Member Association Case Study
Learning from Others: How adapting your services to meet your members' needs can truly improve lives.
This non-profit member association and Fineline Printing Group used technology and customer research to reduce membership confusion and shift a focus to education. This engaging case study reinforces the importance of listening to member needs and adapting communications and production to address these needs.
Situation
This member association produces a number of print communications for its 285,000 member-base, including quarterly statements that detail financial investments of it members.
The client had recently conducted a member survey that uncovered wide-spread dissatisfaction with the statements, namely that members had difficulty understanding the information. The client realized that the format and layout of the information needed an overhaul. They also wanted to use color to better communicate the graphs. A mock up was design of what the customers wanted and they needed to find a partner to produce the new format.
The client's current provider and another vendor were not able to handle the color variable data and the complexity of the project. They then turned to Fineline who was doing most of their other printing needs.
Solution
Fineline met with this client on several occasions to thoroughly understand their internal processes, existing data structure, and the needs uncovered by the member survey. Fineline's information technology staff created custom templates based on how the client wanted to see the information populated on the statement. This included various charts and legends that would change based on the variable data.
Fineline was also able to consolidate the four statements-that used to run separately-in one large run, significantly reducing errors and increasing efficiencies.
And, because everything was now produced under one roof, the client experienced considerable time savings and the members received more timely communications.
An on-demand digital library of PDFs was also created so that when members contact the call center staff, they can now immediately access the statement in PDF form and see exactly what the member sees. It is also searchable by various criteria, like member name, to expedite the look-up information.
As well, Fineline recommended and implemented a stepped mail delivery schedule that resulted in a more predictable and manageable level of call activity.
Outcomes
By integrating workflow to customer processes, using color variable data, streamlining and augmenting mail operations, and creating a digital library for call center operations, Fineline helped this client meet its members' needs-while saving them money. The end result is an enhanced product that is improving the quality of life for its members. Phone calls, based on questions about the statements' content, fell sharply. And, call center staff shifted their focus to education and other value-add services.
The customer lauded Fineline's quality, ownership mentality, accessibility, and highly innovative approach to the successful outcomes of this critical service to its members.
