With more than 4,500 members spanning 94 countries, RSPO is constantly looking for ways to enhance member engagement and deliver more value to our members. After a year of planning and development, the RSPO Secretariat successfully launched its newly revamped membership web page in February and the online membership portal MyRSPO was upgraded in March.
RSPO’s Membership Manager, Kenny Lee, sat down with us and shared more about the recent revamp and improved service to members.
What are some of the biggest changes members can expect to see and benefit from with these upgrades?
Previously, we only had one web page of information on membership. With the revamp, we now have over six web pages of concise information and infographics divided into specific sections to make the information more user-friendly.
The reason why we’ve made these changes is to improve the quality of the content and information available on our website, which we hope will reduce the number of incoming email queries we receive. Don’t get me wrong - it’s great that we have a lot of interest in RSPO membership however, to put things into perspective, in 2019 our membership team received an average of 2,000 emails per month and the majority of our time (roughly 60% to 70%) was spent responding to these emails.
We also received 1,000 new member applications last year and approved 900, which is roughly 16% more than the previous year. So, we fully recognise that improvements needed to be made in order for us to make better use of our time and to serve existing and prospective members more effectively and efficiently. I believe this is a really great first step as it provides more accurate and relevant information to our members, so they don’t have to email us with additional questions and wait for a response.
Another great addition to the upgraded page is the interactive questionnaire that allows people to more easily identify which membership category stakeholders fit into.
RSPO recently expanded the scope of group membership. Tell us more.
Yes, we expanded the group membership scope to six types. Previously, the group membership scope was only applicable to a corporate group with well defined ‘parent’ and ‘subsidiary’ relationships within the tax, accounting, and company law. Now, we have added group membership for a smallholder group manager, a group of companies operating under a common brand, a cooperative union, and companies having common individual owner(s). The membership team feels this is a positive decision by the RSPO Board of Governors, as it will help members to consolidate more easily and save on membership fees because eligible members will only need to pay the one membership fee now.
For instance, an individual that owns Company A and B would need to pay two membership fees to RSPO previously as they are not owned by a corporate. Under the new expanded group membership, they only need to pay one membership fee.
Check out the new membership web page today at www.rspo.org/members
