YourMembership.com Software

Pros

The membership management is the tool we utilize the most and the reason we went with YM.

Cons

The event registration platform leaves a lot to be desired. It's clunky and there is no ability for logic.

This is the third membership platform we've set up for the same client. All have strengths and glaring weaknesses and YM is no exception. The reliability of mail delivery is questionable, and the content management system is in need of a significant overhaul. As a power user, YM makes it difficult and troublesome to suggest improvements; technical support often takes days for a response. It manages members well — but all the other things that are important for engaging and communicating with members, such as events, email, and content are clunky and weak. In my opnion, the platform is not living up to its potential.

Pros

Attempts to be an all-in-one platform.
Integrated "content management system" (with limitations)
Strong support for one-to-many membership model (Main representative and sub-accounts)

Cons

Lack of support for conferences.
Rudimentary content management; editor is basic with limited functionality and confusing media manager/content editing
Too much upselling and not enough improvement occurring where it matters
YM oversells features that simply don't deliver on promises
Email editor lacks support for easy-to-create email templates and readable email
Confusing admin area. Organizational structure is confusing at best.
Antiquated URL structure for content pages
Very weak support for metatags and SEO
Forums are not useful

Pros

Many features in one package at a price that cannot be beat. Dollar for dollar this is the best association management software that I have used or demoed in 15 years.

Cons

It works better as a back end than as a front end system. We had issues with some of the page templates and YM was late coming to responsive design.

If you have a lot of time to invest in reading all the FAQs and/or How to's you will get along great with the customer service team.

Pros

Easy to update website from the database side.

Cons

For a membership based program, it's lacking in simple reports to pull quality data; creating an event is very challenging; and customer service seems to be too busy to help...either doesn't answer same day or rushes you off the phone. They want you to fix the problem. I love being able to do my own thing and learn about the database; however, sometimes you need help. They do not like to help.

Pros

The easy of implementation with our vendor

Cons

User accepting the product. User don’t like change

Yourmembership as a product solves the needs we have as an organization. They have great customer service and are always willing to go the extra mile to keep valued clients. I look at it as a two way relationship, we are good to YM so they are good to us.

People in leadership, are the kinds of staff members they need to keep around and find a way to clone. We have never had a bad experience that he or others on the YM team couldn't solve.

Pros

It's literally an all in one platform, I can do ANYTHING with Yourmembership for my organization. This kind of robust product doesn't come with a robust price tag it's price fairly and affordably.

Another upside, is we can have a beautifully designed website thats mobile responsive and its all a part of the yourmembership product. This eliminate the need to have to find a contractor to build us a wordpress site.

Cons

There are some things in the backend/product that could still use updating but I know it's something that the YM team has told me they are planning in their roadmaps for the future. (Groups, forums, and blogs)

The migration to YourMembership was tied to YM's acquisition of previous AMS. Customer service/support at YM was non-existent 5 years ago; reps hid behind their computers, responded only by email, referred everyone to online videos/resources and never talked to anyone. This did improve for a while, but in the last 12 months as taken a huge step backwards. We are hopeful that this will change in the immediate future.

Pros

CMS for website. Overall Association Management System integration of website, online database, and ecommerce/event management platform.

Cons

Lack of a dynamic survey module (need Survey Monkey or Formsite features); limited flexibility and customization of member profile fields (member type-driven default settings instead of member-select options.)

Pros

I like that YourMembership integrates many aspects that you would need for association management into one tool.

Cons

Locating some of the tools can be challenging since it is not always intuitive to where these would be located.

Everything is under one platform.

Pros

I like that key features and functionality are under one platform. And that you can set up pages to edit from both the front and back end of the website.

Cons

Some of the functionality seems outdated (ex. unable to attach documents when sending a group email within a specific group). I think YM is set up to best manage member records when created in YM. Importing a detailed member database as I have to do is not easy in YM. Based on my past experience, deleting a group is beyond tedious and difficult. The member search function is sometimes quirky (ex. the member included their middle name initial, but you didn't include in the search, you get "record not found"). There are some features that are located in places that are not intuitive (ex. group management is under Website/Social but you first have to go to Features.

The extra support when I am in dire need of assistance.

Pros

Tracks my events, bill customers pretty well...seems like a powerful tool I just need to learn the system better.

Cons

In order to make suggested changes, you would have to put in a suggestion box and have it voted upon

Pros

The BEST thing is the support. I love that there's a Q&A session daily where we can ask our specific questions. I like the way the invoices work and how the promo codes and events are built.

Cons

I wish the front end looked more contemporary. I also wish there was a way to manage membership for parents who register children for membership.

Pros

That our membership database and website are integrated into one, making it easier for us to connect with our members and ease many management woes.

Cons

At times, I don't like that many innovative features are packaged as add-ons versus just upgrading the AMS in general. Even if our annual pay-in to use Yourmembership had to increase to cover the cost, I'd prefer that than adding on several add-ons over time.

Pros

It interacts with our website, and easily emails our members. The supports staff is amazing to work with and can always help!

Cons

Reports as sometimes confusing when trying to pull multiple categories. In the events portion, I wish the name tags could be customized.

Alot of bang for our buck. We are now able to integrate our database with our website which is very important to our registrants.

Pros

The ease of use for customers and backend admin users. I like that you can customize to fit your organizations needs. It has also helped decrease our organizations use of paper, and processing checks drastically.

Cons

Reporting , its is very difficult to create custom reports. More international functionality. The directory search could be a little bit more precise.

Pros

The whole of the program is directed to certain very specific types of membership, and it does very well with those types and requirements. Customer service is responsive and helped quickly with everything they could.

Cons

Styles and types of groups not directly supported are difficult to introduce into the program, further even with customer service doing their best some features and changes cannot be introduced to all membership types.

Pros

It is everything you need in one place. It is very robust and offers a wide variety of features and functionality

Cons

I have worked with other AMS systems and there is somewhat of a learning curve with this one. It takes a while to figure out some features and how other functions work

Pros

It is very intuitive to use. The online support available, through videos and articles makes learning easy. Even those uncomfortable with technology are able to work through this system, while those more comfortable can take advantage of some really nice features.

Directory reports are easy, the dashboard gives a great snapshot of where everything stands, and creating our website and making changes to it are as easy as typing in Word.

The implementation went smoothly because of the great actions of the YM implementation team. They helped us set up the system in the best way for our specific needs.

Cons

The events section is not as robust as in some other CRMs. Admins don't have any more rights to change/ alter a registration than an end user, so for more complex events you ahve to create a lot of promo codes and, sometimes, separate private events.

Pros

Implantation team is great to work with and made the process easy. Easy to use site for members and admins alike.

Cons

Some functionality is subpar. Making changes in Chrome is problematic and customer payment processing options could be better.

Know what questions to ask next time around.

Pros

Customer service has been good. Social aspect. Web page was easy to design and has been relatively easy to maintain.

Cons

Cannot customize to our needs. We are not an association, club, etc. We are a program with members. It isn't that easy to use.

Pros

Software has some interesting features, but not all were useful to our organization. Best pro: it's very easy to maintain a decent looking public facing website. Email marketing tools are excellent.

Cons

After the initial six-week set up, we were pretty much left to the wolves. We hired one of their recommended consultants to help us prepare our database for implementation to the system, but our dues schedule was too complex to be completely integrated, so we were forced to maintain two databases (one for membership services and communications, and the other for financials -- not an ideal setup, to say the least, but we were too far in to quit). Due to the difficulty for obtaining quick support solutions, our staff never fully bought in. Dealing with YM's customer support was always was hit or miss -- it really depends on your issue and which YM support member you reach. This isn't easy to control. To obtain support, you must create a ticket, which is prioritized by the company's support team , who then answers in order and/or importance. Answers to questions can take 48 hours, which is frustrating. The upshot for our organization is that we ditched YM after 3 years. On top of all that, the cancellation process was a bit murky as well, and we were even charged several months after we moved on to another AMS. Some of the blame for that was on us, but YM certainly didn't help clear the waters with the cancellation process. Overall, I can not recommend this software provider.