When Charities Miss a Chance to Thank Their Patrons
February 6, 2009 by admin
Filed under Bill Caskey, Communication Skills
This Christmas for each of our employees, I donated money to five different charities. We did this rather than giving Christmas gifts to each other.
Granted, the gifts were not big at all. But one thing I noticed was interesting. Four of the five charities didn’t even acknowledge the gift, other than a receipt of credit card email. One of the recipients, DonorsChoose.org, sent a nice note from the teacher whose class received the supplies/money, and it was a wonderful letter. (I would highly encourage this organization that provides students and classrooms in need with resources the public schools often lack.)
Didn’t they miss an opportunity? I keep hearing about how gifts were down in 2008 and how tough it is to get people to give money. Wouldn’t this have been a good chance for them to hire a volunteer to go back and thank every last one of the patrons for 2008?
Isn’t that an easy call to make? It seems like it’s a lot easier than making the call for the “ask” in future years.
Do you thank/acknowledge your customers?
Do you ever call them or sit down with them and say, “Hey, I really appreciate you doing business with us and I value our relationship both as a business relationship and a personal one. And I just wanted to take time out to acknowledge that”? You have to mean it, but wouldn’t that go a long way toward solidifying a relationship at a time when most relationships are tenuous?
If you’re in a mass market business where you have thousands of customers doing business with you, hire an intern to make that call. It can’t take more than two minutes. You’re probably going to get voicemail most of the time, but it still goes a long way toward keeping a customer.
Related posts:
