Since moving to England, I’ve been involved with all sorts of service providers. From cell phone and internet companies to the shop that delivered my rented piano.
Service seems to be a bit of a mixed thing here. There’s a fair amount of talk about it – especially by larger companies — but for the most part, I’m finding it’s not quite real yet.
For example, the mobile phone and internet company I started with had a very friendly store front, easy-to-read materials, and a seemingly endless ways to get support. BUT when my phone didn’t really work and the 10 gigabytes of data I bought flew out the window before I even used it, I waited and waited in endless phone queues, pressing this button or that one. After 40 minutes, I was told by a mechanical voice, “We can’t help you with your issue right now. Goodbye” and then hung up. You might have been able to hear my screams of frustration from where you live!
This isn’t really an isolated incident. I’ve had this experience several times over the last few weeks in one form or another. Companies, large and small, know that they should provide good service, they know service sells, but they haven’t quite mastered making good on their language.
Of course, we also have this phenomenon in the United States and other parts of the world. And we also have it in the nonprofit sector.
Many nonprofit marketing materials look like they provide service, community, and support. But when you try to call them, you get voice mail hell or leave a message with a mystified receptionist. Or you get an boilerplate e-mail in reply to your Contact Us form.
There’s a lot of talk about engagement and community in the nonprofit world, but that’s not really possible without good, old-fashioned customer service – supporter service.
Supporters don’t want to speak to voicemail, they want to speak to a live person.
They don’t want to leave a message when a question about your work comes to them, they want someone who can answer their question.
They don’t want to send an e-mail through your website when they want to ask you a question their monthly gift, they want a person who can fix the issue right away.
And they don’t want to hear from a telemarketing company, they want to hear you.
See a pattern?
For-profit entities have known for decades or more about how customer service can increase customer loyalty and how customer loyalty can increase profits. In the nonprofit sector, we know it, too. Your fundraising “profit” increases with repeat donors.
But beyond knowing, beyond lip service, what can your organization do to improve supporter service?
Here you may be thinking about your lack of resources, but even with a small staff you can take these four steps towards excellent supporter care.
Test: See how bad (or good!) it is with your organization. Ask a friend to get on the mailing list, ask another to make a phone call to your organization with a question, and ask another to make a transaction online. See what kind of experience they had. You could also send a survey out to a handful of donors that you know have interacted in some way with the organization and see what comes back from that. Here you’re just trying to get a beat on how your donors are being treated.
Use what you’ve got: When I was at Greenpeace, we had a team of 5 or 6 people who made up the Supporter Service department. They opened the mail, answered mail and phone calls, and processed e-mail and web requests. You might not have resources to have a team of this size (or even 1 person) dedicated just to this. But, you can identify where your organization has contact with the public and try to build supporter service in there.
For example, does your receptionist know what to do with supporter calls and questions? Does he or she have a list of people to whom she can refer questions and requests? Does your web team know what to do with a contact form that comes from a supporter? What does your mailroom do with a letter from a donor? And do your program folks know what to do when they get a call from a supporter?
Build the Culture of Supporter Service Over Time: Creating a culture of service doesn’t happen overnight, nor is it easy, but if you want to get serious about it, you have to line up the right advocates and get the message out.
At Greenpeace, we launched an internal campaign to make every donor experience a “wow” experience. We changed the culture from being a one-way street of communication to being a two-way conversation with our donors. We wanted them to talk back and we wove the responsibility to respond quickly and completely into every level of our operation. This campaign originated at the top and permeated the organization. It was real.
Track and Advocate: In the end, the numbers justify investment in supporter care. But you have to track and analyze the right numbers to see movement.
Do you know what your retention rate is now? (If you don’t, you should. You can take a look at our Leaky Bucket e-workbook to determine yours). This is the first statistic to look at over time to see if your supporters are renewing their support and showing their appreciation in their giving. Other stats to look at include the level of gift upgrading (are people increasing their giving as they get good service and engagement?) and gift frequency (are people giving more often and even right after they’ve had a good experience?).
If your numbers make the case and you need additional resources to provide top supporter care, advocate for it with your numbers in hand.
How’s your organization doing in providing supporter service? Your next major gift prospect wants to know!
