Most associations are struggling to attract and retain members. They must generate new and creative ways to keep the flow of members going. The big question is HOW?
In the last blog post, ASQ CEO Bill Troy talked about how ASQ works on growing and maintaining its members; and asked to the community for new ideas in order to keep improving as a quality organization.
If you look on Internet, you can read a lot of good strategies to implement in any organization to attract new members, such us: marketing/AdWords campaigns, newsletters, surveys, just to name a few. But if you go back to the basic and remember the definition of QUALITY, I’m pretty sure we are going of find the answer to HOW we need to do it.
As I’ve detailed on my post about the “Definition of Quality“, here are my 2 preferred definitions:
“Quality is
1. A characteristic/feature/property of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy/meet/fulfill/be conformance to and EXCEED stated or implied customer/consumer/user/client needs/wants/requirements/expectations, and thereby provide customer/consumer/user/client satisfaction.
2. Freedom from/free of deficiencies”
1. Let’s begin with the first one. The reason why I highlighted the word “EXCEED” into the quality definition is because if we only say “meeting customer expectations results in a satisfied customer“, then there is not competitive advantage in that; e.i. every restaurant will satisfy customers needs, but only those that exceed customers expectations (deliver larger than expected portions or lower than expected prices, etc) are the ones the customers are going to go, and therefore have a competitive advantage over the restaurants that only satisfy customers.
Therefore, any organization/association , after fulfill what customers want, it has to focus on EXCEED their expectations; in other words, it has to focus on WHAT ELSE is going to give to its members in order to keep them satisfied, happiest and extremely committed to the organization.
One great example ASQ does is to give to its members every month a GIFT, full of new videos, articles and case studies. But, what else? People like “more for the same price“: gifts, free membership, books for free, recognition, premium access to certain documentation, more ways to earn RU (recertification units), etc.
2. Let’s take at look at the second definition: “Free of deficiencies“. Nowadays, your organization’s visible face is its website; so the first impression/impact to any new member is your website. Thus, your website has to be updated, professional, user friendly, clean, good looking, and WORKING. Any deficiency, error or something that quite not look good, it is going to push potential members away – toward your competition.
At the end, it is all about the members, so talk to them, listen to them, put yourself on their shoes an experiences your own services, make them feel THE most important part of the organization, and delivery to them the most perfect, as you can do, quality services… and little bit more. 🙂
And remember what Jeffrey Preston, founder and CEO of Amazon.com said: “If you build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful”
