Why you should be testing your forms: Let's Make a Deal

Let's say I offer you two envelopes, "A" and "B", and a choice.

• Each envelope contains some amount of money for your organization's mission.

• There's a good chance that one envelope contains a lot more than the other.

• I promise you that you'll receive the amount in one of these envelopes every day for the next year.

Before you make your choice, one more thing:

I will start by giving you envelope A, and I'll give you that amount every day for the first month.

Then you have a choice:

Would you like to switch to envelope B for the second month? After the second month it will always be up to you to choose which envelope you receive each day.

The risk:

The risk in the second month is significant. Envelope B might contain much less than envelope A. If you switch to envelope B for a month, you could be losing a lot.

The reward:

What you gain from switching for one month is information: you will know the amount in each envelope, and you can then make a fully informed decision, and choose the better envelope every day for the rest of the year.

Here's the thing:

Testing your contribution forms carries a risk: you might test a change that reduces your total contributions.

But it also carries a potential reward: you might test a change that shows you how to increase your contributions.

Even better, the choices you have are not as opaque and absolute as envelopes A and B.

• You can use what you already know to design changes that actually have a good chance of working.

• It's not all or nothing. You can test on a small subset of donations and still get a lot of valuable information.

All the best,
A.

Shorter forms, more contributions

If you're looking for an easy way to increase your online contributions, take a closer look at your contribution forms.

A few studies, like this one, indicate that the more fields you have on a form, the more likely your donor is to give up before completing it.

So if you're looking for a quick fix, try making your forms shorter.

• Do you really have to collect a full billing address for every contribution? That can add five or more fields to your form. And most credit card processors don't require it.

• Are you offering donors the option to cover an additional percentage for the processing fee? Ask yourself if that extra consideration, and the impact it may be having on form abandonment, is really worth the extra 1.5%.

• Questions about their interests, how they heard about you, and mailings they'd like to receive, all add to the mental load of completing the form. If these people are just trying to give you money, is it worth it to slow them down with these questions?

Here's the thing:

Just like anything else, it's not always "that simple."

I'm always going to encourage you to find a way to test your improvements and measure their impact.

And if you'd like some more insight into cases where a longer forms actually increase conversion rates (and some of them are pretty surprising) you'll probably enjoy this article from digital marketing firm Venture Harbor.

But if you’re really just looking for a quick fix based on a good rule of thumb, just make your forms shorter.

While you're at it, make a note somewhere of the date that you made this change. Later when you're more interested in the value of good measurements, you can at least go back and compare your online contribution results before and after the change.

All the best,
A.

Your own documentation

Online documentation is a wonderful thing, not least because it's free and easily accessible.

But it's no substitute for the documentation that you can keep for yourself and your team regarding your own way of doing things.

Here are a few signs you might benefit from a little more attention to your internal systems documentation:

• You find yourself explaining the same workflow separately to multiple team members.

• You or another team member knows roughly that "we've done this kind of thing before" but can't remember just how it's done - or can't understand why it's not working the same way this time as it did last time.

• You need another call with your coach or training expert to walk you through it "one more time."

Sound familiar?

Developing a full-blown documentation system from the start can be a daunting task, though it's possible. There are some pretty cool wiki-like systems that you can install and host on your website and make them private to your team.

But it can also be as simple as starting right now, with a single Google doc. Share that with your team, and update it from time to time. You may start to see a structure emerging, at which point you can divide that into separate documents, organized into folders, however you like.

As your documentation grows, you'll need to put some more thought into how to organize it and keep it up to date.

But starting now with something simple will get you on your way.

Here's the thing:

Yes, you should read the online docs for your systems, and consult them as needed so you can master the features.

But those online guides are not streamlined for you.

They don't have a memory for how you've configured your system, or how you've decided to use its features.

Creating your own docs for your team -- even if that team is only yourself - is a valuable step in improving efficiency, effectiveness, user confidence, and consistency.

And isn’t that part of the reason you wanted a well organized CRM system in the first place?

All the best,
A.

Getting bulk data into CiviCRM

CiviCRM’s features for manual data entry are obvious: direct entry through the back office area, standard data collection on contribution pages and event registrations, and custom configured forms using profiles or Form Builder.

But bulk data is different. A recent client inquiry reminds me that there's more than one way to get large amounts of data into CiviCRM.

When we talk about getting large amounts of data into CiviCRM, we’re usually talking about one of three things: imports, integrations, and migrations.

1. Imports

Now and then you might get some data in a spreadsheet that you'd like to import into your existing system. CiviCRM offers some standard features for CSV imports of contacts, contributions, and memberships, and with a little patience you can make it work.

But you have to think carefully about what you're importing, the process can be a little tedious. And you may run into server timeout issues with larger data sets; depending on your site and server configuration, those issues might show up with 100 rows or with 5,000 rows.

Still, the documentation is pretty good, and it's a good place to start.

If you're looking to solve some of the problems mentioned above, you can have developer work on a more streamlined process. The newly approved extension Advanced Import offers a pretty good framework for making that development work a lot easier.

The CiviCRM Extensions Directory also lists some other great extensions that can, in the right hands, make frequent imports much easier.

2. Integrations

You might instead be looking to synchronize data from some external system into CiviCRM, on a daily basis, or in real time.

Some good integrations already exist for certain systems, including MailChimp and QuickBooks.

For other external systems, there might already be an integration that does exactly what you need. Check the CiviCRM Extensions Directory to find out.

Or talk to a developer about building a custom integration that suits your needs. This can make for a huge time saver for your staff.

3. Migrations

If you're moving to CiviCRM from some other CRM system, you'll want to bring in all the relevant data from your legacy system. This is undoubtedly the most complex and difficult of the three topics mentioned here.

You'll almost certainly want to hire a specialist for this. Specialized data manipulation tools such as Pentaho will make the whole thing much easier, assuming you're familiar with the tool itself.

Jon Goldberg of Megaphone Tech has done a great job sharing his insights on migrations from Raiser's Edge. If you're moving from another CRM, you may find some information online from folks who have managed such a migration.

Either way, this is a large project that involves extracting the data from the legacy system, and significant work cleaning that data and mapping it to the appropriate data entities in CiviCRM.

I recommend hiring an experienced pro to do the heavy lifting on this one. And of course, that experienced pro will be relying on your frequent input, because this is not a one-size-fits-all operation.

Here's the thing:

Getting bulk data into CiviCRM could mean a lot of different things, some of them fairly easy, others very complicated.

For more frequent tasks, the big win is usually in making it as easy as possible.

For one time operations like a migration, the win lies in good planning, and careful testing to make sure everything is done right the first time.

All the best,
A.

New CiviCRM extensions worth trying

CiviCRM is great right out of the box, and it keeps improving with every release.

Something else that keeps improving: the long and growing list of community provided extensions.

Here's a quick selection of three cool new extensions that have been reviewed and approved by the community in the past couple of months:

Membership Renewal Link:

Makes it easy to provide a link to the appropriate membership renewal form for any contact.

• Member calls you asking about where to renew? You can get the link easily from the CiviCRM membership record and then deliver that link by email, text, chat, etc.

• Sending out membership reminders en masse? You can Include a token in the mailing that will automatically embed the correct link in each recipient's email message.

Better Message Templates:

CiviCRM makes it pretty easy to edit the Message Tempolates that are used for delivering donation receipts, membership reminders, event registrations, etc.

What's sometimes not-so-easy is navigating the complex if/then logic in the template code, previewing your changes, and keeping track of how your changes differ from the original template provided in CiviCRM.

This extension aims to make all of that easier. It provides an advanced template editor that helps to simplify the template code; template previews; and a "view differences" mode to quickly highlight changes.

Advanced Import:

Importing contacts, contributions, and other types of data, has been a standard feature in CiviCRM for a long time. Though this feature is well used and well tested, it can sometimes be tedious, especially if you're in a position to repeat a similar import on a regular basis — e.g. weekly or monthly.

This extension provides a large number of features to streamline that process, including:

• Pre-configuration of various import workflows;

• Scheduling imports that retrieve data from a specified remote or on-disk location; and

• Importing from sources other than the classic CSV format, such as Microsoft Excel and others.

It comes out of the box with several useful pre-set import schemes, and provides a framework upon which a developer can create customized import schemes that work specifically for your needs (and save a lot of effort in the process.)

There's always more to find:

The CiviCRM community is continually creating and sharing new and innovative extensions to make life easier by providing specific features for your site that maybe not everyone needs.

Keeping up with what's out there is to your advantage.

It's worth checking the CiviCRM Extensions Directory now and then to see what might be there waiting for you.

All the best,
A.

Painting the Golden Gate

How often do you think they paint the Golden Gate Bridge?

The answer is: They're always painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Because something on the bridge always needs painting.

Somewhere along the way, the agency that manages the bridge decided to make the repainting an ongoing continuous process.

It's probably not the only way to do it. I'm sure there are some other large bridges with a different plan.

But I see advantages here, which I think also apply to your open-source CRM:

• Thinking of maintenance as a continual process means you always have staff who are responsible for ensuring it happens.

• A continual process isn't likely to be overlooked, put off, or forced to compete with other budget priorities.

Here’s the thing:

One of the realities of owning an open-source system is that it must be maintained. Putting off maintenance is a recipe for disaster.

Smart organizations make a point of budgetting the time and/or finances for regular and routine maintenance.

Do it yourself, or hire outside help, but make system maintenance a regular concern.

You don’t want your systems collapsing into the abyss.

All the best,
A.

Better measurement for improved membership renewals

Your membership renewal campaigns are a major component of your membership growth strategy.

What steps can you take to make membership renewal easier?

I read a nice little article today about an organization that's seen measurable improvements with a few simple changes to their renewal process.

The full story is here, but I want to highlight a few points:

1. Members can forget renewal.

In a recent survey, 34 percent of associations reported that members did not renew because they forgot.

It's not that these members didn't want to renew — they just let it slide.

How effective are your reminders? Are members reading them? How many reminders do they need before they renew? How many reminders is to many? Are you measuring any of this, or just going by feel?

2. Measuring for easier of renewal

This organization put in some careful effort, including testing, to find ways to make renewals easier. Seems like it worked:

“Since implementation, we’ve gotten fewer members calling the member services team with questions about where to find certain items on the forms,” Rayner said. “If they’re finding it easier, then we’ve definitely made some good improvements.”

Measuring the number and type of member support requests is one way to gauge such things.

What are you measuring now? What could you measure fairly easily that would tell you more about where to improve?

3. Reminders need to stand out, and be received well

This organization makes a point of asking members how they like to receive timely information. As renewal time approaches, they send reminders by the member's preferred channel (direct mail or email), but then switch to sending on both channels.

They've also measured member feedback to get a sense of how many reminders is too many. So they send fewer, and remembers are more likely to be acted upon.

Here's the thing:

You probably know already that membership renewal is critical. But it can take a lot of effort to get it right.

Knowing where to place your effort allows you to get better results with fewer headaches.

That knowledge can be hard to come by, but there are surely measurements you can put in place to help make smart decisions.

All the best,
A.

Flight plan

If you're piloting an airplane and a bird strike knocks out both of your engines, you don't have a lot of time to think and plan.

You do the best you can, and you hope for a good outcome. You might even have to put her down in the Hudson.

But the possibility of an emergency situation does not obviate the need for good flight plan.

You think carefully about the equipment you have available, your team, the people who are counting on you, flight regulations, headwinds, tailwinds, weather forecasts, fuel consumption — and most of all, where you're going and how you're going to get there.

Surprises will happen along the way. Most plans require some alteration once the journey has begun.

But the possibility of surprises is not a reason to avoid planning. On the contrary, it's a darn good reason to plan even more carefully.

All the best,
A.

Cargo cults, and connecting tools to outcomes

Have you heard the term cargo cult?

The story, usually quite oversimplified, goes like this:

Certain indigenous people in the South Pacific islands, having once experienced the sudden arrival of thousands of World War II combatants and their seemingly endless supplies of food and manufactured goods — followed by their sudden departure at the end of the war — seemed very interested in regaining access to that wealth.

Not fully understanding who these visitors were, where their wealth came from, or why they had left, some began doing what they could to mimic the visitors’ actions, apparently hoping that such actions would cause the the cargo deliveries to resume:

Building mock radios from coconuts and straw, lighting torches along the abandoned airstrips, marching in drill formation with mock wooden rifles.

From their limited experience, it seemed reasonable that doing all these things should once again cause large quantities of luxurious goods and supplies to be brought to their island.

It had worked for the soldiers and sailors, why shouldn't it work for them?

Not entirely unreasonable:

The disconnect here may be obvious to you and me, but we've probably all done something similar.

You may know someone who's seen others play the stock market successfully and decided that they too should start making investments. It doesn't always turn out like they hoped.

I've had clients and prospective clients try the same approach with CRM systems:

If we're going to be a real organization, don't we need a real professional CRM package? Big successful organization X uses fancy CRM system Y — shouldn't we use that too?

Two things might be connected, but not necessarily in the way you think. Correlation does not equal causation.

Here's the thing:

Yes, if you're going to run a successful organization, you do need some system for managing relationships with your people.

But the system itself will not be the cause of your success.

It will be the people, and the relationships, and your ability to use whatever tools and resources you have available to mobilize those people toward specific goals that further your mission.

Tools matter. But what matters more is understanding how those tools will actually support your measurable business and mission goals.

What goals are you aiming for?

All the best,
A.

Satisficing

Everyone would love to have a perfect plan — to know exactly what's going to happen, and to have the steps in place to deal with it.

Many people would be quite happy to put off decisive action until all the uncertainty can be removed.

In the context of a hobby, this kind of delay might be acceptable. Want to restore your grandpa's 1946 Cadillac? Take all the time you need to make a plan.

But when it's time to take action for your organization, you don't have that luxury.

In a 1985 study of how firefighter commanders manage high-stakes decisions under pressure, author Gary Klein expected that the commander would think of two or more possibilities, weigh the pros and cons of each, and then pick the best option.

What he found instead was that they instinctively, and invariably, relied on experience to go with the first reasonable plan that came to mind.

This is “satisficing:” The plan must satisfy minimum set of requirements, and it must suffice. It need not be perfect or even the best. But it must be executed soon.

Here's the thing:

Your decisions are probably somewhere in between. They’re rarely as high-stakes and urgent as a house fire, and almost never as relaxed as a hobby.

Time is always a limited resource. Endlessly debating the perfect plan is not really an option.

But satisficing is. Knowing that no plan can ever be perfect, you can devise a strategy that has a reasonable expectation of success.

Yes, you should expect to learn something and make adjustments along the way. But at some point, even before all the uncertainty is removed, it will be time to act.

All the best,
A.

Owning vs. renting

Terms like “the American Dream” get tossed around a lot when it comes to owning one's own home.

But not everybody wants to own a home. Or a car. Or business equipment. Or software.

Plenty of people rent. There's nothing wrong with that.

Obviously, overall cost is a factor in making this decision.

But a more important consideration can be flexibility — the control you have over these assets.

Do you want to paint your kitchen bright orange, or install heated flooring in your master bath?

Do you want to have the freedom to host as many guests as you like, or own unusual pets, or install beautiful landscaping features?

Do you want the flexibility to decide these things for yourself later, as and when the need arises?

If you want that, then you probably want to own.

Yes, ownership comes with more responsibility. But it also comes with a lot more freedom.

When you're selecting a CRM system, consider your priorities. Do you need flexibility and freedom? Then you probably want to own your system.

Open-source tools let you do that.

All the best,
A.

The cost of doing business

For any community-driven organization, maintaining a CRM system is a minimum requirement.

It doesn't have to be fancy or expensive, and you can decide how you want to do it.

You can do it in Excel. You can build your own customized in-house system. You can even do it on sticky notes if you really believe that will meet your needs.

But the time and effort you spend managing this system is a required budget item, one way or another.

In a community-driven organization, your people are your primary resource. It’s the relationships that matter.

And like anything, relationships that are not well maintained will not last for very long.

All the best,
A.

Distinguishing metrics from strategy

Do you feel like you have the information you need to make smart decisions for your organization?

Do you feel like maybe you have too much information? As in, more information than you can use? As in, so much information that it's just overwhelming?

If that's how you feel, you're not alone. Not according to this study released by Oracle last month.

Tons of business leaders are reporting that data-driven decision making isn't a slam dunk win for them — it's just a headache they wish they could avoid.

70% of them said they wish they had a robot to make all their decisions for them. Others said that there's so much data to consider that they've gone back to just trusting their gut.

It all sounds pretty bleak to me.

But here's the thing:

Metrics by themselves are easily overwhelming.

Their meaning and value only appear in the context of strategy.

What's your goal? What's your strategy to achieve it?

Find the metrics that matter in that strategy.

The rest is, for now, just noise. You can look it over later when you're trying to identify your next big goal.

And there will always be one of those.

All the best,
A.

Your helicopter’s facing the wrong way

I've had leadership reject my battle plans because the helicopter was facing the wrong way in the stock photo in my PowerPoint deck.

— Retired Navy SEAL Andy Stumpf* explaining some of the frustrations of trying to get leadership on board with good ideas

Whatever your organization's mission or structure, when it comes time to get things done you're going to have to get buy-in from other people.

Maybe it's your ED or membership director; maybe it's your board; maybe it's your department heads. Maybe it's just the summer intern or a couple of volunteers at an event.

We want to believe that all decisions are based on evaluating each idea on its merits, or on a common commitment to mission and objectives. But people are complicated.

Before they can really buy into your plans, they want to believe that you're also on board with the things that really matter to them.

Sometimes their concerns can seem petty, or asinine, or irrelevant.

But if you need these people in your plan, the only way to reach your goal is to take a step back and do what it takes to show that you share their concerns.

Here’s the thing:

Andy Stumpf says, “In the end, I was selling myself.” It’s about building trust by demonstrating shared concern.

It's the same thing that you're probably already doing for your donors and potential members: demonstrate that you care about their priorities.

If you can do that, they'll be a lot more ready to work with you to achieve the goals that really matter.

All the best,
A.

* I’ve paraphrased Stumpf’s comment for brevity and context. You can hear his actual comment on Jocko Wilink’s podcast, discussing the importance of “mental Judo” and dealing with the political and bureaucratic reality of organizations, right about here: https://youtu.be/uUC8Heiae9I?t=4526

Success

Success is defined by reaching goals. If you're not setting goals, or you're not measuring whether you've met them, you can't say you've been successful.

And if you are setting goals, and reaching them, take a moment to celebrate. Gold star for you.

Now on to the next one.

All the best,
A.

Spooky duplicates in CiviCRM

The ghost story goes like this:

1. Duplicate records are not usually a major headache on your site, but one day you find a collection of dozens of duplicates contacts that contain no data, except an identical email address.

2. Baffled, you merge all those duplicates and double-check to be sure they're all taken care of.

3. A week later, you find another dozen duplicate contacts in the same situation: they all have no data except an identical email address.

4. Rinse and repeat. No matter how often you merge them, they keep coming back.

What the heck is going on?!

Nope, your site is not haunted. There are no ghosts.

This frustrating and mysterious behavior gets reported now and then, in a few different places in the CiviCRM community. You can find it in the CiviCRM Stack Exchange, in the public issue queue, in the MatterMost chat logs.

The explanation is not simple, but I will simplify:

The linkage between your CiviCRM contacts and your CMS users is corrupted and needs repair.

It may not affect all your users, but it's clearly affecting some of them. And every time those users log in, CiviCRM creates a duplicate record using only their email address.

This is one of the dozens of common issues and I scan for in my CiviCRM Diagnostic Scan. I've seen it come up on several sites, one just recently.

The fix is also hard to describe, but pretty simple from a technical viewpoint: We just need to identify the users that have this problem, and repair the link to their CiviCRM contact.

No ghosts. No exorcism.

Everything happens for a reason. And once we find the reason, the fix reveals itself.

All the best,
A.

Nothing’s faster than paper

Printed reports and paper forms are amazing.

• They're super quick to read. It's right there in your hand!

• They're amazingly flexible. You can take note of anything even remotely relevant with just a pen!

• They're easy to share. Just hand it to somebody!

No complicated searching, no rigid validation errors, no complex permissioning scheme. It's paper!

Of course — in real life — speed, simplicity, and ease of access aren't the only priorities.

At some point, you'll have to make a trade-off. Nothing is perfect for everything all the time.

All the best,
A.

Duty to protect

In the business services world, where every client knows they have a bottom-line profit motive, providers may be able to support the success of their clients by just doing what they're told. Maybe.

But in the world of CiviCRM, that's not enough. In this world:

• Organizations are very often not run by business-minded folk;

• The organization itself does not exist to turn a profit;

• The definition of success for the organization is often hazy.

In such a world, providers who are dedicated to the success of their clients cannot afford to simply do what they're told.

Building features, conducting trainings, custom development, configuration, etc., all need to be tied to actual success metrics based on the mission and business goals of the organization.

And it's the provider’s duty to identify those measurable goals before diving in on billable work.

Anything less is a disservice.

All the best,
A.

Jammed up with choices

Having more options doesn’t always make life easier. It often makes decisions harder.

Maybe you’ve heard of this commonly cited study on decision-making in the face of many options:

In a popular local grocery store, researchers set up a tasting table offering samples of jam: at certain times the table offered a selection of 24 different jams, and at other times only six different jams. The researchers reported that shoppers were about 10 times more likely to purchase from the table with only six options in comparison to the table with 24 options.

Their report presents several theories, but one often cited is that decisions become harder as more options are available; as a result, people are more likely to avoid making any decision at all.

Here's the thing:

Obviously your organization is not in the position to simpy do nothing at all. Decisions must be made.

It's natural to think, "My goodness look at all these different jams! How can I possibly know which one is the best?"

But you can make your life easier by focusing on two simple points:

1. I need jam.

2. I have a limited amount of time and money to make this purchase and leave the store.

With that in mind, you can indeed just grab the first jam that meets your needs and fits your available resources (time and money), and be done.

When you've got a decision to make, you can choose focus on the many choices available, or you can focus on your goals and avaiable resources, and get the thing done.

Your choice.

All the best,
A.

No time to stop for gas.

You're probably not so hectic that you run out of gas because you didn't have time to stop on the way to work. Like the lady I stopped to help on the side of the road today.

But I have spoken with several clients lately who seem so busy with the day-to-day activity of running their organization that they don't take time to think about the opportunities that they're missing.

The everyday work of managing a CRM system is — hopefully — part of your ongoing process to improve your systems, improve your relationships with your constituents, and further the mission of your organization.

As Seth Godin says, you don't get points for being busy.

But you do get a lot of points for planning carefully, setting smart goals, and making the world a better place.

All the best,
A.