Membership voice, September - October 2007
TWI has recently undertaken a survey of industrial membership services. Thank you if you are one of the many customers who has taken part in the exercise. The purpose of this survey was to assess how you, the Members, perceive the value of TWI industrial membership, and to find out what we do well, what we do not so well and whether there are services that we should offer that we don't already.
I am pleased to report that overall, the vast majority of members were happy with TWI and the services we offer. The survey did show that there were some areas of our business that could be improved. This was not unexpected, but the objective views of our members helps us in our commitment to improve member services continually.
In summary, all the services received high average ratings (all above 7.3 out of 10), with the Technical Enquiry Service and Information Services receiving exceptional scores (average ratings of 8 out of 10). It was also clear from the survey that you hold our level of expertise in very high regard (7.95 out of 10).
As mentioned above, the survey has allowed us to identify a number of areas that should be improved. These include:
- The ease with which information is retrieved from our website
- The customer service experience delivered to our Members, particularly with regard to the speed of response on projects and your needs for rapid, practical solutions in times of crisis.
We take the results of the survey very seriously, and fully intend to implement a programme to deliver an enhanced service to our Industrial Member companies. I hope you will see some improvements in the coming months.
It is pure coincidence that the survey was commissioned at a time when membership was experiencing a very good year. We have not had many resignations in 2007, but have already recruited 90 new members since the beginning of the year. We have achieved more in the first six months of 2007 than we normally achieve in a full year. Despite the strength of the pound, we are finding that the business climate is good for the technical support services that we are offering. Many factors appear to be contributing to our success, and I have no doubt that one of them is the quality of the team that looks after members services.
Here I have some news to report. John Loader, after 36 years at TWI, including 12 years as head of Member Services, retired on the 20 July. It was John who proofread my editorial in the Bulletin, and re-organised my words into 'proper' English.But I'll miss John for many more reasons. John brought exceptional levels of organisation and customer care into all aspects of the relationship between Members and TWI.
He is leaving when the library, his 'baby' for over 20 years, has been given a clear vote of confidence, and when membership is having its most successful year in the history of TWI. John contributed significantly to the achievement of both, working tirelessly behind the scenes, setting himself and others very high standards of professionalism.
Earlier in July, the membership team welcomed Chris Wiseman, who has joined us to lead the membership activities within the Aerospace and ECM (equipment, consumable and materials) sectors. Chris spent most of his career at Alcan R & D Labs. in Banbury and has more recently worked for a test house focused on the needs of the aerospace industry.
I am confident that we have the right team to look after you, and that we'll be able to repeat our present successes in future years. I hope we can continue to grow the membership and still improve on the services provided.
Fred Delany - Head of Industrial Membership
fred.delany@twi.co.uk
