Customer Care and Nonprofits

In the market place, the quality of customer service can make or break a business’ success. In most cases if customer service is neglected, there is significant harm to the company’s bottom line. Rare is the business that so dominate their market that it can afford to give little attention to customer service. People have various options which means when they are dissatisfied they will take their business elsewhere. This truism has struck home in recent months.

On June 18 I posted a blog about a failed donor call from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. On so many levels I was disappointed with the caller and the experience. I am not against receiving calls from nonprofits, but the issue is how the call is conducted. The caller should be respectful and be careful to listen to the donor. Above all, never be pushy. A pushy approach may yield more donations in the present, but it will leave several donors like me feeling more negative about the organization. Negative experiences significantly increase the likelihood that the donor will soon be giving their donations elsewhere.

Not listening and a pushy sell works against the Foundation in my case in that they received a lower gift now at the cost of a larger later. At the end of the call my impression about the Foundation was not broken but significantly shaken. When I emailed the Foundation’s Director of Development I received a short apologetic email saying that the type of call I described should not have happened, and that she was looking into it. The email sounded fine, but the actions after the email would tell if I will continue to give or not to the Foundation. Clearly the much larger gift that would have gone their direction in October is going elsewhere. Also, sound fundraising fundamentals would call for a follow-up engagement email, or better still a phone call, from a development staff member asking if I had any questions or wanted to have some more information about a project or program of the Foundation. The follow-up which should take place two to four weeks later tends to help smooth the trouble waters and draw the person closer to the mission of the organization. A follow-up on a complaint email is the perfect opportunity...to not follow-up leaves the relationship at risk and can send the message that they organization is not concerned whether they want the donor's friendship. If I hear back, they are not only likely to retain me as a donor, but would likely move me to give two to three times higher than my largest gift.

Businesses have long learned that it is seven to eleven times more costly to attract a new customer than retain an existing customer who has had a bad experience. The same holds true in the nonprofit world. Unfortunately all too often the truism is not fully appreciated by nonprofit administrators and development staff.

When a donor expresses disappointment it is an opportunity not only to address the issue but also the opportunity to draw the donor closer to the heart of the organization. It is the opportunity to have follow-up calls and/or emails to not only report on what has been done but also to learn more about the donor and tell them more about the organization’s work. I suspect such follow-up will not be forthcoming from the Foundation for if the first was to be coming, it would have come already.

Being involved in the nonprofit world I fully appreciate the diverse demands, the ebbs and flows that exist in the field. That said, we who are in the development field must take such complaints as opportunities to cultivate a relationship, and if done correctly the effort normally will deepen the relationship and commitment to the organization. That said, great care must be taken to not overpromise.

My experience with the Williamsburg Foundation stands in contrast to recent communication received from another organization, the Civil War Trust whose work I have only recently come to know. Evie, Josh and I recently gave several gifts to the Trust, for two of which we were to receive premiums. Normally I’m not interested in premiums but I was interested in these twos, and as for professional interest was tracking to see a) how quickly the premiums would arrive, and b) how quickly the thank you letters would arrive. At least twice a year I conduct acknowledgment tests within my organization to keep vendors and local staff on their toes, and compare how we are doing against other groups (for the most part, since using lockbox processes we have started to do well against other organizations).

The one premium arrived about two weeks after the gift was given, which is very good for a premium. Evidently the Trust had issues with the second premium as it still had not arrived weeks later. Needless to say I was really starting to wonder until I received an email explaining that the Trust had a supplier issue. The email was excellent customer care and speaks well of their attention to such matters as some organizations may have waited and waited.

As mentioned above, customer care within the nonprofit industry is inconsistent, and arguably generally lacking, particularly when it comes to small donors…of course most organizations fall all over themselves to give attention to the five and six figure donors, and sometimes four figure ones too, a subject which I may write about in a future blog.

Since many of my friends who read this blog from time to time work for nonprofits I would encourage you to give attention to customer care. Take a look at how the phones are answered and messages taken. Are callers passed from one office to another? How are donor’s acknowledged? How are complaints handled and resolved. Are we expecting donors and clients to conform to our processes rather than listening to them? We need to ask ourselves, if I was an outsider, what impression would I have of my office and organization?

In the next few day I will post about my experience with three local businesses and how they lost business due to poor customer care. There are lessons in what they did wrong that can be learned whether we work in the for-profit world, government services or nonprofit sector.