On Jan 19, 2010, at 7:28 PM, J. Moen wrote: > > The use of the word customer has begun to move away from the former financial > definition to refer to the consumer of services from a service provider. The > point is that any service provider, including volunteers in non-profit > activities, can improve by focusing on "customer" satisfaction as an > objective. All service providers, whether they charge or not, whether they > try to make money or not, should understand who their "customers" are, what > their customers' needs are and do their best to satisfy those needs. > > For example, if you have a Ham club, then the officers should think of their > members as "customers" and one of the goals should be to understand those > customers. > > I think Ed's reference to the EmComm agencies as "customers" shows an > enlightened way of thinking about the people they are trying to serve. I > don't think anyone is going to get confused and think that the EmComm Hams > are trying to make money from their volunteer efforts. > > Jim - K6JM >
Jim, having talked to a couple of attorneys about this - no ham club should EVER build a relationship of customer/provider with their members or other agencies. Once that relationship is implied and/or worse, documented, you open yourself up to lawsuits by psycho hams who think their membership dues are "subscription fees", and the day a repeater goes down, they want a "refund". We've seen that request happen. We refunded their dues. But... It's far simpler to say, "no guarantee of service or warranty expressed or implied" in all documentation. The words "customer" and "service" imply a contract. If the officers of your LLC or however you handle the business side of your ham club use those words, they MIGHT be creating a verbal contract. The "touchy feely" niceness of the words, isn't worth the headache they can cause you in court later on. Don't do it. -- Nate Duehr n...@natetech.com facebook.com/denverpilot twitter.com/denverpilot
