Love Those Donor Complaints
Yesterday Roger hamstered hammered away at retention, drawing upon Mark Phillips’ (Bluefrog) wonderful warm and fuzzy hamster parable.
In support of Roger’s and Mark’s messages, here’s something more prosaic regarding just one aspect of hanging on to donors … dealing with complaints. In fact, treasuring them.
Take this advice from the ‘customer’ world, offered in Four Reasons to Love Customer Complaints:
“When a customer spends effort to complain, they are not only letting you know something went wrong for them, they are indirectly indicating pain points in your business. Not only that, they are subliminally giving you, the business owner, a prime opportunity to convert them from a dissatisfied customer to one of your biggest fans.”
No less true of donor complaints.
The four reasons to, as the article advises, “be eternally grateful for customers that take their time to let you know what went wrong with their experience” are:
- It gives you an opportunity to create a lasting impression.
- It directly indicates what aspects of your business (organization) are weak.
- It potentially gives you competitive leverage (instead of effectively just conceding their dissatisfied defection to your competitors).
- It shows that the customer (donor) actually cares about your business (organization).
Gotta love those complaints!
Tom
One response to “Love Those Donor Complaints”
Behavioral Science Q & A
Integrating an individual giving appeal with other communications from a charity can have both positive and negative effects, and the outcome largely depends on how it’s executed. Advantages of Integration Brand Consistency: Maintaining a consistent appearance and messaging across all communications can reinforce the org’s brand identity and strengthen brand recognition and trust among your […]
Read Full Answer
I’m not aware of any in-market tests specifically comparing recurring vs. gift frequency language. I suspect the answer might not be the same with all gift frequencies, nor with all people. It sounds like a great opportunity for you to test and find out what works for your audience. Based on the literature, here’s a couple […]
Read Full Answer
Based on what we know from existing data, those renewal notices can actually be pretty effective in getting people to donate. They tap into our psychology – creating a sense of urgency, reminding us of past support, and using personalization to make the message hit home. They’re playing on our natural tendencies to feel obligated […]
Read Full Answer
Interesting question. I had a quick look at the testing done on this topic. On the positive side, in all cases, over half of donors decide to cover the fee. In some cases, it goes as high as 65%. Not a negligible percentage at all. Here’s another test from iRaiser showing consistent results (see point […]
Read Full Answer
There’s just one thing to consider when designing a supporter journey: the supporter. More specifically, you need to take into account: Who the supporter is i.e. their identity, which is the reason they support this cause, and their personality, which describes the way they “see” and process the world. These will determine the kind of […]
Read Full Answer
I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
Read Full Answer
And neuroscience research documents the following: When someone experiences a mistake — and the mistake is responded to well — the mistake recipient gets a dopamine high.
Yup. A dopamine high. I assume we all know how lovely dopamine highs can be.
My first theory is: Make mistakes with donors and fix them well – thus providing a dopamine high.
My second theory is: Chances are, you make mistakes already, unintentionally. So stick with the unintentional mistakes and fix them well. Voila. A dopamine high.