Dear "First Name Not Given"

I recently signed up for an organization's online newsletter: simple enough input form and the acknowledgment screen was fine. I even puttered over to their programs area to look around after registering. Then, two days later (!), I received my welcome e-mail message that began with this salutation:

"Dear First name not given,"

Uh-oh.

Now, I've received quite a few "Dear Friend," messages from organizations, but this one was the best... or worst. Someone at this organization obviously needs to examine their response devices. This made me wonder how many organizations check these autoresponders or devices. Setting up automatic acknowledgments should be standard knowledge, but a look into my last two weeks worth of e-mails turned up nine messages from organizations that started with "Dear Friend," and one "Dear first name not given".

Why is this important? Simply put, you bought, leased, or developed the tool to maximize a constituent relationship and if you can't be on a first name basis with your constituents, how do you expect to grow an online relationship? The big and medium-sized CRM services provide standard templates for registration and donation processes. This should be one of the first things you customize in your CRM tool! Your capture forms most likely have a first and last name field, that information should be right in the autoresponder. I wouldn't drop it in a subject line (too spam-y), but you should definitely have it at the start of any welcome or appeal message. In fact, you might add the date they joined, the amount of their last donation, and target an interest or two with specific content or graphics.

Get personal and dig in, your constituents will notice and you'll maximize the potential of your online tools.

So, if  "Dear First name not given" is my first name, what is my whole name?