Back to You, the Membership

Each year we conduct a membership satisfaction survey so you can give us direct feedback on what is important to you and how well we are delivering on those areas of importance. More than 1,500 of you responded to the survey this year. These survey results, which I outline below, will help guide us in improving our association and its service to you.

Member Satisfaction

Three-quarters of you reported overall satisfaction with AFCEA. While only one in a hundred were dissatisfied, 23 percent were neutral. The single factor most correlated with satisfaction was degree of involvement with an active chapter. This tells us that we need to improve communication and service delivery at the AFCEA International level as well as at the region/chapter level.

Nine out of 10 of you are likely to renew your membership and to recommend AFCEA to friends and business associates.

AFCEA Internet Technology Awareness

An area of growing importance to our ability to communicate effectively and deliver relevant services on a global basis is how well we leverage the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies on your behalf. Nearly half of you are familiar with AFCEA’s webinars. You are less aware of AFCEA podcasts, SIGNAL RSS feeds, the SIGNAL blog, and AFCEA on Facebook and LinkedIn. Three-quarters of you are unaware of AFCEA’s presence and services in Second Life.

This is a real issue for us, because we know how important these technologies are as we go forward to deliver the information and services you need. That tells us that we need to do a better job of communicating our capabilities and how to use them.

This also ties to satisfaction with our AFCEA Web site (www.afcea.org). Results here mirrored overall satisfaction exactly, with 75 percent satisfied. We will engage focus groups to improve our site.

Membership Benefits
You gave us mixed grades on membership benefits and service offerings. The ratings were good, but we know we can do better. You gave your best marks to SIGNAL Magazine and scholarship programs. You gave your lowest marks to discounted goods and services as well as career services. We have taken your feedback to heart and have developed a plan to increase member satisfaction, with those areas where we scored lowest having the highest priority.

Moving Forward
A more detailed report on the survey can be found on the AFCEA portal, accessible through our Web site. We have begun to take action on your feedback, and we will report to you again in June with our results through mid-year. A final report will be rendered in December, which will be in the same time frame as we conduct the next survey.

In the meantime, please provide additional feedback or comments on the survey results by e-mail to ceo@ afcea.org. In particular, I welcome any comments you have on how we can communicate with you better. You know how important that is—we can offer the best services possible, but it will not connect with many of you if we do not communicate them effectively.

Thank you for your ongoing support. We intend to prove our worthiness of it.