customer service – The Healthy Non-Profit

The best advice I ever got . . .

April 17, 2013 erik Board development

On Monday, Dani Robbins’ Non Profit Evolution blog started off with these words, “The best advice I ever got as a nonprofit CEO was . . .” Since reading those words, I’ve had a delightful dinner with Dani at a great Indian restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, and we talked a lot about those days when we were both young non-profit executive directors.

For some reason, I can’t get the words from her Monday blog post out of my head. Every moment that my mind gets a chance to wander, it comes back to a simple question, which is “What was the best advice I ever got as a non-profit CEO?”

Honestly, there was so much advice that at times it felt overwhelming. EVERYONE had an opinion because EVERYONE thought they knew how to do my job. I believe this is a cross that every nonprofit executive director must bear.

Of course, there was someone in my life who could do my job because he had done it before. His name was Fred Paulke, and he was previously my executive director at another agency.

I bring Fred into the conversation because there are two great pieces of advice that Fred gave me, and I can’t decide which one is “the best“.

Committing yourself

The first piece of advice was to stop “over promising and under delivering.”

Fred did a resource development audit for me, and one of his findings was that I had a tendency as a young executive director to over promise and under deliver to board members and donors.

Embarrassing? Ummmmm . . . yeah!

However, true friends tell you when you have a bugger hanging off the tip of your nose. Am I right?

So, the best advice I may have ever received is “STOP DOING THAT!”

In fact, I believe the advice was to “find ways to reverse this habit and start under promising and over delivering.”

Simply put, every time you under deliver you’re eroding your credibility. If you do this enough times, board members and donors will cease believing you when you tell them that you will do something for them by a certain time.

Additionally, being late with something that you promise a board member or donor (or anyone really) is nothing short of: 1) poor customer service, 2) poor stewardship, and 3) unprofessional.

Truth be told? I still struggle with this today. This simple idea turns out to be not so simple.

Do you also struggle with over promising and under delivering? Don’t quickly dismiss this question. Give it some thought.

Do you tell board members that you will have board materials out one week in advance and actually get it into their hands three or four days in advance?
Do you tell donors that you will get their gift acknowledgement letters in the mail within 24 hours of receiving their contribution and actually take two or three days after a big event?
Do you intend to publish your newsletter quarterly and actually only get around to it twice a year?
Does your website and Facebook page go weeks or months without getting fresh content?

I suspect that many of us struggle with this issue, and it isn’t because we’re bad people. I think most of us are eager to please and want to do good.

If you struggle with over promising and under committing, you may want to check out Tiffany deSilva “Seamless Success” blog post titled “Overwhelmed? You Might be Over-Promising and Under-Delivering“. She has a few simple tips to help you knock it off.

Prioritizing

The other great piece of advice Fred gave me when I was a young executive director was this:

10% to 20% of the people you meet and work with are going to love you (and will likely love you through thick and thin);
10% to 20% of the people you meet and work with are going to be critics (and will likely never like you or what you’re doing)
There will be 60% to 80% of the people with whom you meet and work that don’t have any opinion of you and your work. They are a blank slate and persuadable (at least in the very beginning of your relationship).

Fred explained that it would be really easy to spend all of my time with the people who love me. Who doesn’t love a “love feast”??? It also would be really easy to spend all of my time trying to win over the critics.

If you are interested in getting the best return on investment on your time, his advice was to focus on those in the middle. Doing so is a sure-fire recipe for success.

The reason I love this advice is because the moral to the story pertains to how important it is for executive directors (and really anyone) to prioritize their time, energy, and resources.

So, what is the best advice you’ve ever received as a non-profit executive, fundraising professional, or non-profit volunteer? Do you have tips to share on how not to over promise and under deliver? Do you have best practices on prioritizing your time? Please pay-it-forward today by sharing your thoughts in the comment box below.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
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Expounding upon the idea of “Quality Donor Touchpoints”

May 2, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising

Yesterday’s post titled “Non-profit donors: “Should I stay or should I go?” built upon a recent post over at “The Agitator” blog about donor retention. One of the things they said was that retaining donors goes way beyond doing a good job of talking about your mission and your organization. They argued that every touchpoint needs to be quality and inspire a sense of satisfaction for donors.

To put this in context, let’s use a for-profit analogy.

When a consumer goes to Walmart to buy towels, their experience is affected by so much more than just the satisfaction of finding the towels they desire at the price they want to pay. While these are indeed two factors, the following things also influenced that experience and play into whether or not they come back to Walmart next week:

Was the store orderly and easy to navigate?
Was the store well-lit?
Was the physical environment too warm, too cold, or just right?
When they couldn’t find the towels that they were looking for, did the employee who helped them do so in a friendly and efficient manner?
Did the store smell nice?
Did the other customers behave and conform to the social norms of shopping?
Did the shopping cart wheels stick and make it difficult to use?
How much time did customer spend in the check-out line?
Was the cashier friendly and helpful?

There are countless other little details that when added together can result in a great experience which results in repeat business and customer loyalty. Or they can also add up to an unsatisfied customer who won’t return, but will likely bad mouth you to their friends and post horrible things about you on Facebook and Twitter.

The same holds true for your donors!

Non-profit donors need to hear more than just good news about your mission and programs. They also need to hear more than how efficient your organization operates.

Your non-profit organization’s goal needs to be “putting a smile on the donor’s face” every time you cultivate them . . . every time you solicit them . . . and every time you steward them.

Now that is a TALL ORDER when you start thinking about it because there are so many factors (just like in the Walmart example I used). Some factors are easy to influence, and others can be very difficult to impact.

The following are just a few ideas to keep in mind as you contemplate how to ratchet up your donor services:

Communicate with donors as often as they tell you they want to be communicated with.
Communicate only those things the donor has said they want to hear from you.
Only send fundraising volunteers and employees with whom the donor has a GREAT relationship (and this goes for cultivation, solicitation or stewardship activities).
Send donors( who give frequently and recently) a birthday card.
Celebrate anniversaries for “weddings” and “becoming a donor to your agency” (focus these activities on major gifts prospects and donors).
Include the donor’s spouse whenever possible and make the cultivation, solicitation or stewardship experience feel like “family experience” (as long as it feels appropriate).
Let the donor tell you where they are most comfortable being solicited and then solicit them there.
Train volunteer solicitors about the finer points of soliciting a charitable contribution by going beyond the 12-step process of “closing the gift”.

This approach is not intuitive for many non-profit organizations. So, my final suggestion to those of you are very serious about improving donor services is to invite a small group of customer service professionals to participate in a focus group. During the hour that you have them together, educate them about how you communicate and interact with your donors. Ask them how they would go about improving the experience. You might just be surprised at what you learn.

Let’s add to my list of suggestions. Please scroll down and use the comment box to share JUST ONE IDEA on how to improve donor services and increase the quality of donor touchpoints. We can all learn from each other.

By the way, thank you to all of you for helping DonorDreams blog exceed 10,000 page views in less than one year. This milestone is a testament to you and your thirst for engagement. The next big goal is to reach 300 subscribers by December 31st. In celebrating today’s accomplishment and looking forward to the next one, would you please reach out today to one friend, non-profit professional, volunteer or board member and tell them about DonorDreams and encourage them to subscribe? Thanks again for tuning in, and I hope you continue enjoying this online community that we’re building together. 🙂

Here’s to your health!