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If there is one that I’ve learned in 25 years of work in volunteer organization management, it’s the fact that you never know where your next good idea is coming from. I was at a trade show recently and with me was one of my members. He was reading an article. I noticed the smile on his face, then I saw him take out a pen and start highlighting something in the article. The article was about buying a fence. He planned to take it to our national sales meeting. He wanted to show it to all of our sales managers". It started off as an article about a fence, but it was a lot more than that… The article was entitled "A Tale of a Fence, or the Death of Commodities" by Oren Harari, published by the American Management Association. The article started off talking about how the author had purchased a fence to keep his young son from being able to get into the family swimming pool. He later thought that the fence didn’t do the job adequately and he asked the fence contractor to make some changes. The contractor said that he had installed the original fence to the customer’s specifications, and that he’d gladly make any changes if the customer would tell him exactly what he wanted and pay for the changes. That’s where the article got interesting. Harari wrote that "in the old order of things this was simply a matter of the customer and the vendor seeing things differently. In the new order, things are different. I thought what I wanted was a fence because I could envision it, bit what I really wanted was a solution to my problem. Nowadays, customers are more demanding and fickle than ever before, and they have more and more choices. Hence, they will gravitate toward vendors who understand that business is no longer about buying and selling products and services. It’s about addressing people’s motives and desires. Most businesses today are run with absolutely no understanding of this point." He might have added that virtually every not-for-profit organization operates with no understanding of this point, either. People contact our organization and say they want a publication, but what they really want is information to solve a problem. They say they want a schedule of educational programs, but what they really want is someone to give them ideas on how to better attract a client. They say they’d like to serve on a committee, but what they desire is a place where they can feel comfortable and use their talents in a productive way. Harari hits on this point further in the article when he says, "In the new order what will count with customers is the total experience they have with the vendor. Simply listening to the customer will no longer be sufficient because the customer may not be able to articulate what he or she really wants. The successful vendor will act as a consultant to solve problems creatively". Part of our problem in getting and keeping members these days is that we ask the wrong questions. We keep asking what they want our organization to do for them, and they don’t know. So they ask what their choices are, and we give them a list of current programs and services. They pick one or two, and we think we've learned what the member wants. As Harari says, the customer (member/prospect) may not be able to articulate what he/she wants or needs. We have to ask questions like:
We don’t want to ask these questions because the answers don’t fall neatly into the categories on our member surveys or brochures. It’s too much work to go outside of the lines, so we ask questions that make the customer keep within our comfort zone. Here is the important point of all of this. If we reduce our organization to providers of products and services eventually we lose our competitive advantage and our customers (members). If all we offer are publications, documents, discount programs and education, someone is going to come along and offer them cheaper, faster, and more accurately. It’s already happening in dozens of organizations all over the world. Our competitors used to be other organizations, now our competitors can come in many forms. When private sector "competitors’ offer on-line services, up-to-the-minute information, accreditation and discount services that mirror ours, we’re at a big disadvantage. You see these competitors don’t ask people to "join" anything, they don’t ask them to "uphold a standard of ethical conduct", they don’t ask them to proudly wear their organization’s logo, and they don’t ask them to serve on any stupid committee. It’s a transaction – a commodity. Do you want to buy it, or not, is the only question they ask. Most of us can’t compete with these companies and people because they have greater resources than we do and they don’t ask buyers to "commit" to anything except paying for the product. Don’t surrender! Here’s what to do: Market the experience of membership.
We must change our focus to "it’s what we can do for the member/customer that counts". Customize and personalize membership for every member/prospect. It is not the commodities we provide that determine member satisfaction. It ‘s the experience. |
