Can You Handle the Truth? 3 Reasons Your Guests Aren’t Returning

by: Geoff Surratt

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All pastors know the feeling. A new couple visits on a Sunday morning. Maybe they just moved to the area and they are looking for a church, or a friend invited them, or they decided to give church a try. They seem really sharp, exactly the demographic you are trying to reach. You have a great conversation in the lobby. They promise to be back next week, but they’re not. They never come back.

Another family comes three weeks in a row. Each weekend you see them in the lobby after church and it seems like they are really connecting. They miss the fourth week, but they’re back on the fifth. And then they never come back.

What happened? Why didn’t these families connect? Why do so many people flow through your church without sticking? You’ve read the books, been to the conferences and tried everything you can think of, but the back door of your church is always wide open. What is going on?

While I haven’t been to your church, or if I have let’s pretend I haven’t, I have visited scores of church across the country and I know why many people don’t stick. Sometimes the music is really bad or the preaching is really boring or the children’s ministry is really awful, but there are other, less obvious, reasons people don’t return:

1. Your church is a Members Only club

I can hear your reaction from here, “Not us! We work very hard to be inclusive. We go out of our way to welcome visitors; we even invite them to a monthly reception to show them how welcome they are. Swing and a miss on this one, cheesy boy.” (I don’t know why you are calling me “cheesy boy”, but I could use a nice slab of sharp cheddar about now)

Actually the more you think you’re not a members only club the more likely you are. Guests are just that, guests. They are welcome to watch and even participate, but they are not a part of the club. Walking into the church is like walking around in a foreign country. There are signs with clever labels like “Treasure Cove”, “Warehouse” and “Waves” that mean absolutely nothing to the outsider. Your announcements are laced with insider language about ministries and programs that everyone, wink-wink-nod-nod, already knows about. Sermons are filled with inside jokes and references to individuals that an outsider knows nothing about. You even have special shirts and name badges to clearly delineate who belongs and who does not.

The effort required to learn your language, understand your references and get to know your members is just too challenging for the new attender, so they don’t come back. You don’t mean to be a members only club, you just are.

2. Your church doesn’t care about details

The first time attender showed up a few minutes after your website said your services start because they wanted to sneak in the back, but when they arrived the band wasn’t even on stage. The auditorium was almost empty when they sat down, which made it easy for the pastor to find them. He explained that the congregation is notoriously late, but the service will start in a few minutes.

During service the guest noticed that the words were wrong on some of the slides, and there were several typos in the bulletin. On they way out to the car they noticed the pile of junk on a table in the corner, seemingly the same pile of junk that was there when they visited last Christmas. In the parking lot the overgrown flower beds seemed to emphasize the message, “We do the least we can.”

The new attender can’t help but wonder why the church leaders care so little about details. Maybe that’s the way they treat people as well? Its not really worth the effort to find out.

3. Your church is full

There may be room in the parking lot and the auditorium, but everything else is full. Your small groups are closed, but you have new ones starting the fall if the new attender wants to come back in a few weeks. Your ministry teams are full unless the new attender wants to wipe babies butts, in that case there’s an opening today. Your leader’s slate of relationships is full; they’ll meet with the new attender, but they reached their quota of friends a few months ago. There’s a place to park and a place to sit, but there’s really no place to belong.

This is confusing and a little embarrassing for the new attender. At least when hotels are full they put out a no vacancy sign; your church talks like they have plenty of room even though every available slot, or at least desirable slot, is full. Maybe they’d be better off sticking with meetup.com to find new connections, there’s always room there.

Have you ever visited a church and then didn’t go back? What are top two or three reasons you didn’t return?

Read more from Geoff here.

Want to know more about Guest Experiences in your church? Start a conversation with our team. We’re glad to offer our input. Your vision is at stake, so let’s talk.

Want to learn how to create an EXCEPTIONAL Guest Experience at your church? Check out Auxano’s Guest Experience Boot Camp, coming to Orlando, FL on April 3-4.

Tags: Assimilation, Connect, Guest Experience, Guest Service, Worship

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Use These 3 Ps to Deliver Guest Experience Magic

by: Bob Adams

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Guest Experience Magic may be defined as:

• An unexpected experience with a touch of style, grace, and imagination the Guest remembers with fondness and a smile.
• Creating an unexpected, unpredictable, and valuable experience that is both memorable and reproducible.

Today’s Guests are often surrounded by lackluster, mediocre service in every industry. How can you win their attention, admiration, and loyalty?

By using the magic of amazement, delight, and enchantment to create a Guest experience that soars far beyond their highest expectations.

Customer Service wizards Ron Zemke and Chip Bell share their powerful bag of tricks in their book Service Magic. Subtitled “The Art of Amazing Your Customers,” it delivers a powerful bag of tricks to help you add zest, memorability, and value to your customers’ experience in ways they would never expect.

For leaders in ChurchWorld, the translation from customer experience to Guest Experience is an important one – starting with your mindset. You may not think you have “customers” in the traditional mindset – and you don’t. But you do have Guests coming to your church (hopefully!) and they, like you, live in consumer-driven world.

Why not study and learn from some of the best minds and practitioners from the customer experience world, and translate them into Guest Experience practices for your church?

Take Service Magic, for instance.

There is a feeling of awe, wonder, pleasure and delight in Service Magic. When it is present, the customer perceives that something special and unique has been done to, for, or with him or her. It can come from a word spoken, an experience observed, a process experienced, or the context in which the service occurred.

There is magic in Place, Process, and Performance – and all three are available to the skilled service magician and the organization determined to create consistent Service Magic for its Guests.

• Place Magic: a venue – natural or manmade – with physical attributes that attracts and pleases, and that are subtly enhanced by human endeavor. We vacation at national parks to enjoy the great out-of-doors and visit theme parks for fun and thrills. We remember most of the great views and the rides, but without a little Service Magic, those pleasures would be greatly diminished.

ChurchWorld Application

You meet in a facility – owned or rented – that conveys a powerful impression to your Guests. What does your facility “say”? What are you doing on a regular basis to evaluate your place? What plan do you follow to make sure your place is the best it can be? Does your place invite people to come in – or does it turn people off, or even away? Do you have a plan of constant evaluation and upkeep? How “fresh” are your interiors and exteriors? Does your place fit into your community or does it stand out?

• Process Magic: the often thankless, almost always invisible effort that makes the difference between policies, procedures, and routines that are difficult, confusing, maddening, and frustrating – and those we experience as surprisingly easy, positive, and memorable. No waiting where once lines were long; sign-ins, sign-ups, and renewals that are hassle-free and even interesting – if not fun – are the result of a little well placed Process Magic.

ChurchWorld Application

Your Guests should experience an invisible, seamless flow of actions from their first contact with you all the way through a worship experience and back again. The processes behind that invisible, seamless flow are probably complicated and maybe even confusing. What are you doing to regularly evaluate and change the process behind the curtains? Do you know what Guests experience when they come to your church? Are you using and speaking with a “churchy” language or do you make things simple to understand and follow?

• Performance Magic: the surprisingly positive interaction with someone from an organization during the acquisition of a service or a product – or even when a problem with a product or service is being resolved. The wait staff who makes the dining experience “work” for you by correctly reading your mood and engaging you in light-hearted banter or by leaving you alone to your solitude are card-carrying, practicing, professional service magicians.

ChurchWorld Application

When it comes down to it, your front-line teams: parking, greeters, ushers, etc. – make the first and most powerful impact on your Guests. Their actions often dictate whether or not a Guest will return – even before, and often no matter what, the worship experience. When was the last time you ventured out to the front lines to observe? How often do your teams receive training – and encouragement? How high are the expectations for your front-line teams?

Each of these three “magics” is powered by a set of principles – which you can learn more about here.

Want to learn how to Place, Process, and Performance work together to create an EXCEPTIONAL Guest Experience at your church? Check out Auxano’s Guest Experience Boot Camp in Cincinnati, OH on August 7-8.

> Read more from Bob.

Want to know more about Guest Experiences in your church? Start a conversation with our team. We’re glad to offer our input. Your vision is at stake, so let’s talk.

Tags: Chip Bell, Church Guest Experience, Church Guest Services, Guest Experience, Guest Experience Boot Camp, Guest Services, Service Magic

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Make Your Guest’s Experience Purposeful

by: Shep Hyken

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– a note from the Vision Room Curator: During August we are focusing on Guest Experience in churches, but some of the most powerful learning for churches can occur by reading about customer service – all you have to do is substitute the word “Guest” every time you see “customer.” The following content was graciously supplied by Shep Hyken, a customer service and experience expert. Enjoy!

The customer experience shouldn’t happen by accident. It should be planned and thought out well in advance of the success you hope to have with your customers.

I recently had a conversation with someone who helped focus my long term strategic plans. We talked about the success I had in the past and what I hoped would be continued success in the future. I am very goal-oriented and shared my goals for the upcoming quarter, for the year, and even for ten years. These included the number of speaking engagements I wanted to do, the number of training dates our trainers would book, the growth in our online university and more. While she seemed impressed, she asked me how I planned to make those goals a reality. I told her what had been successful in the past, and how it should continue to take me into the future. 

Her response took me by surprise. She informed me that I had been successful by accident. While I had my goals, the detail about how I planned to achieve these goals was minimal. 



That made me think about how many organizations go about delivering great customer service. In effect, they do it by accident.

They hire good people and hope they will deliver based on their past experience. Some companies take it a step further and have some training. Still they are just hoping to achieve what the customer would consider to be a great customer service experience.

Customer service doesn’t happen by accident. It starts with hiring the right people and training them, but that still may not be enough. The best companies don’t take a chance. They actually design the experience. So here are a few steps in the process to help you move from accidental to purposeful amazing customer service.

1. Already mentioned is hiring and training. By the way, training should be ongoing – not a one-time thing. Training isn’t something you did. It’s something you do. It doesn’t always have to be a big training session. If you have a weekly meeting, take several minutes to highlight customer service and share a tip.
2. Create the customer journey map. This is plotting out all of the touch-pointsthat the customer has with your organization. This shows the obvious places where the customer can form an impression, and where the opportunities are to make that impression a Moment of Magic®.
3. When you are looking at the journey map, determine what goes on behind the scenes that drives the experience at any particular touch-point. For example, a server at a restaurant may take the customer’s order and five minutes later come back with the food. There is a lot that happens behind the scenes to ensure that food comes out in a timely manner and is prepared the way it is meant to be. What are the friction points that could hurt the front line touch-point? How can they be mitigated or even eliminated? What can you do to enhance or make the frontline touch-point better?
4. Train people on how to deal with mistakes and complaints. It’s not a matter of if you will ever have one of these Moments of Misery™, it’s when. The best companies make mistakes and have complaints, but they have trained their people and have a system that turns that Moment of Misery™ into a Moment of Magic®.

Don’t rely on chance or luck to make you successful. Be purposeful. Plan with detail.

A long term successful customer service initiative doesn’t happen by accident. 


Copyright ©MMXIV, Shep Hyken – www.Hyken.com

> Read more from Shep.

Want to know more about Guest Experiences in your church? Start a conversation with our team. We’re glad to offer our input. Your vision is at stake, so let’s talk.

Tags: Church Guest Experience, Church Guest Services, Customer Service, Guest Experience, Guest Services, Shep Hyken

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10 Commandments to Help Deliver a Guest-Friendly Culture

by: Thom Rainer

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I travel a lot and spend a lot of time in different churches. I have had a church consulting firm that did “guest” visits as part of our services. Sadly, many times I do not feel welcome as a guest when I visit churches.

The Bible is replete with admonitions of hospitality and servanthood. I just wish our church members understood that the servant-like spirit should also be manifest when we gather to worship. Guests are often uncomfortable, if not intimated, when they visit a church. We are to be gracious and sacrificial servants to them.

In response to this need for more guest-friendly church members, I have devised the ten greatest needs, at least from my perspective. I will reticently call them “commandments” and throw in a little King James English for effect.

1. Thou shalt pray for people in the services whom you don’t recognize. They are likely guests who feel uncomfortable and uncertain.
2. Thou shalt smile. You only have to do so for about an hour. Guests feel welcome when they see smiling people. You can resume your somber expressions when you get home.
3. Thou shalt not sit on the ends of the rows. Move to the middle so guests don’t have to walk over you. You’ll survive in your new precarious position.
4. Thou shalt not fill up the back rows first. Move to the front so guests don’t have to walk in front of everyone if they get there late.
5. Thou shalt have ushers to help seat the guests. Ushers should have clearly-marked badges or shirts so that the guests know who can help them.
6. Thou shalt offer assistance to guests. If someone looks like they don’t know where to go, then they probably don’t know where to go. Get out of your comfort zone and ask them if you can help.
7. Thou shalt not gather too long in your holy huddles. Sure, it’s okay to talk to fellow members; but don’t stay there so long that you are not speaking to guests.
8. Thou shalt offer your seats to guests. I know that this move is a great sacrifice, but that family of four can’t fit in the three vacant seats next to you. Give it a try. You might actually feel good about your efforts.
9. Thou shalt not save seats. I know you want to have room for all of your friends and family, but do you know how a guest feels when he or she sees the vacant seats next to you occupied by three hymnals, one Bible, two coats, and an umbrella? You might as well put a “Do Not Trespass” sign on the seats.
10. Thou shalt greet someone you don’t know. Yes, it’s risky. They may actually be members you don’t know. And you may get caught in a 45-second conversation. You’ll be okay; I promise.

What do you think of these commandments? What would you add?

> Read more from Thom.

Start a conversation with our team. We’re glad to offer our input. Your vision is at stake, so let’s talk.

Tags: Guest Experience, Guest Friendly Culture, Thom Rainer

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Seven Checkpoints: The Critical First Eleven Minutes at Your Church

by: Eric Geiger

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If you ever check out multiple churches in a short period of time, you will likely be surprised by the differences in hospitality expressed to first-time guests. In some churches a guest knows exactly where to park, is graciously welcomed, escorted to the children’s area to drop off kids, and introduced to several helpful people. In other churches, a guest has no idea where to go and is not welcomed by anyone.

While some churches have become so guest-driven that they lose focus on Christ in a hyper-attractional attempt to draw a crowd, others almost ignore guests as a badge of their spirituality or a sign of their apathy. Both miss the mark, as hospitality is deeply biblical. For example, hospitality is included in the necessary qualifications for an elder (1 Timothy 3:2) because hospitality is a direct and tangible link to how Christ has received us. We were all strangers to the family of God and the household of faith. We were enemies, but God in His great mercy welcomed us. He has practiced hospitality toward us and challenges us to accept others as He has accepted us (Romans 15:7).

I am honored to work alongside Auxano in consulting churches on mission, strategy, and values. When we guide a church through a process, we also help them evaluate the hospitality that is expressed to a first-time guest. We know that the first 11 minutes at your church are really important. My friend and colleague Will Mancini believes, based on consultations with hundreds of churches, that a first-time guest will decide if he/she is returning in those first 11 minutes.

To get really practical and helpful, Will encourages church leaders to think about the following “seven checkpoints” in expressing hospitality:

1. Before Departure: Are directions and service times immediately accessible to guests from your church website?
2. Travel to Location: Do guests know where to turn into your church location?
3. Parking Lot: Do guests know where to park?
4. Building Entrance: Do guests know which door to enter?
5. Children’s Ministry: Do guests know where to take their kids?
6. Guest Center (or some other name): Do guests know where to go for more information?
7. Worship: Do guests know which door to enter?

It is helpful to look at these checkpoints through the eyes of a first-time guest. When a guest pulls into the parking lot, does he/she know where to park? Are there signs that direct where to go next? Clear and visible signs that direct people to the next point are helpful, but it takes people to express hospitality. Signs can direct a guest, but only a person can shepherd a guest.

You may find it helpful to divide the first few minutes of a guest coming to the service into waves or sections and then staff with people appropriately: parking, outside greeters, inside greeters/ushers, etc. Sometimes churches view these roles as “anyone can do them,” and thus, they merely fill slots. For strategic hospitality, the right relationally savvy people with grace-filled hearts must serve in these critical roles. These roles are more important than we often realize.

Be sure you have a plan for expressing hospitality to first-time guests. Having no plan sends the signal that “the message we preach has not impacted how we welcome you.”

> Read more from Eric.

Start a conversation with our team. We’re glad to offer our input. Your vision is at stake, so let’s talk.

Tags: 11 Minute Difference, 7 Checkpoints, Church Guest Experience, Eric Geiger, Guest Experience

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Set HIGH Expectations for Your Guests This Weekend

by: Scott McKain

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A Note from the VisionRoom Curator: My friend Scott McKain is an internationally known authority who helps organizations create distinction in every phase of business and teaches the “Ultimate Customer Experience.” During our special August emphasis on Guest Experiences, Scott graciously agreed to let us use a blog post on customer experience. But don’t worry – when you hear “customer” just insert the word “Guest” and you will come away with a powerful lesson to share with your Guest Experience teams.

What are the FIRST WORDS that a Guest hears when they make contact with you or your organization?

If you haven’t planned it — or, if you’re satisfied with a generic, “Can I help you?” — then those professionals who deliver an enthusiastic welcome…and set a high expectation for the Guest of what’s about to happen…will leave you behind!

This 1 1/2 minute video suggests the importance of setting HIGH Guest expectations — and why it is so important. Click on the image to launch the video.

> Read more from Scott.

> Read more about the “Taxi Terry” story Scott mentioned in the video.

Start a conversation with our team. We’re glad to offer our input. Your vision is at stake, so let’s talk.

Want to learn how to create an EXCEPTIONAL Guest Experience at your church? Check out Auxano’s Guest Experience Boot Camp, coming to Orlando, FL on April 3-4.

Tags: Church Guest Experience, Guest Experience, High Expectation, Scott McKain, Taxi Terry

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What is the Value of Your Guest Experience?

by: Bob Adams

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What is the value of your Guest Experience?

Go back and read the previous sentence again, this time attaching the mathematical meaning to the word “value.” That’s value, as in a numerical quantity that is assigned or is determined by calculation or measurement.

Dr. Len Berry, Distinguished Professor in Retailing and Marketing at Texas A&M, has developed a form of “experiential math” that was originally designed to focus on the specifics of service delivery. In the ongoing quest to translate customer service practices from the corporate world to Guest Experiences in ChurchWorld, I have modified Dr. Berry’s math just a little.

In order to demonstrate the intricacy and complexity of a Guest Experience in your church, consider the following three variables to be mastered and managed:

• Guests’ expectations of what is about to happen
• The outcome that actually does happen
• Guests’ observations of everything that goes on in-between

The critical part of this formula is in the way you do the math. The three separate variables above don’t add up to a cumulative total. They are multiplied. That difference is crucial.

When you add 6 + 4 + 0, you get 10, no matter which way you arrange the order of the numbers. On the other hand, when you multiply 6 x 4 x 0, you get zero, regardless of the numerical sequence. When you’re adding, the presence of zero doesn’t change the total.

However, the complexity of your Guest Experience is like multiplication, not addition.

When one of the numbers (variables) is zero, it wipes out everything else, regardless of the other numbers involved. All three variables have to be positives for anything significant to be produced.

If you are going to manage the total Guest experience in such a way as to obtain a positive outcome, each variable must be positive in the eyes of your Guests. If just one significant variable leaves the Guest with a “zero,” guess what – the entire value of the experience is a zero.

Take a look around at your Guest Experience variables – and you do the math.

Want to learn how your Guest Experience variables can create an EXCEPTIONAL Guest Experience at your church? Check out Auxano’s Guest Experience Boot Camp, coming to Cincinnati, OH on August 7-8.

> Read more from Bob.

Start a conversation with our team. We’re glad to offer our input. Your vision is at stake, so let’s talk.

Tags: Bob Adams, Church Guest Experience, Guest Experience, Guest Experience Value

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Smiling is Not Enough: The Top Ten Mistakes Your Volunteers Make Welcoming Guests at Church

by: Will Mancini

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The team at Auxano enjoys playing the role of “secret worshipper” when we take a church through our visioning process called the Vision Pathway.  We call it a Guest Perspective Evaluation.

As I prepare to debrief a church again tomorrow, I want to share some general insights on welcoming ministry and hospitality for guests.

Here are the top ten mistakes I see when volunteers are helping me as a first time guest:

#1   Volunteers have not thought in advance about my next step as a guest so they don’t know how to guide the conversation with me.

#2   Volunteers  are talking with friends and don’t notice me.

#3   Volunteers are doing task work and are not available or responsive the moment I show up.

#4   Volunteers generally hesitate when I initiate with a question.

#5   Volunteers don’t know where the most pertinent information is located.

#6   Volunteers  tell me what to do with no information or tools or other people to help me.

#7   Volunteers generally look preoccupied, distracted or unsure of themselves in their non-verbals even when being friendly.

#8   Volunteers are unaware of the basic “how to” questions for checking-in children of every age.

#9   Volunteers don’t introduce me to others at the church.

#10 Volunteers gave me written information that is not important, pertinent or strategic (sending me on a bee-line to the trash can).

If you want more resources on welcoming ministry and church guest services, check out additional information on VisionRoom.com and follow Bob Adams who works as Auxano’s Vision Room Curator and Guest Services maven. Here is a list of resources on his blog and a recent post on Where Does Your Guest Experience Start?

My team and I want to connect with you. Fill out this short form and one of our Navigators will contact you.

> Read more from Will.

Want to learn how to create an EXCEPTIONAL Guest Experience at your church? Check out Auxano’s Guest Experience Boot Camp in Cincinnati, OH on August 7-8.

Tags: Assimilation, Bob Adams, Guest Experience, Guest Service, Will Mancini

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2 Ways to Solve the Guest Experience Problem You Don’t Know You Have

by: Thom Rainer

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In my blog I have referred many times to my days of church consultation, particularly those experiences where we sent one of our consultants to be a first-time guest in a church. He or she would return with a report of those experiences, and the report would eventually be consolidated with other information for the church.

I have nearly 300 of these “mystery guest” reports. Both Chuck Lawless and I have posted about them on this blog.

In the past, the mystery guests would “grade” the visit based on several criteria. Less than 20 percent of these reports were graded “B” (good visit) or higher.

The Recent Surprise about Guest Visits

In light of the woeful reports from mystery guests, I was very surprised at one facet of some recent research we conducted as we interviewed pastors across America.* One of our questions asked if the pastor’s church does a good job of meeting the needs of first time guests. Surprisingly, 90 percent of the pastors said “yes.”

Did you get that? Less than 20 percent of the guests said their visit was good, but 90 percent of the pastors perceive the opposite, that most guests have a good visit.

Why is there such a discrepancy between the pastors’ perceptions and the real experiences of the guests? May I suggest five reasons many pastors have blindness regarding the first-time guests?

1. Gradual slippage is hard to detect. The pastors see the church almost every day. Daily deterioration of the facilities and slight slippage in ministries are almost impossible to detect. Over time, though, the slippage can become a major deficiency.
2. Relationships can blind them to reality. The pastor has many good relationships in the church. The people he knows are friendly to each other and to him. He does not perceive that they are not so friendly to strangers.
3. The pastor has received positive feedback from some guests. But the pastor rarely hears from those who have had a bad experience.
4. The pastor does not intentionally ask for feedback from all guests. There is no system in place that attempts to hear from everyone who visits.
5. The feedback from members is positive. Pastors and members often feel positive about the friendliness of members to one another. The pastor then assumes the members’ attitude and friendliness to each other is the same for guests.

Two Possible Approaches

When I was a pastor, I took two approaches to keeping myself grounded and aware of how our church was perceived by guests. I subsequently used it as a church consultant with a lot of success.

First, I hired two mystery guests to visit our church. Each visit was six months apart. I paid them a small stipend for their efforts. One of the guests would be a Christian and a regular churchgoer. But he or she could have never been to our church before. The other person was not a Christian and, likewise, never visited our church. I gave them a form to complete and left room for open comments. Their insights were invaluable.

Second, each guest who was willing to complete a guest card received a letter from me. Included in the letter were a $10 gift card to Baskin Robbins and a stamped response form. We specifically asked them not to use their names, and to write frankly about their experiences at our church. We often received many of these evaluations back; they were of tremendous value in helping us discern how guests perceived us.

So why do you think pastors have such a positive view of the guest experiences of their church? What would you do to stay better informed?

Read more from Thom here.

*LifeWay Research conducted a telephone survey of 1,007 Protestant pastors from September 4-19, 2013. The calling list was a stratified random sample of all Protestant churches. Each interview was conducted with the senior pastor, minister, or equivalent. Responses were weighted to reflect the geographic distribution and denominational (or non-denominational) groups of Protestant churches. The complete sample provides 95% confidence that the sampling error does not exceed +/- 3.1%.

Tags: Assimilation, Connection, Guest Experience, Thom Rainer

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A 5-Step Process for Investing in Your Front Line Team Members

by: Bob Adams

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I recently facilitated in a 3-day gathering of Guest Experience leaders from 15 of the largest churches in the U.S. There were many differences in our group when it comes to Guest Experience practices, but a common thread soon developed: the critical importance of the front-line volunteers.

One of the resources we discussed was a book by Chris DeRose and Noel Tichy entitled Judgment on the Front Line. During a study of some of the leading companies in the country, the authors developed a set of principles for moving well beyond the basics of customer (guest) service by putting power, resources and trust in the hands of front line personnel. By doing so, these companies have enabled their employees to more rapidly address customer problems, anticipate unarticulated needs and drive customer-facing innovation.

DeRose and Tichy discuss their findings in an article on HBR.org; here is an excerpt outlining an important process for church leaders to use when investing in their front line team members:

> Step 1: Get Started: Connect the front line to the customer strategy. Senior leaders need to help match their customer promise to the capabilities of the front line while listening closely so they can help align the culture, training, work processes and reward systems.

> Step 2: Empower Your Workforce: Teach people to think for themselves. Employees at every level need to understand the customer strategy and they also need simple problem solving frameworks that are used throughout the organization to promote cross-hierarchical dialogue.

> Step 3: Experiment to Implement: Grant front line workers latitude to experiment. Teaching front line leaders the basics for designing simple experiments enables organizations to test many more ideas than could ever be orchestrated centrally.

> Step 4: Eliminate the Barriers: Break down the hierarchy. Freeing front line capacity requires frequent, diligent effort to eliminate decision processes or administrative work that gets in the way of enabling the front line to expeditiously serve customers.

> Step 5: Invest in Your Frontline: Put budget behind it. Too often, companies reserve big budgets for senior management training while spreading funding thin for front line personnel. Similarly, too many companies are content to hire front line staff without carefully considering whether they possess the right attitude and values to represent their brand.

Delivering a great Guest experience is a fundamental that every organization needs to practice, and organizations that excel in this area focus on how to get the most from their front line. As organizations reconsider how their team members interact with customers, they will be challenged to move beyond just rhetoric.

If they are truly serious about turning their people into their greatest asset, they’ll invest in the front line.

Read the full article from HBR here.

Download our SUMS summary of Judgment on the Front Line here.

Want to know about Guest Experiences in your church? Contact me for more information.

Tags: Chris DeRose, Guest Experience, Judgement on the Front Line, Noel Tichy, Serve, sums

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