How do you as a site manager keep your agency managers engaged? Keeping them active on the site is key to their success and yours. Let’s talk about some tips and best practices that will help you
Get them involved in using the powerful tools in the software.
Establishing Rapport with a New Agency Manager
One of the first challenges you will face in keeping up with your agencies is when turnover has occurred. You’ll want to establish a good relationship with the new agency manager and help bring them up to speed.
When turnover has occurred
So, how do you know when there has been turnover? The Agency Activity Report will give some clues. If the agency has not logged in or had recent activity, you might want to reach out to see what is happening.
- You will find the Agency Activity Report on your Reports page.
- You will need to run the report a start date of January 2012 (the beginning of our records) in order to get the fullest picture of activity. The report will look like this:
- In addition to basic information, such as the agency manager’s name and email, you’ll also see when they last logged in and some details on how many active needs they have. If an agency has not had any activity for a while, you might want to reach out to them to see if they have a new agency manager.
Bringing New Agency Managers Up to Speed
As we all know, starting a new job can be overwhelming. We suggest letting the new person settle into their position before you try to give them too much information about the site. Feel free to introduce them to the site, but take it slowly at first.
Once they are comfortable in their role, start sharing a few pieces of information that will get them excited and engaged, such as
A strong benefit statement – Tell them all about the free resources available to them within the Connect platform.
Our online webinar – Let them know this free 30-minute training will teach them the ins and outs of how they can use the site to help manage their non-profit. This training is live. So encourage them to ask questions!
Follow up after training with some more specific information about one of your favorite features on the site. You can draw from one of your most recent emails, or send them something new.
Plan to check in with them in a month or so to see how they are doing. Set a goal for them and tell them you’ll feature them on the site as a highlighted agency of the month when they hit that goal. Use a spotlight to feature them. Everyone loves recognition.
Building Your Relationship with Agency Managers
Whether you have new agency managers or just need to motivate your existing managers, we have some tips to help build your rapport and increase their engagement.
Start with an email blast to all agency managers.
You can begin by reaching out to all of your agency managers to establish contact with everyone.
Create a message that reminds agency managers that the Connect platform is a great free tool that will help them post needs and keep track of their volunteers.
For example, you could send them this infographic on how agencies can benefit from Get Connected.
Point out that the powerful stats feature helps with grant reporting by providing info on the number of volunteers and volunteer hours.
One great way to reach out to agencies is by discussing the kiosk, emphasizing how it helps with tracking hours. You can share this video with them by clicking the paper airplane icon.
You might also want to mention the App. Agency managers can be helpful in encouraging volunteers to download and use the App. And that will help them in capturing accurate information on hours.
Encourage them to reach out to you with questions.
Then Target Your Contact
Now you can start to target your contact with specific agencies. Again, the Agency Activity Report will help you identify who you should contact.
You will want to reach out to agencies that are not active, of course. But we suggest you start by contacting agencies that have been active somewhat recently, say within the last couple of months. Then work your way back to agencies that have not been active for longer periods. We find that this approach yields some positive immediate response, then you can reach out to some of your less active agency managers.
One tip is to target 5 agencies a month that you want to contact to build your relationship. This seems to be a manageable number for many of our clients. Making personal contact with these agencies, preferably with a phone call, will build rapport and help motivate them to be engaged with the software. You may want to have a few questions and tips prepared so that you can learn what is important to them and share some ideas.
Build Contact With Agencies Into Your Schedule
Monthly
Send an agency-specific email to all agency managers who’ve logged in within the last 6 months. Include information about how you’re promoting them on the site through spotlights, social media, and other tools. Point out features that are beneficial to them, such as the check in kiosk, the app, volunteer scheduling, and eSign waivers. Make sure to keep them up to date on what your organization is working on and how they can be a part of it.
Quarterly
Host a lunch-and-learn or a breakfast where you can provide the agency managers some best practices. We suggest that you do a brief presentation or have one topic you are ready to discuss in conversations. But we also encourage you to emphasize the networking and support side of the lunch or breakfast. Make sure they know it’s a time for the entire community of agencies to talk to each other about what’s working and how they can collaborate.
Related articles
Here are some resources that will help you with reaching out to agencies, including some of the ones included in this article.
Helpful articles you can share with agency managers:
The latest features to share with your agencies
How agency managers can register for the Connect Site Training Webinar
An agency road map for success
How agencies can create an effective need
A couple of videos on features you can promote with agencies: