Association Content and the New (Old) Killer App?

I’ve just been blown away by a customer service experience. On my way home from the CESSE Mid-Winter CEO Meeting I needed to connect to in-flight internet and realized that my travel schedule is going to be pretty full for the next month. Here’s a transcript of a chat session that I initiated from 37,000 feet.

Shiloh: Welcome to Company. My name is Shiloh.
Shiloh: Hi Jay.
Shiloh: How can I help you?
Jay Younger: Hi
Jay Younger: so…
Jay Younger: I bought a daily flight pass two days ago, and have realized that I’m traveling a lot over the next month
Jay Younger: is there a way I could have that one charge refunded and then would upgrade to a monthly pass?
Shiloh: Sure, I will give you a code for $18 off to go towards purchasing the monthly pass.
Jay Younger: awesome
Jay Younger: just what I had hoped
Shiloh: ☺
Shiloh: Please choose the monthly pass that you want and apply this CODE on the payment page
Shiloh: Please let me know once you are connected.
Jay Younger: got it
Jay Younger: stand by
Jay Younger: I’m in
Jay Younger: perfect!
Shiloh: Great!
Shiloh: Have a good day Jay. Thank you for choosing Company. Fly classy.
Jay Younger: That was about the best service experience I’ve ever had…thank you.

The entire transaction took less than 3 minutes. I’m pleased, connected, have received tangible value and will continue to look for ways to do business with this company. Live chat solved my problem immediately, so I got to thinking, how great would it be if associations set up live chat to help members and customers navigate their content?

One of the biggest complaints we hear about associations websites from members is that they “can’t find what they are looking for” and that there is “just too much content” to navigate. This stands in the way of increasing two variables – velocity and frequency of member and customer transactions – that we see as important success factors for associations in the decade ahead.

When combined with the concepts of “content curation” and “knowledge strategy,” which were two pillars of the CESSE educational program and are on seemingly on everyone’s mind right now, I’m thinking there’s more than just a cool factor to the concept of association live chat. It could immediately help us address many of our most pressing challenges, promote new opportunities for member and customer conversion, and create a meaningful example of how associations are staying current in a rapidly evolving world. If anyone out there is working on this, please drop me a line, or better yet just hit me up via Gchat ☺