Membership voice, March - April 2007
Industrial Membership is in good health. In 2006, 82 companies from 25 different countries became Members. In total, Membership income grew by 8.5% over the year, significantly above our expectations. 2005 was also a good year and2007 has started very well, with 30 companies joining in January alone.
The feedback from Members is that they are generally very pleased with our technical ability and customer care, but that we could improve in our ability to meet timescales on projects. We are not going to rest on our laurels, and plan to introduce many improvements to the membership services during 2007. On 1 March 2007, we had our first 'Official Representative' induction day at TWI, entitled 'Making the most of Membership', where we reviewed all the benefits of TWI membership with newly appointed ORs. We find that many Members only use some aspects of our services, and as a result miss out on useful opportunities to access information, technical advice, staff support and networking. We shall also introduce 'company days' where TWI will welcome a group of engineers from a single Member company and discuss, in confidence, its ability to support the member's business. The Member company would have the option for their own private meeting at TWI, or to invite clients and suppliers.
We also have plans for improving delivery of information services. Since last year the library catalogue can be accessed by Members ( www.twi.co.uk/libcat). Members can also carry out free literature searches on-line through a much improved Weldasearch interface ( www.weldasearch.com) and we intend to make more use of electronic document delivery, as a faster way to supply the documents they need.
In order to be sure that the membership products and services respond to the expectations of our membership, TWI is commissioning a thorough customer survey.
If you have any suggestions about aspects of our products and services that you think we could improve, I would be very pleased to hear from you.
Fred Delany - Head of Industrial Member Services
fred.delany@twi.co.uk
