There was a great post on the Harvard Business Review Blog recently that caught my eye called “Earn Customer Loyalty Without Losing Your Shirt” which talks about a TD Bank loyalty strategy they refer to as the “1 to Say Yes, 2 to Say No” Rule.

In a nutshell, the strategy promotes a culture driven by exhausting all possible creative solutions to find a way to say, “Yes”, to every customer request and use each interaction as an opportunity to deliver a proverbial “wow moment”.

This may sound like yet another expensive commercial strategy that can’t apply to nonprofits but that isn’t the case.

One simple but powerful example directly from TD Bank is the story of an employee who saw a customer leaving a branch in the midst of a rainstorm, grabbed an umbrella and walked a customer to their car.

The cost of this Touchpoint…$0.

If a commercial bank – which measures profits in the billions – see’s value in over delivering on the “little things” shouldn’t nonprofits likely do the same?

 What Should Your “Yes First” Goal Be As A Nonprofit? 

 Plain and simple, use every touchpoint to strengthen your relationships with your constituents because it will translate into higher commitment and loyalty.

How Do You Build Stronger Relationships?

Building relationships can be a complex process but as we identified in our 2011 Donor Commitment Report, highly committed relationships are the result of creating two key types of connections, functional and personal.

In a functional connection with your organization, often expressed as being reliable; the donor knows what to expect and you deliver it consistently.   

A very clear functional connection our study identifies as a key experience is to ‘provide clarity around how donations are being used’.  This can often be a simple answer but one I challenge you to NOT ask donors to dig for in your Annual Report but instead deliver through your interactions.

For example, if I am a child sponsor and call asking for a status update on my sponsored child the answer in today’s world may likely be, “we don’t have the ability to collect and store individual child information”.

This is your “Yes First” opportunity.

Follow the lead set forth by TD Bank and create a say “yes” process to remove the barriers against seeking out this information allowing you to tell committed donors who call “I will take that request to the field and get back to you soon with more information”.

The second type of connection, the Personal connection is more emotional and built on a mutual respect where donors believe that the organization knows him/her and care.  An example of this type of key experience identified in our study is by ‘articulating a piece of information that provides donors with the feeling of accomplishment’.

Bringing us back to the child sponsor engagement example, when you have made the effort to get the child update contact the donor let them know their sponsored child is a) doing great and b) just got new school supplies because of your last donation of <<X>>.

Creating stronger connections – the components you as an organization directly influence – will change the donor’s behavior.  Making the commitment to that level of service will return a much higher level of commitment (or loyalty) from your constituents.

How Do I Measure It?

Measurement is likely the single point every organization will or should care about, and the good news is that measurement here is easy.

Simply stated, stronger relationships will lead to higher retention.  Build a pilot that puts emphasis on delivering on the right set of experiences (the complexity of which will match your ambition), then;

• isolate your audiences,
• Benchmark the current retention rates for a prior period,
• Track a stated future period,
• Measure and compare, and
• Iterate to improve.

In the end, the harsh reality is that it takes a special kind of person (or organization) to go the extra mile to ‘hold the umbrella’ but the ones who do will be rewarded accordingly.