Customer service for nonprofits
- Wed, November 22 2006
- Filed under: Fundraising essentials
Here is a fact that should both horrify and inspire us.
According to a slew of research studies in the latest Chronicle of Philanthropy, (sorry, this link only works if you subscribe), most donors stop giving to charity because of dissatisfaction with how they were treated by the charity rather than personal constraints like financial problems.
The poor service? Too much mail, no thank-you acknowledgements, and little information on how their money was spent.
Wow. Are we as awful as the corporate sector on this front? (See this old post on the topic.)
This would be depressing except it’s so darn easy to fix. The more we improve in our customer service, the more we will stand out, because great customer service is an incredibly rare thing in this world. (Further proof courtesy of Seth here.) You’ll be feeling this fact acutely after dealing with airlines and store clerks in the coming days. But before you get too mad at them, ask yourself, how polite is your nonprofit? Forget web 2.0, fancy messages and everything else until you are:
1.) Asking your donors how and how often they want to hear from you, then honoring their preferences.
2.) Thanking your donors nicely.
3.) Telling your donors the difference they made.
We absolutely must do better.
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Comments
Your article is so timely. I fear that “good customer service” is as rare as “good relationships” ... and that we think of serving strangers vs. serving friends and family. There’s a disconnect in how we relate to people. Maybe we need some ‘new rules’ of propriety to help us deal with the massive populations we must contend with. We no longer serve a dozen of our neighbor and friend…but hundreds or thousands. That’s overwhelming… and a challenge to our new reality of globalization and escalating populations in our own hometowns. Thanks for your insights, I appreciate them! Carolyn
Very good article and the points you make should be taken into consideration by all nonprofits. The contributors are the lifeblood of a nonprofit and keeping the satisfied and feeling good about their donations goes a long way. Thanks
This is great. All your Article is very helpful to all the viewers.
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Couldn’t agree more with your point. Good customer service is a no-brainer and should be one of the factors that differentiates you from the competition. It’s such a simple concept (putting the donor first) yet so few really do it well. Which means that if you succeed at providing good customer service the donors will repsond in kind through their loyalty and increased giving.