Member Service sets Farm Bureau apart
by Gene Jacobs, Director of the GFB Member Services Department

In a simpler time, Ralph Waldo Emerson said:

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”

Member service has been the single most important quality to distinguish Farm Bureau from other organizations since we began 70 years ago. Because we are an organization that operates from the grassroots up, county members and leaders determine our organizational culture. Local leadership and dedicated county and state staff ensure all of our services remain responsive to and responsible for each individual member’s needs.

Farm Bureau remains true to its original purpose of being the voice of agriculture. As the voice of agriculture, we continue to represent farmers’ legislative interests on both the state and national level and provide the latest ag news through the Georgia Farm Bureau News, Leadership Alert, and our television show, “The Georgia Farm Monitor.”

Over the years we’ve added other services to meet the needs and requests of our membership. In the late 1950s, members joined together to establish our most widely known and used member service, the Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company. Through the years we added real estate, mortgage, timber and grain marketing services. Today, we offer many other member discount programs that save our members money on prescription drugs, long-distance phone service, Choice Hotels®, Grainger products, AmerLink Log Homes and Dodge vehicles. All of our programs and services are offered with our organizational philosophy of service excellence.

In today’s fast-paced, mobile society, maintaining service excellence and providing the local, one-on-one service our grandparents took for granted can be a challenge. GFB has more than 1,600 employees and about 1,800 elected volunteer leaders across the state serving our more than 430,000 members. Farm Bureau members deserve nothing less from their organization than service excellence.
For our leadership and staff, service excellence is a cultural part of who we are.

Throughout the coming year, special recognition will be given to both insurance and federation staff at the county and state level who exhibit high levels of service excellence. In order to do this we need to hear from you, the people we serve. You can nominate a staff member for this recognition by visiting our web site at www.gfb.org and clicking on “Service Excellence” or by sending a letter addressed Attention: Member Services Department, Georgia Farm Bureau, P.O. Box 7068, Macon, Ga., 31209.

You have probably heard our organizational motto, “Helping you is what we do best.” We want to know who is best helping you.