Uncovering Hidden Barriers and Motivations: Indirect Approaches to Understanding Members

In today’s Membership Innovation Group meetup, we discussed Rosie Siemer’s recent letter, “Beyond Surveys: Uncovering Hidden Barriers and Motivations”.

At one point, we talked about how it can be hard to uncover the barriers to becoming a member.

It’s tempting to ask members questions about what those barriers might be, but — as Rosie points out in her letter, referencing social desirability bias — the most direct path may end up leading nowhere. That is, you can’t just ask people to tell you what they genuinely think or feel — not if you have any ownership over the thing in question. Most people want to go along and get along. They’re thinking about what’s for lunch or going home to their family or how they might torture the people who have wronged them. The point is, their responses are unreliable because they just want to move on to the next thing or appear to be a regular person who isn’t a serial killer.

Granted, that’s not always the case. When my son was born, my wife asked, “Isn’t he beautiful?” and I said “No. He’s purple. If it weren’t for the terrible screaming, I’d assume he’s dead.”

But most people aren’t like me — They won’t tell you that your membership benefits are confusing or that their bunions prevent them from visiting places with so little seating.

So, in our meetup today, we talked about taking less direct routes.

What if you could talk to members of your museum about their experiences at other organizations? They may feel freer to share their true feelings and inner thinking because they know they’re not critiquing your baby.

In our call, Rosie shared a great example of how someone might describe an opportunity in an indirect way: Consider a member who talks about another organization’s newsletter, which summarizes what’s coming up and helps them plan for the upcoming week or month. That member may never suggest that your museum should have a more tailored approach to member newsletters. They’d never be able to come up with that solution if you asked them questions along the lines of “How can we do better?” or “What are we missing?”

How likely is that person to say, “You know, I wish your museum would send me more emails”?

But if we can give them a safe space to share their experience — if we invite them to a conversation that feels undirected and welcoming — we may learn that they appreciate receiving emails that help them plan how they’re going to spend the weekend with their in-laws.

They’ll never tell you that your membership program is purple, slimy, and will someone please stop that screaming sound it’s making — but they can give us clues about what they value … Clues that we can experiment with.

Kyle