VeryConnect

Amazing customizable membership management software, super attentive support!

Comments: VeryConnect has developed a custom solution for our industry association that completely covers our needs in the areas of membership management, member communications, and data management for our industry outreach. Organizing our data and increasing its quality first felt like an impossible task but the amazing support we’ve received from the VeryConnect’s team made it possible. The result is a highly versatile, user-friendly, comprehensive browser-based application that our members and our entire team are already benefitting from. In the beginning, we had very specific requirements (a 25-page concept note!) and a very complex data structure. The guys from VeryConnect not only managed to perceive all these requirements, they also delivered 100% on the promise to accommodate them. All in all, a big thanks to the VeryConnect’s team for all of their hard work and amazing support on our project. We are excited to see how the platform evolves in the coming years.

Pros:

I am especially impressed with our search filter structure that constituted a huge bulk of work, conceptually and development-wise. We are now able to search our database with a highly versatile set of filters, which also (a huge benefit!) work for mailings. The email module and the comprehensive recipient insights and stats it provides is also one of the key features and my personal favourites. The user-to-user messenger, the private collaboration spaces for our working groups, the news and twitter feeds makes it an ideal communication solution and provides a real added value to our member community. Above all, our customer support manager is always there for us and never fails to impress us with her quick replies and her deep understanding of our data structure.

Cons:

Nothing particular comes to mind, to be frank. The software is in the constant development and even if something is missing at the moment, you can either order a bespoke feature development or wait a bit until the next release that always adds some new options.

How Very Connect has transformed our communication with members

Pros:

The decision to implement Very Connect Software was originally taken to improve the back office systems for the alumni organisation. The software makes this really easy to manage, both by the members and the administrators. However, what we didn't appreciate was that we were gaining so much more. We have a social media and email platform that enables us to communicate with our members and for them to communicate with us. This is a private members platform, not available to the public, and we also like the ability that members can choose their own privacy settings. If they want to be contacted by other members, then they can make their details available, but they can also choose to hide their email and other details yet still remain paying members and receive Newsletters and other publications. The platform connects to our finance system and the time taken to manage subscription payments has been reduced considerably. We can generate a report and follow up any lapsed members really quickly and easily. The implementation was seamless. However, we did aim for very clean data import and spent months ensuring that each member had correct details and this work paid off. In the first six months since we went 'live', our membership numbers grew by 27%. The growth was mainly from young members, but we have two members aged 92 who were able to sign up to the new platform with ease. One member said by email "The website looks great! I love it."

Cons:

The only drawback so far is there isn't a phone App. However, our own web designer is in the process of designing a website app for us and we hope this will go 'live' in May 2022

Alternatives Considered: VEGAS Pro, Agile CRM and Donorfy

Reasons for Switching to VeryConnect: We found that Very Connect offered to [SENSITIVE CONTENT] the platform to our needs and we didn't have to shoehorn our database into a pre-existing format. We took a look at some of the organisations that already used Very Connect and found that they were similar to us - in our case an alumni association.

Atypical Use Case - Still Satisfied

Comments: Overall, I am pleased with the platform so far. However, I do want to say we've only been on the live site for about a month and we haven't actually launched it with our stakeholders yet. So I am not 100% sure of how it is working for us. I will say that they were incredibly responsive and accommodating to an organization that wanted to use their platform for something atypical to their normal customers. I really appreciated that they were willing to build things specific to our needs.

Pros:

We selected VeryConnect to replace an existing solution that went out of business. We were looking for a way to regularly post public content to multiple stakeholder groups that could be tailored to each audience. We were also looking for something to engage work group members in closed groups. VeryConnect met both needs with a public facing landing page and the ability to tag content that is linked from those landing pages. And with a backend to engage registered members.

Cons:

There is no help documentation. In order to figure out how to use the system, I had to just play around it and ask questions. But it is hard to ask about things you don't know you don't know - such as they can create different role permissions if you need them. But I didn't even know to ask about it to start. Also, with out the help documentation, its hard to know if what I am asking is something the platform is built to do, or if I am asking for something special. In our build out, I would frequently realize later they were building something specific to just us because I asked. However, I would have been happy to find a work around if I just knew that it wasn't a typical feature. The fact that they did build those things was amazing though.

Alternatives Considered: Higher Logic Thrive, Workplace from Meta, TRIBE, Forj and Confluence

Reasons for Choosing VeryConnect: It went out of business.

Switched From: Engagement Communities

Reasons for Switching to VeryConnect: Meets all our needs. Good UI. Provides setup support. Reasonably priced. Integration with SalesforceNeeds: Create and/or link to content, easy login, shared calendar, email notifications for users, discussion or forum feature, host multiple groups, public landing pages, tags, members ability to post.

5 years with VeryConnect

Pros:

We have been customers of VeryConnect for over 5 years. We had initial 'must haves' and 'would like to haves' and this has developed over the years to our satisfaction. The platform continues to evolve and delivers everything we need. We have a maintenance contract in place and use this on a regular basis. VeryConnect provide consistent support, help and advice to our small team of staff and are always helpful and provide us with suggestions and other options which help use immensely.The system is an all-in-one system and adds value to the SCS membership. It is simple to use. I would recommend anyone wishing to host their membership database to talk to VeryConnect - you will not be disappointed and will have the benefit with working with a friendly team who have your best interests at heart.

Cons:

There is nothing I can think of which I liked least about VeryConnect. They listen to our needs and return to us with solutions.

Outstanding customer support

Comments: Further to the comments made in the software Pros, our overall experience with VC has been very positive due to the professionalism and personalised service of [SENSITIVE CONTENT]. Smooth planning of the new VC platform was achievable because of [SENSITIVE CONTENT] relaxed yet focussed approach with us. At each meeting we covered many new concepts and [SENSITIVE CONTENT]lead us through the membership journey for our new members. We wanted an all-in-one system that adds value to your Australian-based Climate-focused non-profit community, including Circles, Blogs, Donations and we got the lot. Our high expectations for a quality membership product with ongoing improvement and support has been met by VC. We are pleased with our product and we love the clean finish to the platform while ample space for us to add our branding and photos.

Pros:

Our team are very pleased and appreciative of our VeryConnect trainer and supporter who taught us how to use the software. While the software is logical, it was the human interface that made it work for us. [SENSITIVE CONTENT], at VeryConnect (VC), spent time learning about our needs and how the VC product could assist in growing our membership management in our relatively new organisation. During this early getting-to-know-you stage, [SENSITIVE CONTENT] asked questions to identify our membership management needs and offer suggestions using VC examples. This process was very useful because our problems were understood and [SENSITIVE CONTENT] was able to offer ways to manage membership matters and grow the member community. This approach resulted in a platform that meets our member management needs and a team that can access and utilise the many functions of VC. Once [SENSITIVE CONTENT] had a clear idea of our needs, she then offered a range of possible solutions using the VC platform. This approach continued to highlight her friendly and professional approach, ensuring that our needs were met in a relaxed and timely manner. While the scope of the VC product is enormous and beyond any other platform we had used before, [SENSITIVE CONTENT] approach resulted in a staged and supportive informal training which prepared us for platform decision making and the formal training of VC.

Cons:

It's a shame that the product is no longer located in our county.