Treat Your Members as Customers!

Sad Story: How many times have you brought in that new member only to see them leave within a few years? Unfortunately this is all to common. Our highest attrition rate in Rotarians is within the first two years. It is not unusual to find clubs that have said goodbye to enough new members over the last 5 years to DOUBLE THEIR CLUB SIZE. 

Members as Customers: You can stop the revolving door by treating your members as a successful business treats its customers. How many highly successful businesses operate by simply assuming that new customers are totally satisfied, and will forever keep coming back? Not many. We need to know what our current membership wants, and then have the courage to make changes in the club to satisfy those "customers".

Surveys and Assessments: Member Surveys and assessments can be a useful tool to make sure your club is serving your members' needs. The RI Annual Member Involvement Appraisal is one such tool. Another is the RI Member Satisfaction Questionnaire. Using either or both of these tools is a great idea, and scores big points on your Ignite Score sheet. You can also host informal discussions, or create "member focus groups". The key here is to find out what will engage your members and develop them into strong and committed Rotarians. Be sure to involve former members of your club as well.

Implement the changes: The hard work is to actually take action in your club to adapt to the needs of your members. We all to often blame new club members for dropping out. "They just weren't cut out for Rotary" or "They just didn't fit in." My favorite is: "They were just here for business networking". Vocational Service is one of the Five Avenues of Service! I know I joined for networking, and I was successful in that first Rotary endeavor. It wasn't until after that, that I caught the Service bug! Bottom line is that your club needs to make the difficult leadership decisions that are necessary to adapt the club to the changing needs of its members.

Make it worth their while: People have a limited amount of time, and as a Rotary club we are competing for that time. You must make your club worth their while. So meeting the needs of your newest members (customers) is crucial. Just like a business wants to ensure its new customers are satisfied so they will keep coming back, you can ensure that your new members are satisfied, so they stick around and have the chance to grow into great Rotarians of the future!

That's All!

Woody