Creating a great experience through transparency

How do you get your nonprofit on board with increasing transparency and listening to donors? Well, you could take a lesson from the fast-food chain Domino’s. In fact, they recently invested in a digital billboard in the heart of New York’s Times Square to display customer feedback.




Over the past couple of years, Domino’s has made a huge push to get customers to give the pizza company feedback so it can improve its pizza and delivery service. Those efforts have paid off tremendously, says Gene Galindo, marketing director of 53 locations in Wilmington, N.C., and Charleston, S.C. “We want to know if there are issues, and social media gives us a chance to make things right. Domino’s is extremely transparent.”
The company’s 125-foot-wide Times Square billboard that broadcasted customer comments and their photos was active through Tuesday. The billboard supported its “Oh Yes We Did” campaign and showed off its ongoing efforts to improve to 500,000 passers-by.

Domino’s spokesman Chris Brandon says about 80% of the feedback on the billboard has been positive, and the other 20% has been “constructive.” People who posted feedback — positive or constructive — received an e-mail to let them know they made the billboard.

“We were already becoming known for placing high emphasis on customer feedback and the theme of accountability,” Brandon said. “People think [the billboard] is a cool customer experience.”

Social media has really opened the door for small and large businesses to connect and keep in touch with customers, and there is no reason that nonprofits can't join that wave of opportunity. Maybe we can't all invest in a billboard on Time Square, but we can certainly invest in having open and honest conversations with our constituents.

Take-away: Start experimenting with social media in your day to day activities. Where can you use social media to increase transparency and start having conversations online about the projects, fundraisers, and events that your organization has slated in its 2012 Program of Works!