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Members email us for things they should be able to do themselves
Much of our inbox is members asking us to change an address, add a colleague, book a place or resend something. Each one takes a couple of minutes, but they arrive all day, and members wait a day or two for simple answers. Here is how to find which requests to move first, and how to make doing it themselves the obvious route.
Signs members are doing their admin through you
- The shared inbox fills with “we’ve moved office”, “please add my colleague” and “my number has changed”.
- Members ask you to resend joining details, a ticket or a link they were sent last week.
- Event bookings arrive by email, and someone types each one into the booking system.
- A one-line change waits for days because the person who can make it is out.
- Every newsletter and confirmation ends “any questions, email us”, so members do.
On a Monday morning, a membership team of four opens a shared inbox holding sixty new emails. Most are routine: changes of employer, address and phone updates, seminar bookings and requests to resend a webinar link. Each is handled by hand, so a member who wrote on Friday hears back on Tuesday.
Email is the route members are shown
Every message points to the inbox
Renewal letters, newsletters and booking confirmations all end with an email address. Members follow the route you show them, even for changes they could make in seconds.
The online route is slower than email
If signing in is a struggle, or staff still copy online changes across, members learn that email gets a quicker answer. So they stop trying.
Nobody looks at the requests as a whole
Each email is answered by whoever is free, one at a time. Nobody counts them, so nobody sees the same few questions coming back every week.
Routine requests cost more than they seem
- Staff time goes on re-keying. Every change typed in from an email is time not spent on events, standards or member support, and another chance of a typo.
- Members wait for simple things. A one-minute change that takes two days to confirm feels like poor service, however friendly the reply.
- Renewals go to the wrong place. A new address left in someone’s inbox sends the renewal to the old one, where it is paid late or not at all.
- Nobody can report on the demand. Requests in a shared inbox are invisible to the board. Nobody can say how many there are, what they cover or whether they are falling.
Momentive’s 2026 survey of 500 managers at US nonprofits and associations found that 48% cite time spent on repetitive admin. It also found 46% cite manual data entry across platforms. Source
Momentive’s 2025 Small Staff Associations Report covers US associations with under $5M in annual revenue. It found 83% use an AMS, but only 11% of small-staff professionals say their tech provides a “seamless” member experience. Source
In Higher Logic’s 2025 Association Member Experience Report, vendor data from 440 association members and 112 non-members, 84% said personalisation is important. Source
Five steps to fewer routine requests, in any system
Count and sort a month of requests
For four weeks, tag every incoming request by type: address change, new contact, booking, resend, sign-in help and so on. Note how long each one took. The tally, not a hunch, tells you what to fix.
Fix the top five first
Take the five commonest types and give each a clear online route that a member can finish in a few clicks. Leave rare, sensitive or judgement calls with staff for now.
Make self-service the first link
Rewrite every email footer, booking confirmation and letter so the first link goes to where members can do it themselves. Keep the email address, but put it second.
Let members edit the record staff use
An online form that lands in an inbox only moves the re-keying somewhere else. A member’s change should update the record staff work from, with a note of what changed.
Measure requests per member
Divide each month’s routine requests by your number of members, so growth doesn’t hide progress. Break the figure down by type, and report it beside your renewal and event figures.
Members change their own record, and staff see it
In the Colossus member portal, members update their details, contacts and branches and find their tickets, on the account your staff use.
| What it does | How it works | Plans |
|---|---|---|
| Organisation and personal details | On Account Profile, members update their organisation’s email, phone number, website, address and region, with a postcode lookup. On My Profile, each person updates their own name and phone number. | CoreGrowthScaleEnterprise Configured during implementation |
| Contacts and branches | Members add colleagues to their account and edit existing contacts, linking each one to a branch. They can also correct a branch’s name and address. | CoreGrowthScaleEnterprise Configured during implementation |
| Event bookings and tickets | Members book and pay for events online. The tickets they buy appear in the portal with the event date, event name, ticket type, ticket number and invitee. | Core (basic)GrowthScaleEnterprise |
| Changes land on the staff record | A portal update changes the account staff work from, so nothing is re-typed. The account’s Audit tab lists the change with its date and its previous and changed values. | CoreGrowthScaleEnterprise |
| Courses in the members’ area | Courses built from text, video, files and quizzes sit in the members’ area. On My Learning, members see which courses are in progress, not started or completed. | GrowthScale (advanced)Enterprise (tailored) Configured during implementation |
| A forum for peer questions | Members put practical questions to each other on the members’ forum, where they can follow topics and answer polls. | GrowthScaleEnterprise |
Which portal pages each member sees, and what they can change, is set up with you during implementation. Start with the request types your own log shows are commonest.
How a professional body moved its commonest requests online
Illustrative example. The Institute of Building Fabric Surveyors is a fictional professional body with 5,400 individual members and a membership team of five. This is a composite scenario, not a customer story.
Its shared inbox took a steady flow of new employers, address and phone changes, seminar bookings and “can you resend” requests. A simple change could wait two days for a reply. Every newsletter ended “email us with any changes”.
For four weeks the team tagged every request. Personal details, practice details and contacts came top, then bookings and questions about tickets members had already bought. The team made sure members could do all five online, and rewrote every footer to link to the portal first.
Members now update their own details and their practice’s address, and find their seminar tickets in the portal. When a member queried a changed phone number, staff opened the Audit tab and saw the old value and the date it changed. The team reports routine requests per member at each monthly meeting.
Let members make routine changes themselves, on the record staff use
The Institute of Building Fabric Surveyors, a fictional professional body, wants members to update their own details and find their own tickets.
- Organisation
- Institute of Building Fabric Surveyors (fictional), 5,400 members
- Goal
- Move the commonest routine requests into the member portal, so each change lands on the account staff work from
- Takes
- About 85 seconds, 6 steps
- Plan
- Portal on Core, Growth, Scale and Enterprise (configured during implementation); tickets on every plan, basic on Core; My Learning on Growth, Scale and Enterprise
A walkthrough of real Colossus screens with a fictional organisation and demonstration data. Your own set-up, fields and wording will differ.
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ScreenMember portal > Account Profile (/portal/account-profile/)Step 1 of 6
Update the practice's details
What you do: Signed in as a member, change the Company Email, enter the new postcode, click Lookup and pick the address, then click Update.
What to notice: The company name is fixed, but the email, phone number, website, address and region are the member's to keep current.
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ScreenMember portal > Account contacts (/portal/account-contacts/)Step 2 of 6
Add a new colleague
What you do: Click Add Contact, enter the colleague's first name, last name, email and phone number, choose their branch and click Save.
What to notice: The colleague joins the member's account, the same contact list staff see in the CRM.
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ScreenMember portal > Account branches (/portal/account-branches/)Step 3 of 6
Correct a branch address
What you do: Click the edit icon on a branch row, change the address in Update Branch and click Save.
What to notice: The postcode lookup works here too, so a branch move is a one-minute job for the member.
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ScreenMember portal > Event tickets (/portal/portal-event-tickets/)Step 4 of 6
Find a ticket without asking
What you do: Open the event tickets page and filter the Event Name column to the autumn seminar.
What to notice: Each ticket shows the event date, ticket type, ticket number and invitee, so the member can check a booking without emailing.
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ScreenMembers' area > My Learning (/members/lms/courses/)Step 5 of 6
Send members to courses, not to staff
What you do: Open My Learning and choose the In progress filter.
What to notice: Each course card shows its progress and a Continue button, so members pick up where they left off.
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ScreenCRM > Account overview > AuditStep 6 of 6
See the member's change on the staff side
What you do: As staff, open the member's account and go to its Audit tab.
What to notice: The portal update is listed with its date. View changes shows each field's previous and changed value.
The result
Members change their own details, contacts and branches and find their tickets in the portal. Staff see each change on the member's account, with its previous and changed values, and nobody re-types an email.
What to measure
Count for four weeks before you change anything, then check monthly. The aim is fewer routine requests per member and quicker answers to the rest, measured against your own starting point.
- Routine requests per memberRequests in your commonest types each month, divided by the number of members.Lower is better
- Changes members make themselvesThe share of address and contact updates made online rather than emailed to staff.Higher is better
- Time to settle a routine requestWorking hours from an email arriving to the change being made and confirmed.Lower is better
- Members who sign inMembers who sign in to the portal at least once a quarter.Higher is better
- Emails about things members can already doRequests still arriving in types you have moved online, a sign of a link or wording to fix.Lower is better
Frequently asked questions
Which requests should we move to self-service first?
Won’t some members keep emailing anyway?
What about members who won’t use a portal?
Do staff still see what members change?
Which Colossus plans include the member portal?
Sources
- Momentive Software, State of the Mission-Driven Workforce 2026, research by Wakefield Research. 500 managers at nonprofits and associations, US only, surveyed December 2025.
- Momentive Software, 2025 Small Staff Associations Report, report landing page, accessed 18 October 2026. US associations with under $5M in annual revenue; the page does not state the sample size.
- Higher Logic, 2025 Association Member Experience Report, news release, 4 December 2025. Vendor survey of 440 current association members and 112 non-members; the release does not state their geography.
See where your own systems stand
The Membership Systems Health Check is ten multiple-choice questions about your data, renewals, automation, reporting and member experience. You get your score out of 100 on screen straight away, with no email needed to see it.
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