much hate for my information to be provided to a 3rd party. Unfortunately I've seen circumstances where people fish for information due to ulterior motives... whether it be identify fraud or perhaps just an ex trying to get back some revenge.

In both of these calls to the membership team the operator has communicated personal information back to me without collecting enough information to validate that it's me they are talking to. On one occasion all I provided was my membership number and the person said is that you Mr A B at C address? Who knows what other information I could have asked them to provide me if I had asked!

You may not think this to be much however there is privacy legislation that dictates how information like this should be collected, stored and disclosed etc and it's all designed to protect our information and privacy.

Hopefully this is easy to remedy as I believe it's just a matter of educating the staff to ask for 3 points of unique information before sharing any details contained on the account however I think you should perhaps talk to the team to at least check they are aware of this.

I'm sorry if it comes across as nit-picky however my profession is to manage call centres and as such it's close to my heart. Plus I would hate for the club to be exposed in this space as it is a considerable risk from a customer service perspective and a fair whack of a fine!

Hope this helps!

Grant

That's not nit picking at all... totally unprofessional by any standard..these sorts of things, you expect communication management to reiterate correct procedure to all comm staff.

Thanks Stephen,

I only take out an MCC Carlton membership anyway, which basically gets me into games at Etihad.

I do buy my kids memberships (6 and 3) and I think a great option would be to have a wider range of items available to choose for the kids Captain carlton pack.

As it stands, my house currently boasts about 6 drink bottles, 6 really crappy quality backpacks, 4 or 5 small pencil cases, and various other nick-nacks that aren't that popular.

You know what my eldest loved this year? Being able to choose the picture on her membership card. Great idea.

I reckon if the club got 10 different items for the captain carlton packs, and let each kid select 3 items themselves it would be a hit.

Friends of ours haven't signed their kids up in the past couple of years as it's cheap to take them anyway and "we've got enough drink bottles". That's a shame.

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Congratulations CK95

In the words of Beetljuice "bunch if amateurs"

Really not that complicated....have a look at what happens overseas.
I can't type well enough to put it down but just a few things that I've experienced with OS clubs.

Almost every home game is a 'member' day of some sort...free hat, $1hotdog, some other sponsor promo...BUT only for card carriers,
Member bring a 'future' member days...well the guest is treated like royalty. Special ticket, discount drink, in the "good seats" access to members bar etc.. You leave thinking 'boy I have to join' and this is for clubs that have waiting lists.
If I'm a seat holder and can't make it, I can make it available for others (I note Melbourne Victory) does this now.
If I want to bring friends, I can! I swap my seats for the 3,4,5 whatever so we all together, so long as its done a week early.
Membership always gets discounts at the merchandise shop

As I said can't type well enough to load this page.
A lot of the benefits spend on the club having "some" ability on ticket sales/allocation...we have ticketed?? Ticket master.....
did I mention Beetlejuice?

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It's all about digital content for me.

Ching, Ching

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Great points. Create that sense of belonging and 'special'

I am Carlton doesn't cut it

And give something to interstate members. Voting rights was about all we got before. Now what?

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

I'm a social club member who likes a drink, it would be totally awesome if we could get a bar that overlooks the ground so you can enjoy a drink or two with mates without wankers from opposition teams, like you get in the vic bar at Etihad, whilst watching a quarter or two behind the glass and not having to rush back to your seat.

Social club was great at PP, main thing I miss about the place. IMO, this should be a mandatory requirement when doing the next deal at Etihad or the G.

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"I will rejoice in their anguish, delight in their failure and revel in our success"

We are Carlton, @#$%&! the rest !!!!!!

Yep. That is 100% the reason I dropped my social club membership of many years. The sterility and location of the etihad victory room, the complete lack of value in a 'social club' membership.

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Congratulations CK95

When leaving PP establishing a suitable social club should have been high on the priority list, it wasn't and the club has lost significantly as a result.

Love the idea of showing your membership card to get discounts etc at home games, I appreciate this may be difficult with the 'caterers' at the games but I'm sure something could be worked out.

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Hi Stephen,

I’ve got a few things that I think would be beneficial for members and may help entice new members:
1)
One thing that I think the club can get better at is allowing members to be flexible with their memberships. I also follow Melbourne Victory and one thing that they offer which CFC doesn’t is the ability to have different reserved seating levels at each of their home stadiums (ie: premium A at AAMI Park and general admission at Etihad). CFC would also have the ability to incorporate away games etc to this.

2)
Another thing that victory have started to offer is a seat return program for those with reserved seats for the bigger games. It would be great to be able to return my seat for games which I can’t get to and get some sort of reward if this gets re-sold. I believe that this is something that the bigger EPL clubs do.

3)
I believe that in previous seasons Essendon* have allowed their members to pass their seats to friends and family via an electronic ticket. This means no need to pass on membership cards and is another way of getting value from a membership for games which you can’t get to. The flow on affect from this is non-members which are recipients of these tickets will get to experience what it’s like to be members and hopefully sign up.

Thanks,
Ray

Geelong have done this at Simonds Stadium. If your seat is returned and re-sold the value of the sale is credited to your membership account and deducted from the cost of your membership the following year.

I think a big problem we have implementing a lot of the ideas around ticketing/discounts/inclusiveness/speciality etc - is the AFL and their dictatorial management of the competition/fixturing/grounds etc

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

This morning I received an email from Mick with the subject "We need your commitment". He hoped he would see me at games as a member and then provided me with details as to how to become a member.

The problem is that I renewed my Captains Club membership for 2013 in early December. I received my personalised card and other bits and pieces before Christmas.

My first reaction after reading the email then

Do I feel special - no. Valued - certainly not. Disappointed - absolutely!

Whatever you need to do to fix such basic errors / oversights - do it, because emails like this show a lack of professionalism and make members think that their Club is being run by amateurs.