As some of you may know, Southside Animal Shelter is in the midst of strategic planning and other activities to refurbish and renew the shelter. Operating at our current site since 1994, we’ve have been able to rescue, rehabilitate and re-home tens of thousands of at-risk dogs and cats and we want to make sure we can keep operating for the next thirty years. To help us get started and focus our efforts, we deployed a customer survey to our previous adopters. The results are in and we wanted to say thank you and share a few of the highlights with you.
You Like Us, You Really Like Us!
While there are, of course, things we need to work on, we are so thankful that you recognize the commitment and effort of the entire Southside staff and our volunteers. In fact, most of you told us:
- You are proud to be a Southside adopter
- You believe the staff is doing wonderful work
- Southside is well-run and efficient
- Southside is making a difference.
We Rank Up With National Brands
Additionally, there is a score that many international brands use to tell them how they are doing with their customers, net promoter score. For our adopters, we were delighted to find that our score, 74, puts Southside Animal Shelter up with some of the worldwide leading brands.
We’re Glad You Love Us, But Know We Can Do Even Better
Although many of you don’t think there is anything we can do better, we also appreciate those of you who did offer a few suggestions. We agree that our facilities and grounds could use some refurbishing and renewal. If you visit us in the upcoming months, you’ll see that some of it has already started and as we raise the necessary funds and expand our volunteer base, we hope we’ll be able to continue the work. We are also looking at what is needed for our kennels, infirmary, intake and other areas to ensure we are meeting shelter best practices and offering the best environments for our animals, our adopters as well as our staff and volunteers.
A few of you also suggested improvements around the adoption process that we believe you’ll start to see those as we implement additional training, raise funds to support some additional technology needs as well as expand our volunteer base.
Adoption Fees Are Key To Southside Revenue
Given that Southside is more than 50% dependent upon adoption fees to fund its activities, we were so thankful that our adopters recognize this and most think our rates are fair. There were a few of you that did express some concern regarding rates and it is something we are looking at. It is important to point out that Southside Animal Shelter is unique in how dependent we are on adoption fees to fund the shelter therefore we have less flexibility with offering promotional rates or “discounts” on our adoptions rates. As we continue our efforts to expand our donors, identify additional grants that are appropriate for Southside and secure corporate sponsors and partners, we hope we can be more flexible with fees in the future.
You Want To Hear From Us
Finally, many of you told us what we already knew. You like hearing about us on Facebook, via email and on our website. You’ll see that we’re making some improvements to our digital communications (starting with a new website) to make sure we can get you the information you need when you need it.
Our Community Is You
We already knew how important our adopters are and this survey reinforced that. The supportive community that helps us to raise funds and find great forever homes for our dogs and cats starts with you, our past adopters. You help us share our message to your friends, families and co-workers, raise funds, reach out into the community and support our dogs and cats.
Thanks For Sharing Your Joy
Sharing your joy with us has certainly brought joy to Rosie and the entire staff of Southside Animal Shelter. Please know we are listening. We take your supportive words and helpful input very seriously and hope over the next few months you’ll keep seeing all that you love about Southside Animal Shelter while also seeing our work to keep improving.