Anthony wrote a blog post earlier this year which he called The Disney Experience at Church. We discuss his five key observations:

1. Leverage the Web – User Testimonials
2. On-Site Arrival
   
3. Deliver What Your Selling
   
4. Consistent Impressions
   
5. Have a Heart
   

So, please take some time to listen to part one and then part two so you can implement some of the concepts Anthony shares so your church can generate a great experience for your visitors.

In this week’s Ministry Story church communications podcast, I talk with Anthony Coppedge, Director of Communications at Fellowship Technologies.  Anthony shares his recent Disney experiences and some powerful insights that church leaders can learn from Disney so they can develop an experience in their ministry that will powerfully connect with people coming to their church.

Listen to Ministry Story Podcast Episode #10 here…

A friend of mine wrote a post that had me thinking It was entitled: “Are you literally marketing like the devil?”

Now doesn’t that just stop you?  It stopped me.  And it got me thinking about marketing:

1. What it is
2. What most people think its not
3. And why Jesus was a Master Marketer

What is Marketing?

Many people (good meaning people) think marketing is evil.  But how could it be?  God created it.  Paul said, “Everything, absolutely everything…got started in Him and finds its purpose in Him.” [1] That “everything” also includes “marketing.”

Unfortunately, marketing gets a bad rap because of bad men…but at its core its not bad, its good.

Marketing is communication.  It’s telling people about the benefits of something AND asking them to experience it themselves.  It becomes viral when people who experience the benefits (and are impressed by it) start telling other people about it.  And the greatest form of marketing is not direct mail, not ads, not cold calls, not commercials, but service: service that exceeds expectations.

Jesus understood that.

With no marketing budget, no blog, no social media, no ads, no direct mail He drew crowds so immense that most marketers would’ve passed out from disbelief!!

What was His secret?

He served. He met the needs of people. The Bible says:

“From there He went all over Galilee. He used synagogues for meeting places and taught people the Truth of God. God’s kingdom was His theme – that beginning right now they were under God’s government, a good government! He also healed people of their diseases and of the bad effects of their bad lives.  Word got around the entire Roman province of Syria. People brought anybody with an ailment, whether mental, emotional, or physical. Jesus healed them, one and all.” [2]

Jesus was a Master Marketer!

What’s the Difference?

The devil’s a marketer too.  And let’s be honest, he’s pretty good.  When you can get someone to give up joy, peace, contentment, and eternal life with God for a piece of fruit…you know you can sell!!

So both of them (Jesus and the devil) are marketers, so what the main difference?  Simple.  Jesus delivers what He promises!

Jesus promises and over delivers, while the devil over promises and under delivers! Why?  It’s simple he’s “a liar and the father of lies!” [3]

Your job as marketer is to deliver on what you promised.  To be there like you said.  To serve.  To meet needs.  To exceed expectations.  Do that enough times and people (like a Samaritan women) will tell everyone they know about you: “Come see a Man…Is not this the Christ?!” [4]

Or, ”Hey! Check this out! Isn’t this what (or who) we’ve been looking for?!”

What are your thoughts?

1. Colossians 1:16 (The Message)
2. Matthew 4:23-24 (The Message)
3. John 8:44 (New Living Translation)
4. John 4: 29 (King James Version)

Mike is the author of I Shall Raise Thee Up: Ancient Principles for Lasting Greatness.  He’s a blogger and speaker that teaches business and leadership development from a Biblical perspective.

Three Suggestions for What Excellence Looks Like

1. Team Work. Your church is a community of people with a variety and depth of gifts and talents.  As a leader or someone trying to accomplish a ministry task, take an assist from those with skills that you do not have.  If you want to accomplish your task with excellence, you want to utilize the strengths around you.  Plus this distributes the work, engages people in your community, lights people’s passions, and the ministry gets done with a higher degree of excellence than if you tried to do it all on your own.
2. Respect People. Set a standard in your church for serving people with excellence.  It is rather like customer service.  Define what excellence looks like and how you are going to treat people with excellence.  Be proactive in ministering to those in your community who have needs.   Look for the needs before the needs find you.  By being respectfully proactive and strategizing how you can serve the needs in your community, your ministry will naturally shine with excellence.
3. Be Creative. Once you define needs in your community and set the standard for serving with excellence, then brainstorm with your team on how you can creatively meet the needs, solve problems, and serve people.  The more creative you can be the more you will surprise people with a level of ministry they are not expecting.  That is going to make an impression of excellence.

So, what are you waiting for…get your ministry moving towards excellence!

Think about it…most organizations have default e-mail addresses that are like this: “Info@YourOrganization.com”, Connect@, Contact@, E-mail@ or something similar.  We have all seen it.  I am guilty because I have suggested and set up such e-mail addresses for organizations I have worked or volunteered for.  I did it for my church too!

However, people want to connect with people.  People want to know there is someone at the receiving end of that e-mail.  Today they want a “name” – a real person to “talk to”.  People want a personal experience.  I think perhaps the time has come to become less corporate, less impersonal, and more real.

It’s time to change.  Give people a real person – maybe it is you.  Let them e-mail someone who will respond and make their customer experience a real-life exchange of information.

What do you think?  Is it time for personalization or should we stay status quo?

Image via Flickr: KahoKubo

In Halifax we have two predominant big-box electronic stores.  Future Shop and Best Buy.  So, I decided to stop first at Future Shop…

The employee that greeted me was friendly but after clearly explaining what I was looking for and how I would be using it, it was obviously clear he had no idea what to recommend.  So, he went “out back” to talk to a technology consultant of some sort.  The sales agent then returned and tried his best to make the recommendation based on his discussion with the expert out back.  He was tentative at best and left me feeling very uncomfortable with his new-found knowledge and with the recommendation.

On to Best Buy…

I was greeted in a friendly manner here as well and upon going through the same process of explaining what item I was looking for and what it would be used for, the clerk immediately said that she was not the best one to talk to.  She proceeded to take me to Steven, introduced me, summarized my story and Steven, who was clearly an expert, took the next 15 minutes to walk me through my options and make professional recommendations.  The young lady who referred me to Steven asked if she could be a part of the expert consultation so she could glean from his knowledge so she might better be able to serve future customers.  How impressive is that!

Paying for Expertise

What do you think happened?  I was clearly “engaged” and well served by Best Buy.  I came looking for expert service, knowledge, and recommendation – and I received it overflowing at Best Buy.  And this was really my first “shopping experience” at Best Buy (I know, it is hard to believe I have never bought anything there before!).  I knew what I wanted and was looking for a logical and professional sales experience.  I found it and I bought the product at Best Buy!

Small Business Application

Small business owners need to realize that they must play to their areas of expertise.  Customers are wise and somewhat knowledgeable about their needs because they often do pre-research online before engaging in the face-to-face selling process.  Make sure you and your employees provide the expertise in your area of specialty to close the deal for the customer.  Customers need this, expect this, and will pay for it!

Some Take-Aways

1. Don’t try to fake your way through the knowledge process.
2. If you don’t know the answer, pass the customer on gracefully to someone who does.
3. Let your experts talk face-to-face with your customers.
4. Empower a learning environment.  Everyone on staff has something new to learn!

Service and knowledge are key to your business success.  Leverage them and your customers will walk away well-served!

Essentially the summary is that Carroll’s guitar was damaged while in the baggage transfer of a flight the band was on to a concert booking.  After many frustrating attempts to have a claim resolved with United, the airline declined any further responsibility.  Carroll decided to write a song and create a video about the ordeal and post it on YouTube.  He even told United that he would write three songs about the incident and they were oblivious to the threat.

The result…social media is enabling the spread of this tale of woe and United Airlines is reaping a ton of negative publicity.  On the flip-side, the band is getting an untold wealth of media coverage the likes of which they could never have expected.  The video as of this writing has now surpassed 4.2 million viewings and Song #2 is scheduled to be released soon.

Here’s what we need to learn form this:

1. Customer service is important and consumers deserve to be treated with respect.
2. Social Media gives customers a louder more far reaching voice today than ever before in history.
3. As a company, if you deal fairly and equitably with your customers you will fore go the cost of negative publicity – be wise!

Had you seen this video or heard this story at some point in the past 3 weeks?  What do you think about the reaction of both sides?

The server said, “I am sorry but we are not allowed to sub fries for rings“.

We looked puzzled…”we’ll pay extra if we have to“.

“No, we are not allowed” she said.

“But you do have onion rings in the combo appetizer, correct“?

“Yes, but we are not allowed to sub them for fries even if you are willing to pay extra“.

Does this make sense?  In today’s customer driven world of customization, what is going on here?  I am not even sure I can explain it but it serves for a good point with small businesses.

Your customers want choice and they want customization.

When you have the ability…please customize do it and do not let “rules” get in the way.  It is not good for business.

What do you think?  Agree or disagree?

Image from Flickr: Adam Kuban

Thanks for sharing your recent experience with us Michael…we appreciate it!

Turning Bad Customer Experiences into Wow Experiences…

Even though I stay with this hotel chain a lot and when booking, I always ask to be situated as far from the elevator as possible, because of my late check-in I was put in a room right next to the elevator.  Tired from the long late flight I went to sleep.  Well, I slept for about an hour.  For the rest of the night every time the elevator was in use I could hear the squeaking and creaking of it as it pulleyed its way up and down the 20-some stories.

The next morning, exhausted, I went to the front desk and asked if there was any way I could be moved to another room for my second night.  You would have thought I came with the most ridiculous request of the week!  The customer service clerk at the desk huffed and puffed his way through the process almost as if he were completing the task reluctantly and he expressed his inconvenience through his body language.

Impressions

So, what is the impression I am left with about this hotel?  Well, I had a horrible nights sleep next to the elevator and I had a unpleasant “exchange” process with the front desk.  It left a a bad taste…I gotta say!  So, what impression do you leave with your customers when they are unhappy?  How do you handle their discomfort?  How do you decide who gets to sleep next to the elevator?

Every organization deals with people.  People have pleasant and unpleasant encounters with your organization.  How you deal with the problems is customer service.  If you have bad or mediocre customer service you un-do any of the good marketing you have invested in.  If on the other hand you resolve problems with excellence then you magnify your marketing and leverage good-will and positive word of mouth.

Great customer service takes a small amount of time and a little bit of effort but in relative terms the “cost” is very minimal and the pay-off is exponential!

Image via Flickr: Joe Penniston