W&A appreciates and respects the role association management companies play in providing full headquarters support or targeted services to associations. To help these companies and their association clients enhance working relationships and provide increased value to clients’ members, we offer the following:
AMC-Client Satisfaction Assessments and Mediation
It is critical for AMC executives to have a solid understanding of how their clients perceive the value, efficacy, and efficiency of service delivery. This includes periodic assessments of value and success measures to identify gaps in understanding and achieve alignment, performance against success measures, and perceptions of the client service team. Having this understanding can be critical in identifying improvement opportunities leading to more satisfied clients, higher retention levels, and testimonials critical in attracting new clients.
W&A, through administration of surveys and interviews with client member leaders, can provide a candid assessment of client perceptions along multiple dimensions, with corresponding recommendations for structural, staffing, and process improvements to address identified concerns. The goal is always to optimize the working relationship between an association and its AMC partner – creating enduring value and success for all parties in the association-AMC relationship.
Third-Party CEO/Executive Director Relationship Support
Increasingly, clients of association management companies are separately contracting an Executive Director, not employed by the company, to team in providing headquarters support. Although this dynamic can work well, in some cases the relationship between the AMC and Executive Director can be dicey. Mr. Westman, based on his own experiences as a third-party CEO, can provide coaching and best practice guidance to all parties towards building and sustaining a productive and collegial working relationship.
Client Value-Added Consulting Services
We work as adjunct experts to your staff in meeting key client needs that often require outside expertise. You can access and re-sell high-value services to clients with the confidence that comes from a trusted partner. Example issues we can effectively address include:
- Governance structure/operations review and enhancement
- Strategic plan development
- Education program assessment and design
W&A will serve as your preferred partner, including discounted professional fees unavailable to associations not served by the AMC.
Management Value and Structure Assessments
As associations grow in size and complexity their needs change. W&A can offer the perspective of working for and with numerous AMC clients to assess the structure of the team assigned to a client, determine if it is delivering maximum ROI for the association, and identify alternatives for consideration.
AMC Search Services
W&A has assisted several associations identify the “right” AMC to meet their current and future needs. This includes utilizing our proprietary database to narrow down choices of AMCs to those best-positioned to be a match for an association. We subsequently facilitate a process to:
- Develop a request-for-proposal
- Facilitate remote interviews with semi-finalist AMCs – typically between three and five
- Facilitate remote or in-person interviews with finalist companies – typically two or three
- Facilitate ultimate selection of the preferred AMC.
Along the way, we provide coaching, recommendations, and support as needed to help assure the “best” match is achieved. We can also provide assistance in assuring the transition process to an AMC goes as smoothly as possible.