How interesting to read this thread right after coming from an assignment for someone who works with the co that does the NNA magazine. Naturally, it came up in conversation because I'm a notary, but the comment was made that their subscription volume seems to be significantly increasing! (grrrrrrrr) This person also mentioned that the NNA has some new intiative they're promoting with some kind of special cover on the upcoming (or last?) issue. (Or perhaps it's just a follow up from after the convention?? Anyone still getting their mag. care to enlighten us on what their latest promotional concept is?)
What does this have to do with anything? As long as there is a constant flow of new SAs, some hiring entities will be able to continue to pay very low fees and still find someone to work for that money. While the NNA success seems to be on the increase, I feel the overall professional standards of our profession are declining. We are all not only seeing companies reducing their fees, but also increasing the detail of the instructions to the notary, more and more fax-backs, checking up phone calls and whatever kind of hand-holding they can come up with. Also, I'm sure we've all noticed the increase in threats to dock our fees for any and every possible infraction and requests for higher and higher levels of E&O insurance. I don't recall ever seeing these things just a couple of years back.
Hopefully this will (if it hasn't already) turn into a segmentation of the market into those who are interested in price only and those who want quality and understand that you get what you pay for. There ARE still those who care about professionalism and getting the job done right. I just hope this trend doesn't drag things down to where more states go to attorney-only signings. (No offense, Kevin... ;> )
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