a community of practitioners

membership options

I want to offer a monthly membership discount but am not sure how to do it with low budget, billing people, how it should look etc. Suggestions and advice?

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Permalink Reply by Therese Schwartz on November 13, 2013 at 5:46pm

What are you trying to accomplish? Rewarding regulars? Getting people to show up more often? It will be easier to figure out what you need to do if you know what you are trying to achieve.

I don't mean to be difficult but I don't know what you mean by low budget.

If you want to be able to bill people every month, you will need to have a way of keeping their credit card information. Not everyone will be comfortable with that idea, unless you have a safe of some kind that you can keep the information in. Then you can run the cards every month.

Have you thought about simply doing package pricing for people?

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Permalink Reply by Jennie Rummell on November 13, 2013 at 6:43pm

Yes, I have thought of package pricing, but I know that not everyone can afford a lump sum. I am going to be raising rates and am wanting give people discounted package options or memberships. I have a program for billing/records but thought maybe there was a simple way for autopayments.

Low budget meaning I don't want to spend a bunch to do it.

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Permalink Reply by Therese Schwartz on November 13, 2013 at 8:54pm

That makes sense! Thanks for the additional information. I don't know of any way to do autopayments; I've never even thought of it! Limited thinking on my part. Now that I know that's what you are looking for, I'm out of my depth!

I'm sorry I can't help; I was hoping I could!

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Permalink Reply by Michele Ellis on November 15, 2013 at 10:15pm

I do memberships. They're great to reward people who want to come in on a regular basis. But limit the amount you sell. Make sure you have them sign a contract. Let them know when you will be running their card. How long does the membership last, do the massages roll over to the next month, can they share them, what about early cancellation and NSF charges. Make sure all the card info is locked away. I have my memberships locked in a safe and the keys locked in a filing cabinet.

I use Square to run my memberships at the beginning of each month. Square is free. You can either download the app on your smart phone or tablet and they will send you the reader or you can buy the reader in the electronic section of most stores and then once you download the app, you can get the $10 back that it cost you to buy the reader. They will still send you a card reader either way. It won't do it automatically but as long as you don't have tons of memberships, it doesn't take too long.