How to Embrace Technology to Serve Your Members Better (Part 1) Associations can use various technologies to serve their members better. According to Bob Treadway, Sacramento based national speaker, the three most easily implemented and essential are: Voice Mail Systems, Fax On Demand Systems, and On Line Services, including electronic bulletin boards and various ways of creating channels of communication with members. Let's take the first one, which is Voice Mail Systems.
Today, most associations are reluctant to put in Voice Mail Systems because they feel they're going to be very expensive and difficult to maintain, and that they put a layer of technology between themselves and their association members. The opposite 1S true. Voice Mail Systems can now allow associations to engage in non simultaneous communication. Treadway believes that non simultaneous communication is one of the most crucial skills for the future.
What does that mean? Let me explain. The most difficult challenge over the next five years will be to have simultaneous communication with your members, your customers and almost any business. Voice Mail offers a solution. You can do more than just leave a personal voice message for a specific individual in an association. Voice Mail gives you the ability to obtain information and get help and aid in running your particular business on the part of your association members.
Most of the associations that Treadway recently researched were deeply concerned by the prospect of paying $25,000 to $30,000 for Voice Mail Systems. The good news is that technology is getting less expensive every year and it is becoming much more easily implemented. The combination of reduced cost and added features makes it feasible for associations to take another look at Voice Mail. The system offers features such as: the ability to engage in marketing efforts with association members whenever they call; a ready vehicle for people to communicate during non business hours; and the ability to access different individuals within the association at any time, whether they are on the phone or off.
The sole proprietor can also benefit. Here's how: when a caller gets into Voice Mail, they are presented with several different options, including the opportunity to: 1. immediately leave a message without having to listen to a lot of verbiage 2. listen to a list of services and choose services that they'd like to learn more about 3. listen to a sample presentation 4.leave a Voice Mail message in their own box 4. pick up a specific Voice Mail message meant only for them and that only they can access.
All of these are good examples of how non simultaneous communication can work for you to build relationships with your association members.
The second example of this type of communication is the Fax on Demand System. This enables an association member to call the association offices to obtain specific information on an educational program, an upcoming meeting, advice on a particular issue that they might be facing, an update on a legislative effort that the association might be taking on behalf of the members, or listen to a menu of different choices that they can have. The member makes a selection and a return call will automatically be made to their fax machine by the Fax on Demand System in the association office. This is currently used in many marketing organizations including those selling different forms of technologies. The association can make this investment at usually a very modest cost.
In my next column I will write about a technology that I think is going to be the most exciting for associations. It is the area of On Line Services or what the media is labeling the Information Super Highway.
This communication between individuals in an association is done through a computer hooked to a telephone system by means of a modem. What passes from the association or one member to another is information in the form of text, computer documents, and written communication. It encompasses such things as electronic mail, transfers files, transfers graphical images, and communication with multiple individuals by means of this On Line Service. It will truly revolutionize the way associations communicate in the future.
Patricia Fripp is a San Francisco based professional speaker on the subjects of Change, Teamwork, Customer Service, Promoting Business and Speaking Skills. She is also the author of 'Get What You Want' and Past-President of the National Speakers Association. For more information please feel free to contact her.
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