Customer Service

One of the perks of being on staff at Greenlights is being able to attend an occasional workshop and focus on my own professional development. I took full advantage of this yesterday and I sat in on Laura Bosworth-Bucher’s session, Using Customer Experience Concepts to Improve Your Fundraising and Volunteer Effectiveness. The focus was on strategies to help build client, donor, and volunteer loyalty and why loyalty matters.

Even though the session focused on concepts for fundraising and volunteer effectiveness and most attendees were thinking about their donor relationships, it’s easy to see how using the same principles translates into finding a deeper relationship with clients in my corner of the world – workshop attendees and faculty-workshop presenters.

And who doesn’t enjoy good customer service? Laura reminded us that it’s always the case that a customer will recall the negative aspects of an experience even if everything else has gone swimmingly. Building customer loyalty is important because today’s client relationship can be the doorway to a deeper one as a volunteer, board member, donor, or even as your next workshop presenter.

I’m looking forward to participating in another training soon and there are many to choose from, what with the Survive & Thrive Initiative, this year’s Crossroads Conference, and more on the horizon.