Upgrade to ProConnect, Protech’s highly secure powerful engagement management software, supports the Society’s complex multi-organisational membership needs, marketing and communications activity, improves member engagement and self-service capabilities
“The upgrade to ProConnect has been a learning curve for all of us but we have continued to have a good relationship with Protech at all levels of the organisation. The entire Protech team has worked, and continues to work, very closely with us throughout the project and has been very responsive to all of our requests for assistance,” said Deanne Nicholls, CRM Systems Manager for the Society.
Protech’s powerful engagement management software, ProConnect consists of a suite of customer-facing solutions including websites, CMS, portals and applications, all underpinned by Protech’s specialist CRM functionality.
About the Society for Endocrinology:
The Society for Endocrinology (the Society) is a UK-based membership organisation representing a global community of scientists, clinicians and nurses who work with hormones. Since 1946, it has been a leading voice of endocrinology worldwide and aims to improve public health by advancing scientific and clinical endocrine education and research. The Society seeks to serve the public interest by engaging patients, policy-makers, educators and the public with hormone science.
Bioscientifica is the Society’s commercial subsidiary and not only manages the Society’s membership requirements, it also administers association management services for clients operating in similar fields.
Challenges faced by the Society for Endocrinology:
The Society first deployed a Protech software solution over ten years ago, when it was the only provider able to meet the Society’s and Bioscientifica’s complex multi-organisational membership requirements.
The Society’s requirements have now evolved and it needed a secure, scalable CRM solution that would:
- continue to handle its multi-organisational requirement.
- support its growing marketing and communications activity.
- provide an overview of members, their journeys and engagement with the Society and with Bioscientifica’s client organisations.
- integrate with the Society’s back office systems
First steps:
Having recognised its need for a specialist CRM solution the Society conducted a high-level market appraisal.
Why the Society for Endocrinology chose Protech:
The Society took the decision to appoint Protech as its preferred CRM provider as it already had an established successful relationship with the Protech team.
This existing relationship meant that an upgrade to Protech’s powerful engagement management software, specifically designed for the NFP sector, presented a lower risk and was more cost effective than a full system replacement. Protech’s software is highly secure as it is Government ‘OFFICIAL’ security accredited.
ProConnect combined with Protech’s web services (300+ open APIs), met the Society’s specific CRM requirements.
ProConnect’s easily configurable software has provided the features and functionality required by the Society around:
- Membership & Subscriptions
- Marketing & Campaigns
- Sales Ledger
ProConnect has workflow, process automation and reporting capability at its core and also delivers features and functionality in the key areas of Learning & Education Management, CPD, Event Management, Annual Appeal and Fundraising.
The Benefits:
Establish CRM best practice
Protech’s ProConnect has allowed the Society to address issues of data quality, identify efficiencies and establish CRM best practice.
User defined data (UDD)
Particularly important to the Society was ProConnect’s ability, unlike other providers, to offer flexible UDD enabling users to add fields allowing specific additional data to be easily and securely captured.
Simple to use record relationship functionality
ProConnect also enables the Society to benefit from its record relationship functionality which provides users with a graphical view of past, current and future relationships between records.
Whilst this is a feature of many CRM systems, ProConnect offers users a high level of sophistication whilst maintaining simplicity of use.
Optimised websites, improved self-service capabilities
Utilising ProConnect’s web services (300+ open APIs) it has been possible to optimise the performance of the Society and Bioscientifica websites and to offer improved self-service capabilities for members.
Increased member engagement
The Society will now be able to improve and better record communication with its members and track their journeys within organisations, helping to increase member retention and highlight potential opportunities for member recruitment.
Accurate and timely reporting leading to increased efficiencies
Protech’s ProConnect has driven changes in business processes that will deliver more accurate and timely reporting across the Society and Bioscientifica’s client organisations. Increased efficiencies will save both time and money in the long term.
Achieve maximum benefits of Protech’s CRM solution
To accelerate ongoing development of the Society’s CRM solution and to ensure it continues to achieve the maximum benefits ProConnect delivers, the Society created a key new role within the organisation, that of CRM Systems Manager.
Future plans:
The Society plans to extend the use of ProConnect to integrate contact information from its and Bioscientifica’s other activities in sales, publishing and events to allow the identification of further business prospects, manage the sales pipeline and drive further integration with its existing finance system.
“Ensuring that we successfully met the requirements of each of Bioscientifica’s client organisations at the same time as implementing a standard CRM procedure for the Society, was a huge challenge which Protech has helped us to overcome,”
said Richard Cropley, Head of IT and Business Systems for the Society.
NB:Following Protech’s recent rebranding and repositioning, its Pro9 software and ProWeb digital platform are now delivered as ProConnect.
