New Rider Communications

This Activity is being driven by Marina Friend and Alan Jelley

OBJECTIVE

The objective is to drive up New Rider Retention by improving the quality of the communications between the Club and the New Riders.

CONSIDERATIONS

Much of this process is based upon a technique that Marina has been using to keep in contact with new Women Riders. In her expereince some communications took months before the women attended their first ride with us and this made information tracking very difficult. A table format makes it easier to see the whole picture, and how people are progressing with us.
 
From her experience, it is apparent that many appreciated some encouragement and advice, and this is key to how we want to engage with all new riders with his mechanism.
 
This is an informal best-efforts process and is not designed or resourced to be 100% inclusive. There could well be people who start to ride with us who do not enter through this route.
 
COMMITTEE ACTION REQUIRED – The open issue that the Club has with applying and enforcing the ‘3-rides as a Guest then must join Cycling UK’ stance is NOT resolved by this process. At Checkpoint 2 the New Rider Co-ordinator will send out an email which references that guidance but there is no step in this process to validate that the guidance has been acted upon. (This process is an information exchange and encouragement activity NOT a policing or enforcement activity associated with the act of Registration). This policing the 3-Rides guuideline remains an issue for the Club Committee to resolve.
 
 

STATUS SEPTEMBER 2023

This activity is in Pilot mode at the moment and Marina is tracking New Riders coming through the Womens Group. New riders are being tracked and we are refining the techniques. We have  –

RIDE LEADER GROUP ACTION REQUIRED -There are still some open questions related to how the New Rider Co-ordinator and the Ride Leaders will exchange information. These should be addressed at the next Ride Leader meeting.

Once those questions have been addressed and the pilot proves that the process is working successfully then we can consider it implemented… hopefully by the start of 2024.

 

WORKING MATERIALS

In the follow the New Rider Co-ordinator who is managing the process is referred to as NRC. The New Rider starting to cycle with us is referred to as NR

Process and Tracking Sheet

TRACKING SHEET – This is a Googlesheet accessible only to the NRC(s). The first two rows indicate the Actions. The second two rows are examples of the process in action and the New Rider data being tracked

PROCESS

NR contacts the Club NRC
NRC has a discussion with them about their background and what they want to achieve
NR and the NRC agree which Ride the NR should initially try. Once agreed the NRC will advise the NR that they need to complete a Registration Form. NRC will email the Entry form (Sample Guest Rider Registration Form)
NRC will inform the relevant Ride Leader
On the day of the Ride the Ride Leader will ensure that the NR either emailed an electronically  completed Registration Form or has brought along a completed paper Registration form
CHECKPOINT 1 – After the ride the NRC will contact (Sample Email 1) the NR for their thoughts, and the Ride Leader for their feedback
NRC to email NR with information on where they can find additional rides, and suggests something they could try next
(Mechanism to be agreed with RL Group) NRC will track that the NR does two more Rides (possibly with a weekly WhatsApp chaser round the  RL Team)
CHECKPOINT 2 – When the third ride completed theNRC will email (Sample Email 2) the NR for their thoughts and a reminder to join Cycling UK
 
If after 2 months the NR has not completed three rides then assume that they are no longer riding with us and send the Checkpoint 3 Questionnaire
(Mechanism to be agreed with RL Group) NRC will track that the NR does two more Rides (possibly with a weekly WhatsApp chaser round the  RL Team)
CHECKPOINT 3 – After 3 months the NRC will check if the NR has done 5 rides.
 
If they have done the total of 5 rides then they are assumed to be integrated into our club
 
If they have failed to do the 5 rides then email a request (Samople Email 3) for them to complete a Questionnaire (
Enter any feedback from the Questionnaire into the Tracking Sheet for later analysis

 

Sample E-Mail Communications at the Checkpoints

The following has samples of the emails to be sent  out at the key checkpoints as a New Riders progresses through the process

New Rider Sample Emails

Guest Rider Registration Form

 

Followup Questionnaire if they fail to reach the 5 ride checkpoint

If a New Rider fails to complete 5 rides with us then it is probable that they have failed to integrate successfully into our Club. They will be asked to complete the following questionnaire to hopefully give us some indication of what is behind that status.

https://coventryctc.org.uk/new-rider-followup-questionnaire

COMMITTEE ACTION REQUIRED -As mentioned earlier this is in Pilot mode at this stage. If it proves successful then a key question will be how we position the function in the Club structure, and how we resource the New Rider Co-ordinator role in the the  long-term. This is likely to be an item to be taken forward to a future Committee meeting.

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