I sit here on the other side of the world after giving myself a weekend to cool down after first reading this. I was not pleased to see that ARRL management had decided to ignore my offer to make these calls for free, at least for the Southwestern Division. Note that one of my predecessors, past SWD director Fried Heyn, WA6WZO, made these calls during his time on the board. I do not find the statistic 42% retention rate recently provided to represent anything useful, other than give us insight into how superficially membership retention information is apparently collected and analyzed. I never saw any response to my suggestion that the membership manager make a few of these calls a day. It might give the manager some insight into our avocation. When the position was created, it was my impression that this was going to be a significant part of the job. Now it looks like the job is now to find vendors to offload the work? A review of the "requirements" for the membership manager position include a college degree. Knowledge of Amateur Radio was a nice, but not necessary! The cost of acquisition of these potential telemarketing-retained members is higher than the cost of the vendor contract. The staff costs of finding the vendor, negotiating the contract, entering the acquired data into the system, providing premiums, and others do not seem to be included. Part of this appears to be another case of upper level management ignoring, if not overtly snubbing, the board directive to use volunteers where available. I will summarize by stating something that I've said before. It would be in the best interests of the ARRL membership to make changes in upper level ARRL management. I hope other board members will support my efforts to make this happen. 73, Dick Norton, N6AA/A7 On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 6:33 PM, Kramer, Harold, WJ1B <wj1b@arrl.org> wrote:

In late August of this year, we proposed to engage the firm of Graven, Austin & Drake (GAD), a telemarketing company in Colorado to undertake a telemarketing test for us.  Some Board members had some concerns about this experiment and we believe that we have now addressed them so that we can proceed ahead.  Here are some additional details:

Contract:

1.       Chris has approved the final contract after his modifications were accepted by GAD.  Thanks, Chris, for your help with this one.

2.       Chris asked Maria Somma, our privacy compliance expert, to review the agreement to make sure that it meets our privacy regulations here in Connecticut.  Maria agrees that it meets the State of Connecticut privacy regulations.

The Firm:

1.       Graven, Austin & Drake (GAD) specializes in telemarketing for member associations.  Here is a link to their page on member associations.

2.        GAD has been responsive and proactive in working with us to get the best results from the outset of the campaign.  Our previous telemarketing firm in the 2008 experiment did not play a similar consultative role.

3.       Some of GAD’s clients include:

·   Federation of American Consumers and Travelers

·   American Quarterhorse Association

·   National Cattlemen’s Beef Association

·   Mercedes Benz Club of America

·   BASS Fishing Club & Bassmaster Magazine

·   Classic Chevy Car Clubs

·   Christian Booksellers Association

·   Sports Car Club of America

4.       At GAD’s suggestion, Diane Petrilli and I have spoken with some these associations and they give GAD high marks.

The Business Arrangements:

5.       GAD will be calling lapsed ARRL members only and only those who are within 18 months of not renewing their membership.  The 18 month requirement complies with telemarketing regulations.

6.       The total cost is $3,500, which includes 100 hours of calling. Diane checked with a number of telemarketing companies and this is their standard arrangement.

7.       We are able to listen in to all the calls that are being made by GAD and we can adjust the script and/or premium as necessary. These calls are recorded ( without credit card information) so that we can review any disputed conversation.  Diane intends to do this.

Anticipated and Historic Results:

8.       GAD estimates that they will be able to reach between 1,800 and 2,000 members in 100 hours and estimate a close rate of around 7% -- for at total of 140 renewed memberships.

9.       For your reference, in November 2008 we used a local telemarketing company, Telereach, to solicit lapsed members.  While we, ultimately, did not like working with them, Telereach contacted 1,047 lapsed members, converting 91 of them to members (8.7% acquisition rate).

10.   Finally,  Diane, and others on the Sales and Marketing team, believe there are some lapsed members who would respond to telemarketing but not to direct mail.  We need to take a broader approach to reaching our prospects. At the least, we need to give this another try.  If this works well, this type of program could produce some substantial membership gains.

I hope that this answers your questions.  Now that Chris has approved the contract, we plan to sign the agreement and proceed with this experiment.

73,

Harold

Harold Kramer, WJ1B

Chief Operating Officer

ARRL -the national association for Amateur Radio

225 Main Street

Newington, CT 06111

(860) 594 -0220