Sometimes value is not just measured in financial terms. A savings of time, energy, effort, and frustration is often more valuable to a busy staff.
And most associations know what we mean when we talk about “busy.” Events, board meetings, online education, membership renewals, recruitment – some staff wear many hats and that is certainly the case at BOMA of Dallas.
Building Owners and Managers Association of Dallas' experience
At the Building Owners and Managers Association of Dallas frustration levels were running high, primarily because their AMS was falling short. They couldn’t run renewals, the accounting system didn’t connect to the member data, their AMS contact had disappeared into thin air, and they were ready to throw in the towel and start all over with a new AMS.
Alyssa Trongaard, education and events manager at BOMA of Dallas, said, “Support from our AMS vendor was the main problem. It took them a long time to get anything done. We felt we were not high on their priority list. We’d have to tell them things multiple times and, still, the problems wouldn’t get fixed.”
“While we know that some of our challenges were probably our fault,” said Teresa Foster, executive director, “it was clear this AMS was not working for us. We were ready to make the switch, even though the thought of implementing a new AMS seemed an insurmountable challenge when weighed with all we had to do to keep the organization running.”
The help of strategic assessment
enSYNC was called in at this point for a strategic assessment to help them determine where they were spending their time and what they really needed their system to do. The assessment evaluated some of their common processes and how the AMS failed to assist them in managing those functions. We talked about what they needed an AMS to do, in order to determine the best recommendation for the organization.
The results
Today, BOMA of Dallas has done a complete 180 on the relationship with their AMS provider. And it all happened because of the part played by enSYNC in listening to BOMA’s needs, evaluating their options, running interference with the AMS provider, and getting the provider’s recommendations for change back to BOMA.
“They’re my new BFF,” said Alyssa of their AMS vendor. “They’re accessible to me. We got things working right as a result of the relationship that enSYNC fostered on our behalf.”
“We knew that like many small associations, money was an issue,” said Mark Jones, CAE, president of enSYNC. “It’s expensive to change systems and we knew with BOMA’s operation that the system they had in place should be an adequate solution for them. We worked with their vendor, explained the organization’s operations and their frustrations, and got their relationship and software back on a solid footing.” All of it was done without having to change out to a new system.
Said Teresa, “I see enSYNC as a partner. They are someone you can rely on to make a recommendation in the best interest of the organization.”
