Your May 2020 AMAC Foundation Newsletter

July 2020

Social Security Advisory Service QA program Now In Gear

In late May, we launched a "Quality Assurance Monitoring" effort for our Social Security Advisory service. Although we know from random feedback that those we serve rate the service highly, we felt it important to conduct a regular sampling of completed requests to ensure that we're continuing on the right track.

During the third week of May, we began issuing follow-up four-question surveys to those we've been able to get email addresses for. In keeping with industry practices, these are not blind surveys, since we advise folks in advance that we'll be contacting them for feedback. Here are the questions we're asking on the surveys and an indication of how the responses are trending through June:

Was your question(s) answered satisfactorily? Completely 97%; Partially 3%
Did you receive your response in a timely manner? ABSOLUTELY- 100%
Was the Advisor knowledgeable in the area of Social Security you inquired about? COMPLETELY 94%; PRETTY GOOD 5%; NOT SO GOOD 1%
Would you recommend the AMAC Social Security Advisory Service to others? YES - 98%; NO 2%

Here's a sampling of the comments we've received:

"When I called the Social Security Administration, their auto attendant told me the wait time was 60 minutes. When I called AMAC, Sharon answered my call in less that 5 seconds. Outstanding. Sharon answered all of my questions. She was knowledgeable, professional and friendly. She also followed up by sending me additional information. Information about Social Security is so important to senior citizens , and AMAC members are fortunate that knowledgeable people like Sharon are taking our calls."

"I have had conversations on three different occasions with social security with varying answers that left me confused. I finally feel like I know for sure what direction I need to go in that will be most beneficial for me. THANK YOU!!"

"We are preparing to apply for Social Security and will, I am sure, have many questions. We will definitely use AMAC Foundation's Social Security Advisory Service again! Thank you!"

Our response rate on the surveys so far, 52%, is lower than we're hoping for going forward, but still much better than industry norms for follow-up surveys of this type.

"Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."

Vince Lombardi

AmazonSmile Can Help the Foundation!

Many of our readers are aware of Amazon Smile, the online retailing giant's approach to generating revenue for charitable organizations. In fact, some members of our constituency have used the program as part of their online purchasing process, and our Foundation has recently been the benefactor of a small donation through the program, recently receiving a check from Amazon in the amount of $18.29 for purchases Amac Foundation followers made during the January-March 2020 period.

OK…we know that's not a big deal in the overall scheme of things, but to be honest we've sort of dropped the ball by not promoting this fund-raising program for those who are familiar with what we do. So, we're now shining a light on this opportunity by doing whatever we can to make folks aware of it. We're not actually advertising on behalf of Amazon-we don't do that for any vendor-but for those who shop on Amazon anyway, it's a painless way to support our Foundation.

AmazonSmile - You shop. Amazon gives. When you shop at smile.amazon.com, Amazon donates to your favorite charity.

Simply use this link--https://smile.amazon.com/ch/32-0312372--when you shop at Amazon, and they'll do the rest, contributing 0.5% of the purchase price to our Amac Foundation.

Zoom Virtual Seminars Are Here!

Our first venture into the world of online seminars is behind us, and it went fairly well. Our guest presenter, Peggy Bargmann, did an outstanding job in the hour-long discussion on "Understanding Early Dementia," with 17 attendees joining the seminar. There were some mix-ups in the registration process, though, since some who RSVPed via the Foundation website did not register for the actual seminar. We attribute this at least in part to the ZOOM requirement that all attendees establish a Zoom account, since without an account the registration process hits a wall. Also, our prior approach of taking RSVPs via the Foundation website introduced a multi-step process to gain access to the webinar.

We're working on streamlining the registration process by establishing a better link from the Foundation website to the Zoom seminar, and we're also discussing the account requirement with the Zoom folks as a way to simplify the process further. We certainly hope to have a clarified and improved process in place for the next webinar.

And speaking of our next webinar, it has been set for Thursday July 9, and the topic will be "New to Medicare: What you need to know!" For details on this one, check it out on our website's "Events" page .

AMAC Foundation

312 Teague Trail, Lady Lake FL 32159 | 888-750-2622