Wanna Talk?
Responding to enquiries before prospects leave for other organizations
I am pretty sure everyone would say yes to the simple question of "Are you ready to serve your supporters?", while a large number of us would go further by saying they are determined to provide the best possible donor/supporter service that they can provide. Awesome!
Wait a minute, are you sure your organization is truly serving your supporters good enough? Here are some situations I came across firsthand personally over the years.
More than once, I got to know a so and so charity, browsed their website and social media, got impressed, pressed the contact us button, asked if there are any volunteer opportunities and how I could help other than making a donation. Got no response whatsoever ever since.
When making the enquiry through online enquiry page, got an email answer suggesting me to call the hotline instead but had never able to get through.
Sent an enquiry to an organization stated clearly I would like to make a gift but prefer to have a copy of the latest annual report before formally putting my signature on the donation form but the email reply I got to consist of only five words ‘We don't provide annual report'. No explanation. Not even a standard greeting of ‘Thanks for your interest in supporting our organization,…'
Of course, the list can go on infinitely but it's enough for now in bringing up the issue. What's in common among these examples is that they are essentially the most basic and simple enquiries or requests any organization may encounter. If an organization failed to address them well, let alone those more complicated ones. One of the most usual feedbacks from organizations was that they are relatively small and lack of manpower in monitoring emails daily or regularly and reply promptly. If so, what's the reason they encourage people to make enquiries or contacts up front? It doesn't make sense at all, agree? Through my years of experience in the profession, I notice that responding to general enquiries are generally the most overlooked area among the whole donors' journey.
I fully appreciated the service organizations provide and sympathized a lot of them are short of manpower to reply on a daily basis. Having said that, should there be any way out in providing the expected service in responding to supporters. Naturally, there are a few simple tricks (and more importantly at no or low cost) that organizations can adapt instantly in maintaining the communication flow with their supporters even it is unable in doing so every day but without disappointing them.
Create standard answer templates for common enquiries, such as a list of typical volunteer opportunities; that can be copied and paste for easy reply
Setup an FAQ section on the website to provide quick, off-the-shelf answers to frequent questions
Make it a habit in slotting, say at least 20-30 minutes on each Friday afternoon; exclusively for checking and replying enquiries if it is not feasible to do so every day; rather than not replying at all
Have colleagues to take turn in checking and replying so to help to minimize occupying a colleague's time, if there is not a designated one tasked to do so
In case there are practical difficulties in having colleagues to answer phone-in enquiries in real time, for example, colleagues have to work outside regularly and unable to stay at the office during normal office hours; don't invite people to call, don't display your phone number online
If voice message function was set up, make sure it was listened to regularly and corresponding response or action was taken in a reasonable timeframe, within a week as a rule. If there is difficulty in doing so, unplug it
Enlisting volunteers to support in monitoring and answering enquiries
Yet it is still not enough even if you applied all of the above. Although emails and phone calls are still considered mainstream tools in making business contacts, it is increasingly becoming ‘old fashion'. The popularity of using social media for stakeholder interaction is increasing rapidly which demand almost instant response. A 2012 research by Edison Research showed that two-thirds of all those contacting a brand/organization through social media for customer service expect to receive a response the exact same day.
Of course, it is simply pointless to unplug all of our social media to avoid such worry of no/slow response. Think about the possibility of including a remark on your social media saying there could be a delay in answering due to manpower concern while suggesting a reasonable timeframe for action. For sure, this approach is less than perfect but considering of manpower shortage and organization cannot afford to increase it immediately or invest in other ways for real-time monitoring and responding, it may in any case help to set the expectation to avoid likely disappointment or embarrassment.
Regardless of the organization's size and resources available, one has to think carefully well in advance about how they should and could serve and respond to enquiries. Those organizations who haven't reacted to the expectation of swift and useful online service will see their supporters and prospects move to other organizations quicker than they can type 140 characters on Twitter. Twitter.