Clients will sometimes say to me: "Can't you just tell me what the best association management system is so that I can buy it?" Frankly, that's like saying "tell me the best car to buy." There are hundreds of software packages for membership management. There are dozens of software packages for association management (which typically …
"Why don't you just tell me which system to buy?" Read More »
When converting to a new data management system, you are faced with many decisions regarding priorities. There is so much going on at once that you'll have to decide where you'll focus your time first and what can be held for later. (I call these issues "phase two issues" because they can wait for phase two, …
When working with associations on implementation of their databases, there are points throughout the process where we will have to make a decision, whether it's about how to set up a particular part of the database, whether or not to convert or collect certain data, or deciding which processes to keep and which to change. …
The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) has released a survey of how businesses are using social media. The contents of the survey can be found here. The survey looks to be based on 134 responses of business to business (B2B) companies. Some interesting highlights: The percentage of companies already offering social networking technologies is …
FAQs are "frequently asked questions." My question for you is: Do you have FAQs on your website for your members and customers? And do you have FAQs available internally for your staff (on an intranet or even just a network-accessible file)? A recent article in Customer Relationship Management magazine (sorry, it's not online yet) explained how Carfax …
I was having some crackers and cheese spread (Wispride Port Wine) the other day, and noticed something on the side of the cheese spread container: serving suggestions. That's right, suggestions on how to use my cheese spread. Now why do you suppose the manufacturer would waste space on suggestions for servings? I mean, c'mon, it's …
If you do training, whether one-on-one, or in a classroom setting, here's a tip that will increase the learning retention of your students. When you are walking them through a new process (e.g., selling a product in the database) follow these three steps: Demonstrate the entire process without interruption, simply stating each step as you …
"CRM Continues to Disappoint" says the headline of this article on SearchCRM.com. In a nutshell, the companies that were surveyed are still not pleased with their CRM implementations, for a variety of reasons. But the reason why these implementations are disappointing is not stated until the very last paragraph: The survey's dismal results usually reflect …