Summary Analysis: AACRAO Member Satisfaction Survey

Exceeding Expectations

After careful  review of the results of the most recent AACRAO Membership Survey, and a longitudinal review of the Member Satisfaction Surveys for 2002, 2004, 2007 and 2009, it would appear that AACRAO is doing a great job.   Overall, the programming, services and higher education advocacy provided by AACRAO are meeting or exceeding the expectation of those members who responded.

Monitor Threshold Expectations

Although in most categories performance was evaluated significantly higher than member expectations, there were a few categories in which member expectations were right in line with performance:

• FERPA information/workshops,
• Government relations,
• Online versions of professional development seminars,
• Webinars, and
• General customer services.

Even though the membership did not indicate dissatisfaction with AACRAO’s performance, we will continue to closely monitor performance in those categories.  

• We continue to offer a wide variety of sessions and workshops related to FERPA, and are currently reviewing FERPA-related information on the AACRAO website.
• Government relations experienced a significant transition with the departure of Barmak Nassirian, but Executive Director Mike Reilly, Associate Director Michelle Mott, and Assistant Director Quintina Conway are all now very engaged with legislative and government affairs activity – as well as compliance information.
• We recognize that many people have limited resources for travel, so we are looking closely at our online courses and webinars - both in terms of updates, and also at increasing our offerings.  We have been offering our webinars at no cost to our members.

Develop Programming and Services to improve Membership Satisfaction

The data shows three areas where AACRAO’s programming and services could improve to meet membership expectations:

• Guidelines, standards and research reports,
• The website, and
• Information/training - particularly related to compliance.

In each of those categories, AACRAO’s performance was still over 4 (out of 5), but there was a larger gap between performance and expectations of importance.  As a result, these categories of concern are being addressed through the Strategic Planning process.

• Wendy Kilgore was recently hired as the new Director of Research.
• Last month at the December Leadership Meeting in DC, chairs of the Program Committees and representatives of State and Regional associations participated in brain storming activities related to competencies and standards for our industry.  The National Office and a committee of the Board of Directors are working on this project. 
• You likely noted some major changes recently with the AACRAO website – one step in a process to update and enhance information available on the site.  Thanks to our new Director, Tim Rager, who is providing some great leadership in this area.  

Membership Response Rate

One final observation - and concern - is that the membership response rate on the survey was low. Although the response rate was also low in the earlier surveys, it was even lower with the last survey.  The low response rate is also being analyzed to see what can be done to increase the membership response rate.

Links to Results

• Click here for the results of the most recent Membership Satisfaction Survey.
• Click here for comparisons among the last several Membership Satisfaction Surveys.

Thank you for engaging in the member satisfaction survey process.