03/27/2019

Daily Buzz: Manage Member Expectations

There is nothing worse than feeling let down

We all have expectations, and there is nothing worse than feeling let down. To avoid members feeling misled or disappointed in your association, it’s important to manage expectations and communicate clearly—whether or not you have all the information.

“When you don’t have exact information for things—for example, an exact date or an exact schedule—it can be tempting to want to use fluff language,” says Callie Walker on the MemberClicks blog. “But that can lead to trouble because fluff language is often vague and open to interpretation.”

Instead, Walker recommends under-promising rather than over-delivering.

“Think about it: If you tell someone you’ll do something in the next 24 hours, but it takes you a week, that person is likely to be pretty frustrated,” she says. “But on the flip side, if you tell them you’ll do something in a week, but then you actually complete it in the next 24 hours, they’re likely to be pleasantly surprised.”

Another tip: Don’t be afraid to over-communicate.

“People don’t always read our emails or login to their member profiles,” Walker says. “Therefore, if a message is really important (for example, the date of something changed or the location of an event changed), it’s better to over-communicate than it is to under-communicate.”

Please select this link to read the original article from Associations Now.