Every new year every sober citizen will get time to plan their year, in form of new year resolution. He/she will need to analyse their past year and answer very contentious questions to help them come up and classify their new year’s needs.
Every serious co-operator will be wondering if they need to maintain their membership in that Sacco they invested in the last one year. The members having dedicated their energies to ensuring they had something to increase their monthly contributions and ensured their accounts did not fall dormant. They also ensured they patronised on the savings accounts which they were introduced to them and marketed day in day out by their Sacco. They could have tried on some of these accounts to reaffirm their commitment and loyalty to their Sacco’s products.
Saccos are meant for savings and credits and the Sacco business wouldn’t be complete without mobilizing savings and Credit selling. These products can only be patronised by members. The major incomes earned in these Saccos is out of the year’s business realized from all these products. It is good to acknowledge that the same members of the Sacco took loan products from their saccos and repaid faithfully to ensure their Sacco’s financial Healthy is stable.
Members’ experience throughout the year is key to their retention in the Sacco, because members do examine their Sacco membership benefits from time to time. They need to be convinced that they fully need the Sacco for them to achieve their personal or business goals. They will compare their needs versus solutions in terms of Services and products they have received from their saccos if they are reasonable enough, to renew another annual contract with the sacco after the Annual General Meeting.
In the 21st century Members are exposed to many things right from presentation of products, interactions with the Sacco institution during the year, member recognition and the return they will get from the Sacco after a tiresome year of great commitment and support to their sacco.
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Are my expectations met?
Another great question a member will need to answers is whether their expectations are met. People are attracted to institutions because of many things. They have different expectations and they will only be comfortable to stay further if their expectations are met. When members join the saccos, they do so because they have goals on savings and credit. They are fully convinced that their plans will be accomplished through the Sacco. It is the obligation of the Sacco to understand the member’s expectations before they give that potential member, a registration form to recruit them. Sometimes the saccos are in a hurry to make numbers forgetting they have a goal to meet customer’s expectation. If what the sacco offers is not in line with the members goals it would be better to recommend another institution that can help the member better, other that attracting dormancy and immediate withdrawal after recruitment.
The Sacco is obliged to customize their products and services to fit in the members need. It is also the responsibility of a Sacco to only offer services and products that a members can afford, to prevent future conflicts between the member and the Sacco.
A member expects to access affordable products smoothly anytime they need them. They also expect their loyalty, dedication and support acknowledged and rewarded from time to time. If they can’t access products easily and are never recognised, they will lose the meaning of continuing to be members.
Sometimes saccos give attention to the industry competition and want to offer products and services offered by the competitors because they want to remain relevant and convince others that one can get everything they can get from other institutions. They forget they have their own members to impress and member’s expectations to meet. It is the high time Saccos forget on the competition and focus on their main agenda of formation. What happens is that when a Sacco forgets its main agenda it loses meaning to the original members and loose them, because they can no longer withstand the current terms and conditions of the changes introduced.
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Let the Saccos ensure they are able to meet their members’ expectations and when they are drafting their new years resolutions, they will have reasons to choose your Sacco again and again.
The way forward/ my next move
We are living in very sensitive times where people have options of everything, be it prudent services, quality products, very affordable products, better returns etc. It is good to understand our clientele as Saccos, it is time to get up and above of making a name for ourselves, being a brand in your own space. It is time to shun away from unhealthy competition of, a jack of all trades but a master of none. It is a time of reasoning together not with the external forces but with the internal necessities who are our members.  Let the Saccos understand that their existence majorly depends on their members and they will rise or fall because of either being sensitive to their members’ views or being insensitive with their members’ opinions.
Saccos may be attracted to quantity growth of membership, but do they really care of the quality of their future membership? It might take decades to build an institution but only days to bring it down. Let the saccos study their members and work towards fulfilling the agendas that attracted them, having in mind that these members will enable the Sacco to grow to the desired points. Let the members be engaged in platforms of developing products and services, to give their views and recommendations.
By member engagement from time-to-time Saccos will build Healthy cooperatives, Quality membership and informed co-operators. By so doing, no member will exit the sacco, because they need the Sacco more to fulfil their 2026 goals. The Saccos will exceed expectations for the members creating a strong bond between them and the only way forward for the members is to remain deeply rooted in the Sacco.
Our Saccos remain the only option for growth.
Author: CCOP Dorcas Nyambura Ndegwa
Email: jehoshebaimpactcoop@gmail.com
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