Guest Author: Ernie Smith, Associations Now
When your organization’s website, app, or newsletter doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, it can create a frustrating experience for your members. As with traditional membership issues, those problems can add up.
Is there anything worse than a website that forgets who you are even though you’re a loyal paying customer?
Recently, Slate (itself an icon of the paid membership model) reported that The New Yorker was quietly driving its subscribers crazy because of a glitch in its login system that kept forgetting its users. A New Yorker subscription is expensive—after an introductory period, it costs $89.99 per year for digital only and $119.99 with the print edition—and the magazine’s failure to make it easy for print subscribers to tie their accounts to the website had a crazy-making effect.
The problem had existed for eight months and particularly affected articles that received a lot of traffic. The New Yorker said it had fixed the issue months ago, according to Slate, but the perception that the login didn’t work correctly brought frequent complaints online even after the fix.
