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Engagement Marketing

Engaging Volunteers (4): When Volunteers are Brand Partners

What I’ve shared up to this point in this series applies to volunteers in most nonprofits. In some organizations, however, volunteers serve multiple roles that require different engagement strategies.

I can explain with this segmentation model from the Drucker Foundation Self-Assessment Tool for Nonprofits that identifies two types of nonprofit “customers”:

  • Primary customers – the people and entities who benefit from a nonprofit’s services
  • Supporting customers – the people and entities who help a nonprofit provide its services.

For example, a Girl Scout and her parents are “primary customers” of the Girl Scouts in that they all benefit as the daughter develops new skills from her scouting involvement. If her parents participate as troop leaders, help chaperone troop events, etc., they are also considered “supporting customers.” This segmentation model helps a nonprofit understand and recognize who its “customers” are (in one or both segments) so it can engage them accordingly.

But don’t let the simplicity of this model fool you as volunteer segmentation can be extremely complicated depending on the organization. It is particularly messy in professional membership associations that offer professional development and networking opportunities through national and regional (chapter) affiliation; e.g., the American Marketing Association, Society for Human Resource Management, Public Relations Society of America, etc. While all members of such organizations are primary customers, some may also be engaged as supporting customers on one or more levels as:

  • Local brand ambassadors – recruiting and welcoming other members at the chapter level
  • Chapter volunteer leaders – serving on committees/councils/boards and providing member benefits at the local or regional level
  • National volunteer leaders – serving on national committees/councils/boards
  • Volunteer speakers – presenting at association-sponsored conferences & workshops
  • Volunteer instructors – training (for free or a small honorarium) at association-sponsored educational programs.

The important role these volunteers play in delivering member benefits at the local, regional, and national levels can be taken for granted. Beyond providing token recognition for their service, some associations overlook the fact that these highly engaged volunteers help generate revenues via new and retained member dues as well as from conference and program fees. That’s why these truly “supporting customers” need to be recognized, valued, and respected as partners in delivering the brand promise.

How do you engage and manage volunteers who are also your brand partners?

  • Make volunteer involvement a focus of attention by the Board and executive staff. (See my previous post on Intentional Volunteer Management.)
  • Recognize and acknowledge volunteer value. To truly appreciate the impact of their involvement, analyze your volunteers’ lifetime value. Note: most volunteer calculators measure this value in terms of manpower hour & benefit cost-savings. In addition, consider volunteers’ economic contribution to revenue generation. [If anyone has a formula or model for this, please let me know.]
  • Keep volunteers informed of the organization’s vision and direction. You can’t expect them to serve as brand advocates if you don’t keep them in the communications loop.
  • Be sensitive to how operational/policy changes impact volunteer efforts to deliver on the brand – you want to facilitate volunteer (and staff) efforts to deliver member value, not create extra work for them. Communicate all changes in operations or policy openly and honestly, sharing the rationale behind such changes.
  • Proactively seek and respond to volunteer feedback & ideas.

Keep in mind that besides their individual and collective value as volunteers, these brand partners have strong influence on the frontline with access to fellow and prospective members who are your primary customers. Treat them carefully and with the respect they deserve.

In my next post I’ll address the volunteer-employee connection.

 

 

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Engagement Marketing Training & Development

Engaging Volunteers (3): Intentional Volunteer Management

 

“Too many organizations are thoughtless when it comes to volunteers.”
– Susan Ellis, president of Energize, Inc., a volunteer training & consulting firm.

Sadly, many former volunteers would agree with this statement. That’s why an intentional and proactive (rather than passive or reactive) effort is needed to effectively engage and retain volunteers.

Here are some guidelines to help you get started with intentional volunteer engagement and management.

  • Focus at the Board Level
    Volunteer expert Susan Ellis recommends volunteer involvement be a regular part of the board agenda so it can proactively focus on how to effectively recruit, engage, and maximize volunteer participation. “Don’t allow volunteer involvement to be the invisible personnel issue,” she says. She also suggests creating a board committee on volunteerism.
  • Learn who your volunteers are, their interest in your organization, and their volunteer expectations (as described in my previous post).
  • Clarify and clearly communicate your organization’s expectations of volunteers and what they can expect from you. Here’s a great example: After meeting with a nonprofit organization’s leaders, I received a follow-up letter inviting me to serve on their advisory council. This invitation described council members’ responsibilities and stated what the organization promised them in return, including “Appreciation of your time and our commitment not to abuse your time or generosity.”
  • Find ways to connect your volunteers to:
    • your organization’s mission, strategic direction, and goals. (Note: You can even include volunteers in your strategic planning process.)
    • your stakeholders (if applicable) to see your mission in action
    • your other volunteers for mentoring and partnering
    • your staff, particularly those with whom they’ll be working.
  • Provide the mission-focused training and tools your volunteers need to best serve the organization; e.g., orientation, ongoing communication, recognition, etc.
  • Proactively listen to your volunteers – obtain their feedback, ideas, concerns – and respond appropriately.

Volunteers require more than a simple “recruit ‘em and recognize ‘em” approach. Nonprofit leaders need to invest time and attention to engaging, managing, and retaining volunteer talent.

Stay tuned for my next post that will explore the challenge of engaging volunteers who are also brand partners.

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Engagement Marketing

Engaging Volunteers (2): Understanding the Volunteer Experience

The second post in this volunteer engagement & management series focuses on the volunteer experience.

Workplace engagement applies to both nonprofit employees and volunteers. Like employees, volunteers are not immune to becoming disenchanted with the nonprofits they serve. Unlike employees, however, it’s easier for volunteers to leave when they become disengaged.

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNSC) addressed the problem of volunteer turnover in a 2009 research brief:

“ … over one third of volunteers (35.5%) drop out of service each year and do not serve with any organizations the following year. While new volunteers may be walking through the door of an organization, they may not stay, or they may be replacing an existing volunteer. This high rate of volunteer turnover stunts the productivity of nonprofit organizations as they focus on replacing volunteers instead of maximizing impact.”

Nonprofits cannot afford to lose this talent in a down economy when they’re increasingly hard pressed to serve growing needs with fewer resources. That’s why the volunteer experience is receiving renewed attention.

To better manage this experience, you need to understand who your volunteers are, what motivates them to become involved and stay with your organization, and what contributes and detracts from the quality of their experience with you. Volunteer motivations vary by individual and intensity; reasons range from wanting to “give back” … to sharing skills and/or learning new ones … to needing to feel needed … to getting involved to stay busy. Regardless of their respective motivations, most volunteers choose to get involved in a particular organization because they share a belief in the cause/mission and wish to make a difference.

Nonprofits can learn about their volunteer talent through research and informal listening posts that include volunteer surveys, roundtables, staff and volunteer feedback, etc. Here are sample questions that will provide important insight on volunteer motivations and expectations:

  • What about this organization appealed to you to get you involved?
  • What about this organization keeps you involved? [for long term volunteers]
  • What do you expect to give and get from your volunteer involvement?
  • What do you enjoy most about your volunteer experience here?
  • What suggestions do you have for staff that can improve the volunteer experience?
  • Would you recommend this organization to other volunteers? Why or why not?

Also consider exit interviews with volunteers who leave your organization – whether through rotating volunteer service (fulfilling board or committee term limits), burn-out, a negative experience, or other reason. Sample questions include:

  • What do you know now about this organization that you wish you had known when you first became involved?
  • What did you enjoy most about your volunteer experience? (or) What will you miss most about your volunteer experience here? [ask only if the volunteer is leaving on good terms]
  • What suggestions do you have for staff that can improve the volunteer experience?
  • Would you recommend this organization to other volunteers? (Probe why or why not?)

Responses to these types of questions will enable you to build a knowledge base of volunteer motivations, expectations, and perceptions of your organization.

In my next post I’ll cover what nonprofits can do to better engage their volunteers through intentional management.

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Engagement Marketing

Engaging Volunteers (1): A Volunteer Story

This blog post kicks off a six-part series in which I explore volunteer engagement and management.

It’s a critical topic for nonprofits that need to capture the attention and availability of more unemployed and underemployed workers willing to volunteer time and energy.

But the match of nonprofits and able volunteers won’t work if volunteer talent is not effectively managed.

I was excited to be a first-time volunteer at a special holiday party for children and their families hit hard by the economy. When I arrived at the banquet hall I was stunned by the number of buses already in the parking lot and the constant stream of bus loads arriving from churches and community groups. I entered the fray and squeezed my way through the crowd to find volunteer registration.

The volunteer table was chaos central. I introduced myself, explained I had signed up to serve the dinner shift, and asked about the check-in process. After shuffling paper and unable to find the sign-in sheet, one of the volunteers handed me a volunteer button, pointed to the dining hall, and told me to just go in and help out.

The room was set up with rows of tables to accommodate hundreds of people, and there seemed to be hundreds more milling about. Two long buffet stations were set up at one end of the banquet room lined with volunteers dishing out turkey, ham, stuffing, potatoes, green beans, rolls & butter; other volunteers ran back and forth to the kitchen to replenish the serving stations. More volunteers cleared dishes while groups of guests waited to be seated. I attached myself to a volunteer who had worked the event before, then quickly learned the ropes to make myself useful. Fortunately there were more than enough – even too many – volunteers to help out.

At the end of my shift, I thanked my fellow volunteer for taking me under her wing. There was no official “sign out” of volunteers, so I just waved to the people working the volunteer table and left the banquet hall. It was my first and last time at the event.

As a long time volunteer involved in a variety of organizations, I was surprised by the lack of advance communications, on-site instructions, and post-event acknowledgment encouraging volunteers to return. The good news is the holiday party attracts an abundance of volunteers; the bad news is not all of them return. Note: the event is organized and hosted through the generosity of a private company, not by a nonprofit. Nonetheless, it illustrates that volunteer engagement requires more than a “if-you-build-it-they-will-come” approach.

“Sadly, most nonprofits do not view their volunteers as strategic assets and have not developed ways to take full advantage of them.”
– excerpt from Stanford Social Innovation Review article “The New Volunteer Workforce.”

I hope you’ll join me in this “Engaging Volunteer” series that includes:

Throughout this special series, I invite you to share your experience as a volunteer. Comments from nonprofit managers are also welcome.

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Customer service Marketing

New Report Outlines Priorities for Service Research

I’ll never forget how frustrated I was in my first MBA marketing course. I was working in bank marketing at the time, and the course focused on consumer packaged goods and industrial products that had little relevance to what I was doing on-the-job. Back then (in the late 1970’s) there was no mention of marketing “intangible” services. Now, fortunately, there are complete textbooks, courses, and even graduate concentrations in services marketing.

As my career evolved, so did the emergence of services marketing as a field of study – one that I eagerly embraced in my professional development. The applied science of services marketing and management has grown tremendously thanks to a strong international academic-practitioner partnership.

So I’m happy to share the latest service research priorities developed by academics and business executives that will drive thought leadership to advance the science and practice of service. Why is this important? Because “all businesses are service businesses.”

Here are the top ten overarching service research priorities compiled by the Center for Services Leadership that spearheaded this important endeavor:

• Fostering service infusion and growth.
• Improving well-being through transformative service.
• Creating and maintaining a service culture.
• Stimulating service innovation.
• Enhancing service design.
• Optimizing service networks and value chains.
• Effectively branding and selling services.
• Enhancing the service experience through co-creation.
• Measuring and optimizing the value of service.
• Leveraging technology to advance service.

While all these research priorities are important, here are the two that I’m most excited about (along with related topics identified for further exploration).

Creating and maintaining a service culture:

1. Recruiting, training, and rewarding associates for a sustained service culture.
2. Developing a service mind-set in product-focused organizations.
3. Creating a learning service organization by harnessing employee and customer knowledge.
4. Keeping a service focus as an organization grows, matures, and changes.
5. Globalizing a service organization’s culture across different countries.

Effectively branding and selling services:

1. Effectively branding service and solutions and identifying ways to assess brand value.
2. Developing consistent brand experiences across touch points.
3. Harnessing social media’s impact on service brands.
4. Achieving effective solution selling and defining the new role of the sales force.
5. Forging closer relationships between employees and the brand.

You can learn more in the Research Priorities for the Science of Service CSL Business Report 2010.

Regardless of which topic(s) appeal to you, the study of these “global, interdisciplinary, and business-relevant research priorities” will help advance the science and practice of service management to the benefit of business and consumers.

 

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Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing Spotlight: SNVC (Part 2)

This post continues my interview with Beth Miller-Herholtz, SNVC’s VP of Corporate Communications, about how her company handles employee engagement and recognition.

QSM: What is your biggest challenge in maintaining a strong organizational culture?

Beth: I think the biggest challenge is also one of our biggest strengths. We have eight unique contracts, and that means eight unique clients … So when we look at our organization culture, we have to consider how our initiatives will be received in the different client cultures.

QSM: How do you effectively engage employees when they spend most of their time working at the client site?

Beth: In our industry, where most of our personnel are onsite with our government client, it’s very easy to build loyalty to the client and forget about the company behind you. To help answer our questions, we turned to Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton’s book, The Carrot Principle, for some insight and guidance. It became the basis for our Awards and Recognition Program. We began to emphasize, both in words and in actions, that the total value of a career is a comprehensive package that includes competitive compensation and benefits along with career development, work/life balance, and an environment that welcomes everyone with talent and determination to be the best. The Recognition Program provides the means to put our words into action — action that celebrates and rewards talent, determination, and innovation.

We incorporated awards to recognize people in key areas – Thought Leadership, Career Service, Professional Development, Innovation, and Special Incentives – all of which contribute to personal growth and corporate growth. Our program is peer-based, so anyone can recommend someone for doing great work or going the extra mile. It incorporates flexibility in that the rewards can be gift cards, W2 compensation/bonuses, or leave hours. Recognition of the individual is done as quickly as possible; in fact, that is a metric we track – how close to the action that deserved the recognition can we say “thanks” or “well done”. Where possible, we engage our client in the recognition, too, so that they see the company behind the employee who is providing that outstanding support. In addition, we announce awards in our monthly e-newsletter, which often includes photos and videos of the event.

QSM: I appreciate your sharing SNVC’s model of engaging employees through recruitment, retention, and recognition. It’s obvious you take great pride in your work at SNVC. Any closing comments?

Beth: Ultimately, our corporate values of Leadership, Commitment, and Integrity are the same three values that laid the foundation for the company back in 1998. Our culture embraces the fact that we remain focused on service to our nation, knowing that our end user is the warfighter, the defender of our homeland. Of that, I think I am most proud.

QSM: Thanks, Beth!

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Engagement Marketing

Employee Engagement Advice for Managers

The new Employee Engagement e-book is now available to help managers and business leaders who want to better engage their employees. It features a compilation of concise advice and helpful tips written by members of the Employee Engagement Network. I was happy to contribute to the book (see page 22), although it was a challenge to select and share engagement advice in a single sentence!

Like its companion book on Employee Engagement, this book is free. So what are you waiting for? Download your free copy and circulate the advice. We need all the help we can get to try to reverse the decline in job satisfaction.

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Engagement Marketing

Why I’m Celebrating This Week

Wow, this is my 5th blog anniversary and 300th post!

It’s been quite a journey, and I’ve learned much from researching and writing content devoted primarily to engaging employees and customers with internal marketing & communications (along with sharing some personal reflections along the way).

It’s also been quite an effort, and I mean that literally. While I consider myself a good writer, it’s a difficult and slow process for me. I’m also terrified of the blank page and sometimes suffer from writer’s block. Then there’s the emotional spectrum I experience ranging from sifting through an overload of ideas to pure panic at not having any relevant content to share.

Despite these writing challenges, the effort is well worth it given the support and feedback from you – my blog readers, fellow bloggers, and thought leaders. I also enjoy the pursuit of continued learning and development in my chosen field.

So stick around and join me for the ride as I continue to write about internal marketing & internal communication for employee engagement, employee satisfaction, leadership … and all things related to creating a workplace dedicated to employee and customer satisfaction.

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Engagement Marketing

Whatever Happened to Job Satisfaction?

The latest Conference Board report on job satisfaction isn’t good – only 45% of those surveyed say they’re satisfied with their jobs (based on a sample of 5000 US households).

Not a shocker considering the current economy. I know many people unhappy with their work – due to constant downsizing of resources (one can only ‘do more with less’ for so long) and lack of leadership in uncertain times. These folks are just waiting to bolt when the economy improves and better jobs become available.

What surprised me, however, is this latest survey shows an overall decline in job satisfaction over the past 20 years – including times when the economy was robust.

According to The Conference Board:

“The drop in job satisfaction between 1987 [the first year of this survey] and 2009 covers all categories in the survey, from interest in work to job security and crosses all four of the key drivers of employee engagement: job design, organizational health, managerial quality, and extrinsic rewards.”

On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. For more than 30 years now I’ve been advocating internal marketing as a way to engage employees and customers.

I’m not sure what the answer is … perhaps growing attention to the study of employee engagement will help reverse this trend. In the meantime, I try to find and learn from the folks who enjoy their workplace. And when that seems to be a challenge, I page through Zappos’ Culture Book to keep from getting discouraged.

 

 

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Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing Enhances Intranet Usage

Large companies with thousands of employees depend on their intranets as a critical internal communications medium. As intranet design continues to evolve, companies are also applying internal marketing to better engage employees and promote intranet usage. For example:

  • More employee involvement in improving intranet design and usage via research and beta testing.
  • More social networking to better connect work groups and encourage individual employee participation in shared discussions and contributing content. Also CEO and executive blogs are being positioned to make senior management more approachable and encourage more employee dialog with them.
  • Better introduction and promotion of redesigned intranets to increase employee usage via cafeteria demos and road shows, IT expos, beta testers as site ambassadors, and internal commercials featuring employee users.

Source: Ten Best Intranets of 2010 by Jakob Nielsen. (Special shout-out to Bob Johnson’s Higher Education Marketing Newsletter where I found this intranet article.)