Why Do Members Text Me Instead of Checking the Website?

Why do members text me instead of checking the website?

Because asking a person is easier than hunting through a website, and it always will be.

That's the whole answer. It isn't that your members are lazy and it isn't that your website is bad. It's that at 9:40 at night, on a phone, tired, a human being would rather text somebody who knows than go digging. You'd do it too. I do it too.

The trouble is that you're the somebody. So they text you, usually during dinner.

The five questions you answer five hundred times

If you're an association secretary, or you're married to one, or you've been to a horse show ever, you already know what these are:

• When are entries due

• Is my membership current

• What time does it start

• Where's the show bill

• Do y'all take a credit card

You've answered those a few hundred times this year. And here's the part that'll get you. Every one of those answers is already ON the website.

Try this. The thirty second test.

Pull up your association's site the way a member actually would. On your phone. At night. Tired. Not on the office computer where you know exactly where everything lives.

Now take whatever question you answered the most this month and try to find that answer in under thirty seconds.

If you can't, congratulations, you just felt their pain. Misguided as it is.

Most secretaries I've handed this test to find the answer eventually. That's the problem. "Eventually" is where people quit and reach for their phone.

So whose fault is it?

Nobody's, honestly.

Association websites grow one show at a time. Somebody adds a page for the spring show, then a PDF for the entry form, then a news item with the updated deadline, then next year the deadline changes and the news item stays up. Nothing is wrong. There's just three places a person could reasonably look, and the one they pick is the wrong one.

That's not neglect. That's what happens to every site that's actually being used.

What actually fixes it

Two things, and the first one is free.

Put the answers where people look, not where they belong. The entry deadline should be on the show page AND on the home page during entry season, even though that's redundant and offends your sense of order. Redundancy beats elegance when somebody's tired.

Make the site answerable, not just readable. This is the newer one. People increasingly don't want to browse at all. They want to ask a question and get an answer, the way they'd ask you.

What about an assistant on the website?

This is what we built SiteGuide for.

It's an assistant that sits in the corner of your website. A member asks it a question in plain language, the way they'd text you, and it answers using only your association's own website content. Only yours. It won't invent an entry deadline, because it doesn't know anything except what you put on your site.

There's a live one on our own site. Go to bigskyinternetdesign.com, look in the bottom corner, and poke it. Ask it something ornery. That's the actual product, not a video of one.

Or check out PCCHA, Stock Horse of Texas or Indiana Quarter Horse Racing to see some in action!

It runs from $697 a year. Worth knowing: more than one association has had a sponsor cover the whole cost, which turns it into a member benefit that costs the association nothing. If sponsor money is tight where you are, that's a conversation worth having, because sponsors tend to like funding things members actually touch.

And if you'd rather just fix your site's navigation and skip all this, do that. It's free and it works. I'd rather tell you that than sell you something you don't need.

Frequently asked questions

Isn't an assistant on the website going to make things up?

That's the usual worry and it's a fair one. SiteGuide only reads your website. If the answer isn't on your site, it says so instead of guessing.

What if our website content is out of date?

Then fix that first. An assistant reading stale information will confidently give members stale answers. This is the one real prerequisite.

How much work is it for the secretary?

None ongoing. We handle setup, and it reads your site as it already exists. There's nothing to maintain and no answers to write.

We're a small association. Is this overkill?

Maybe. If your secretary fields a handful of questions a month, fix your navigation and save the money. If she's answering the same five questions every single day of entry season, that's a different math problem.

Can a sponsor really pay for it?

Yes, and several have. It's a visible member benefit, which makes it easier to attach a sponsor's name to than most things an association buys.

Let's talk

If your secretary is answering the same questions at dinner every night, call me at 979-217-1544 or reach out through our contact page. Sometimes the fix is a $697 assistant and sometimes it's moving one line of text to the home page. I'll tell you which one it is.

AI can fake a lot. But it can't tell your story.

Tom Bruch has built websites since 1998 and is the owner of Big Sky Internet Design.