Customer Service in the Church

I enjoy being challenged by people who are always looking ahead. Seth Godin is one of those people. I especially enjoyed his blog post today and I wanted to share it. You can read it here. Below are my thoughts about how his understanding of "delightful customer service" might apply to the ways we receive guests in our church.

Basically, if "customer service" is merely a place where people who are frustrated just become more frustrated, how does that help? Our church is experiencing this with a certain service provider right now and it's maddening. On the other hand, if we think of customer service as an opportunity to impress or delight, we can turn something negative into something positive.


Delightful customer service, as Seth describes, is simply letting people who care handle the customer. (It's true that in the corporate world, they may receive certain incentives to care, but if the customer hangs up the phone and is satisfied, even happy, isn't that the goal?) If an hourly-wage employee in a call center somewhere doesn't care whether or not a customer actually gets their issue resolved...well, we all know what that feels like.

So, let me ask the church...


Do you care if a guest's first impressions of the church are positive? 
Do you care if they find it easy to park; if they are warmly welcomed and treated as honored guests; if they discover that some of the best seats in the worship space are still open; if they have the chance to meet new people and get connected; if their children receive excellent care?  


If the answer is yes-- and I hope it is-- then here's my challenge. Every member is a minister. Every member is an ambassador for Christ and the church. Every member is called to care. No one in the church gets to say, "it's someone else's job to care." 


We'll have teams of people who are specifically trained in "guest services," but we're also counting on each individual to care enough about the one who is not yet part of the church family to take the initiative to delight our guests with memorable hospitality and Christ-like care.