Connect the dots

Keeping members happy keeps them engaged, just as keeping customers happy keeps them coming back for more.

Associations and affinity groups have to keep their "customers" happy, too.

Give them reasons to renew with:

• great programming
• superb customer service.

Make yours an organization they feel involved in and to which they want to belong:
Samrt, savvy and responsive to their needs.

More advice for Best Practices for Affinity Groups is found at the Assn Practicum blog.

For more about Membership and Customer Service, click here.

Is some dumbass costing you your business?

Maybe not all your business, but an inattentive clerk can cost you money!

By RRZEicons (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Not everyone will, as I have twice, walk out when the clerk is too busy with his IPad to even look up when I come to the counter. Admittedly, he did grunt when I turned to walk away, so perhaps he did notice my presence. What he did not do was acknowledge me in any way.

You understand that I went in to spend money in your store, and I walked out without spending any of it.

Customers by definition are people bringing their custom or trade to your shop. They expect to be served, waited upon, and acknowledged. If you have people working for you who do not serve your customers when they come in to buy from you, some of your customers wil walk out. Some of them will never return.