Driving Membership Growth and Operational Excellence
Role: Service Designer & User Experience Designer
Client: The Racquet Club of Philadelphia
Client
The Racquet Club of Philadelphia is a private social club that offers a range of facilities and services to its members, including tennis courts, squash courts, fitness facilities, dining, and social events. Founded in 1889, the Club has a rich history and is a hub for Philadelphia's athletic and social communities. As a business, the Racquet Club of Philadelphia is focused on growing its membership base and increasing member engagement. Over the last 30 years, significant changes have taken place at the Club, and the pandemic has expedited the need to adapt and innovate after closing facilities for several months which had a significant financial impact. However, the Club remains committed to enhancing the engagement of social and athletic experiences to its existing members and attracting new members.
The Challenge
How might we understand the needs of current and prospective members and uncover insights for programming in order to attract new community growth?
Service Design Goal: Create a service design solution that improves membership applications and facilitates new experiences for current and future members.
The Process
Skills: Project Manager, Service Designer, UX Researcher, UX/UI
Time: 2022
Research & Opportunity Found
Ideation
Service Results
Implementation & Evaluation
Research & Opportunities Found
This was a 12-week research process where I conducted in-depth interviews with 30+ members as well as other research methodologies to gather insights into the users’ beliefs, desires, and experiences at the Club.
Research Goals:
Asses member satisfaction and identify areas of improvement for a more seamless user experience.
Identify the factors that influence membership decisions for research-based suggestions for the membership team.
Investigate the membership application process and identify pain points in the current process
Key Findings From Research:
Problem: House members feel that they aren’t offered enough compared to Playing members.
Solution: Curate a process of physical programming for House memebers’ needs.
Problem: The membership application process requires improvement.
Solution: Make a straight forward online application process.
Problem: Users don’t understand what the club offers.
Solution: Focus on showcasing everything the club offers on the website specific to the type of member.
I wanted to create a streamlined process for users to become members of the club and enjoy their membership after joining to promote longevity.
Ideation
To begin the ideation process, I created a mind map to visually represent and organize all the insights I gathered. This allowed the team to better understand the user needs and pain points and generated a range of ideas that could be used to develop user-centered service design concepts
The left side of the mind map shows a common thread among the user insights - a need for better programming for the members. By visually organizing our research findings and user feedback, I was able to identify this key area for improvement and generate ideas for developing new and improved programming that better meets the needs of club members.“We need to improve on social events. We need more social events.”
During the ideation process, I employed a small, medium, and large approach to develop service design solutions that fulfilled the needs of every member and specifically focused on the House Members. This approach enabled me to create ideas that varied in effort and resources required, with small solutions being low-effort options and large solutions involving significant resources but offering higher impact.
The ideas generated through this approach included a range of events and activities, such as:
Adult Social Events
Family Social Events
Playtime on Weekends
Networking and Mentorship
Dining
Lessons & Events
Fitness Classes
Work From Home Amenities
Proper Signage
One example of Effort X Impact ideas. See more here.Service Design Blueprint
Building on the ideation process, I transitioned towards exploring how users become members and decided to create a service design blueprint to gain a better understanding of the entire process. The blueprint helped visualize the user journey, identify pain points and opportunities for improvement, and ultimately develop service design solutions that better catered to user needs and expectations during their application process.
Service Design Blueprint: Playing MembershipHouse Membership Page
Process of physical spaces. Final ProposalProvisional Membership Page
Service Design Blueprint: House MembershipAfter creating a service design blueprint and conducting further research I realized:
Membership application process needed improvement
Users had difficulty understanding what the club offered
Users were confused about the types of memberships available
Users found the application process difficult and lengthy.
“Dave explained the different membership options pretty well, but it was not easy to figure out, just from looking on the website what the different options were.”
Membership page wireframes
Service Design & UX Results
I created service design initiatives that resulted in the development of two new features
Web redesign
Process of physical spaces
Membership Information PagePlaying Membership PageImplementation & Evaluation
This project may face challenges such as resistance to change and budget constraints. However, the Club is currently in the process of rolling out the digital redesign and the new program. The anticipated outcomes include increased memberships, higher member satisfaction, and a more profitable club.
The evaluation will include analyzing membership data, conducting further member surveys, and reviewing financial performance to access the success of the project.