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10 Questions to Help Evaluate Your Organization’s Customer Service Quality Recruiting and retaining “customers” is crucial to any nonprofit or public organization, whether you market to donors, members, clients, patrons, funders, etc. Your organization may have commendable programs and services with excellent marketing strategies, but if it so focused on its internal structure that it loses sight of “the customer,” it can easily experience attrition – and that affects revenue and sustainability.
Customers demand excellent service and attention and will walk if they aren’t happy. This is equally as important with customer service in the nonprofit sector as it is in business. It affects your brand reputation. Consistently WOW your customers and you’ll clinch their loyalty.
Ask yourself these 10 questions to evaluate your organization’s level of customer service:
1. Does the staff make corrections to the database quickly following a change request? 2. Does the staff return phone messages and e-mails within 24 hours of receipt? 3. Is your organization’s Web site challenging to navigate or pinpoint specific information? 4. Do callers often wind up in voicemail limbo? 5. Is your organization’s reception area warm, friendly, tidy and professional? 6. Is your staff helpful, courteous and supportive to each other? 7. Have any staff members taken a defensive or acrimonious position when handling complaints? 8. Does your organization have customer service protocols or a manual to ensure consistency and excellence? 9. Is customer service discussed at staff meetings? 10. Do performance contracts and reviews include customer service expectations?
If you can identify areas of weakness, it’s time to do something about it. One option is to develop an internal committee to tackle this. The second option is to check out my workshop, The Nonprofit Guide to Customer Service - How to build customer loyalty with your donors, members, clients, patrons, volunteers and staff which can help you begin the process of converting to a customer-centric organization. Either way, this is way too important to ignore.
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