And, as important as it is to thank donors often, it also is important to thank them in meaningful and customized ways.  For most advancement operations it all starts with the gift acknowledgement letter.  Before we get sophisticated with special events or naming opportunities for major gifts, we must first master the thoughtful and timely gift thank you letter.

The 3 most important aspects of an effective donor acknowledgement letter are below:

1. The signing of the letter -  Should our President/CEO, other institutional leader, or an advancement staff person sign the letter?  In most instances, my approach is to have the President/CEO or another key institutional leader sign each gift letter.
2. The timing of the letter – How quickly are we getting the letter out to our donors?  My counsel to clients is to have letters either emailed or mailed to donors within 48 hours of gift receipt.
3. The uniqueness of the letter – It can be easy to get on “auto-pilot mode” with our thank you letters.  But, for our repeat donors, how do we ensure that they do not receive the same thank you letter for multiple gifts?

To help answer the question posed in the 3rd point above, Lynne Wester, director of stewardship and donor recognition at Yeshiva University in New York, has collected and posted over 500 gift acknowledgement letters on her site.   I encourage you to read through the many versions of donor thank you letters to get fresh ideas for your shop to utilize.

Our donors deserve to be thanked quickly and by a senior leader at our institution.  But it is just as important to thank each donor’s gift uniquely.

When we take the time to thank donors with fresh messages, we evidence a stewardship program which is not on auto pilot.  Instead, we demonstrate a sincere gratefulness for our donors and their generosity.

Do you resonate most on the email frequency?  Or maybe it is the face-to-face frequency?  Or the phone frequency?  Or the text frequency?  Or the social media frequency?  Or possibly there are still a few out there who resonate most with the touch-intensive letter frequency.

Most of us can identify a method of communication – a frequency if you will – with which we most resonate.  Like a radio dial tuned to a clear radio station, we tend to “hear better” (and articulate more easily) when we are on our more comfortable frequency.

Today we can communicate in a multitude of ways.  If you had your druthers, which would you rather use?  Understanding your own communication biases is important.

But here is a question of equal, if not more, importance:  What are the preferred frequencies of your donors?  This isn’t a group answer.  You can’t answer it effectively by saying, “Most of the donors in my portfolio prefer email communications.”  It’s an individual answer.  Each donor in your portfolio has their own communication frequency on which they receive information most efficiently.  They may email, but they really like the phone.  They may meet with you face-to-face, but they really like snail mail.  Or, they may like email for some communications, snail mail for others, etc.

To build deep relationships, we have to communicate using the frequencies that others naturally hear most clearly.  Which means development professionals should be comfortable with (and engaged with) all of them.

Everywhere you turn, everyone is promoting their willingness to meet the customer’s every need – to make the customer’s life easier, simpler, and more carefree.

Here’s a simple question: Why,then, does customer service stink?  And not just occassionally.  I’m really trying not to paint with an overly large brush here.  But how is it that customer care is so regularly bad?

The other morning I arrived at an airport early for my flight.  I walked to the ticket counter and had the following exchange:

Me:  ”Hi, how are you?  I’m heading to Chicago on the later flight and wanted to see if I could get on the earlier flight.”

Counter person:  Takes my driver’s license and doesn’t utter a word.  She looks down and starts typing.  After a few minutes, she reaches down and pulls up TWO tickets and says, “ok, you are all set.”

Me:  Looking at the tickets and realizing she has rebooked not only my flight today but my next day’s flight as well.  ”Oh, did you change my flight tomorrow too?  No, no, I just need my flight today changed to Chicago. Tomorrow’s is fine.”

Counter person:  Again, says nothing and takes the tickets back, looks down, and starts typing.

A few minutes go by.  ”What flight were you on tomorrow? ”

Me:  ”The 6pm flight tomorrow evening.”

Counter person:  ”6am?”

Me:  Thinking to myself, is she even listening to anything I’m saying?  Starting to get frustrated by the lack of “personalized customer care.”  ”No, the 6pm, tomorrow night from Ohare to Knoxville.”

Counter person:  Says nothing, looks down again and continues typing.  After a few more minutes she pulls out a travel itinerary which shows my next day’s flight has been restored to its original placement.

Counter person:  ”Here you go.”  And she hands it to me with a blank look on her face.

I took the itinerary, paused, somewhat waiting for an, “I’m sorry Mr. McNeal for the mixup, you’re all set now” line.  But, nothing. Not a word.  She just stared at me.

Me:  Now a bit miffed.  ”Is that it?  I mean, I almost walked away from here with my travel schedule all messed up because of a mistake you made.  And you’re not going to say anything else?”

Counter person:  ”Yeah.” and stared at me blankly.

“Yeah???”  I was stunned and upset.  Not because of the mistake but because of the lack of appropriate response.

A simple acknowledgement of a minor mistake would have smoothed the whole situation over.  If this counter person had simply said, “I’m glad you caught that,” or “Thanks for your understanding.”  Smiled at me.  Anything. Any acknowledgement would have worked.  I would have smiled back at her and said something like, “We all have those days, don’t we?  It’ll get better.”  And been on my way a happy camper.

But, instead, this counter person made the cardinal sin of customer service — she personalized the service.  But instead of personalizing to my needs as the customer, she, herself, took the service she was providing personal.

She made the encounter about her.  If I were a psychologist, I might opine that she didn’t want to admit to a small error and so the problem grew larger.  That it became more about her not wanting to say she was sorry than it was sending me away happy.  But the cause of the behavior doesn’t really matter much, does it?  What matters is that she didn’t personalize the service to my benefit, she personalized it to her benefit.

When customer service is done right, we subjugate our personal claims of authority over the interaction and lift up the customer’s claims of authority over the interaction.  The customer is always right.  And, in that way we personalize our service to the customer’s liking.  Yes, service should always be personal – it should always be personal for the customer.

How would your organization be transformed if everyone from top to bottom consistently put the the patient, the student, the donor, or other constituents in such a privileged position?