BNI Connect Search need fix of the state field on the form

I recently responded to a fire call at a large property of mine at 1:30 AM. I was on site by 2:15 AM with one of the owners. The water damage from the fire department putting the fire out was so much so that 4 businesses had to close their doors. It was well over $1M in restoration work and maybe upwards of $2M. At 4 AM, I was asked by the owner if I knew of a restoration company. I said that I did and immediately started searching in BNI Connect. Much to my surprise only one member came up, and that one member had his setting wrong so there was no contact info. So I had no one in BNI to reach out to. I know that’s not the case. Arizona has over 80 chapters and, as a 4-year members, I know many and maybe most have a restoration company. Mind you, it’s 4 AM, so I can’t call around or ask on Facebook. This need was time-sensitive as water was in puddles and still falling through ceilings in 4 businesses. It couldn’t wait. I’d used a restoration company from BNI 3 years prior. When I search their name in BNI, I learned they were no longer a member. But I’d used them before, and that was all I had. They did a great job….back then. I went ahead and referred them. It was all downhill from there. I quickly learned why they were no longer in BNI. In the meantime, another business called another restoration company who is not in BNI, and they were rocking it. So my client ended up switching to them.

When I asked our regional support about this, I was inform the search engine in BNI connect works best with 2-letter state versus the ‘state’ typed out. I couldn’t have known that. It was 4 AM, urgent and I was tired….I didn’t think to finagle the search engine. If that state field needs to be specific, the search engine form should have a drop down box to choose the 2-letter state abbreviation instead. I think there should also be a drop down for categories. A BNI member lost a +$1M deal over the difference between ‘Arizona’ and ‘AZ’ and I’d hate for an unusual thing like this to happen again. I think this fix should be a priority. It’s not a lot of time or development. Best way to test this is to search for your own category and try your state spelled out versus 2-letter abbreviation. You’ll see what I mean. Thank you!