RELEVANT CHILDREN'S MINISTRY

Guest services matters.  Mucho.  In fact, it's one of the most important components of seeing people have a great experience at your church. 

Great guest services doesn't just happen by chance.  It takes intentionality.

Here are 10 Golden Rules for guest services.  Train your guest services' team to live by these and you'll get rave reviews from guests.

Smile.  When you smile, it communicates to people that you are glad they're here and that you're happy to help them.  

I often ask guests for feedback from their experience at our church.  I remember one time, a guest responded that we did a great job helping them register and taking them to their child's classroom.  But they said the lady at the classroom door never smiled at them.  It was a great opportunity to remind our team how important it is to smile. 

Use their name.  The sweetest sound to every person is their own name.  As soon as you find out the person's name, use it in your conversation with them.  When you use a person's name, it helps them feel known and valued.

Walk don't point.  Always walk your guests to their room or destination.  First, this takes away their stress of not knowing where to go (even if you gave them directions, they are dealing with the stress of trying to remember and follow the directions).  Secondly, it gives you a few more minutes to spend with them as you take them to the location.

Make good eye contact.  Look at people, not past people.  When you are with a guest, really be with them.  Focus your time and attention solely on them.

Never say "I don't know."  When you are asked a question that you don't have the answer for, say "That's a great question.  Let me find out the answer and I'll let you know." 

Better yet, equip your team ahead of time with the knowledge they need, so they do have the answer.  Practically, this means giving them a cheat sheet that has information about ministries other than yours, a list of upcoming events, etc.

Don't make people wait.  Everyone hates to wait.  Monitor the wait times for check-in, pick-up, coffee lines, traffic flow out of the property after the service, etc.  Make wait times as short as possible. 

I have often gotten in a pick-up line in the preschool or elementary areas and timed how long it took me to get from the back of the line to the pick-up door.  If it is more than 3 minutes, we look for ways to shorten the wait time.  

Acknowledge the person as quickly as possible.  When you do have someone waiting in line, acknowledge their presence.  This can be as simple as saying, "Hi, glad you're here.  I'll be right with you."  This simple step will drop their stress level of having to wait in line.

Courtesy and respect.  Treat people right.  More than anything else, they will remember how you made them feel.  And the truth is, they will return based on how you made them feel emotionally.

Be positive.  Here's an example.  The check-in computers go down right in the middle of check-in.  You have switch over and write out security tags manually.  The attitude you display during this challenge speaks volumes. 

Negative

"I hate when this happens.  What a pain!  Okay.  We're going to have to write out everyone's tags by hand.  It's going to take more time, so everyone hang!"  

Positive

"The check-in system is offline for a few minutes.  So let's write out your security tags.  Let's have some fun.  Pick out your favorite color of pen and we'll use that to write down your name.  And look, I even added a smiley face for you on your tag because you've got a great smile."

See the difference?  A positive attitude can turn a stressful situation into a fun situation.

Listen.
Take time to really listen to what they share.  This helps you learn about them and be able to mention specific details about them as you follow up.  Here's an example.  If you listen and remember that a new family has just moved from...say...Seattle...you can mention that the next time you talk with them.  This will show you are taking a personal interest in them.

I've made an infograph with these 10 Golden Rules that you can share with your guest services' team.  Download it now for free at this link. 

Easter is just around the corner which means you'll have guests walk through the doors.  This gives you a great opportunity to see them come back and become part of your church family.  But seeing them move from guest to family won't happen without intentional follow-up. 

There are 5 keys to effectively following up with Easter guests.  Let's dive into them.

Key #1 - A great first experience.  Follow up starts when guests first walk in your church doors.  How they are treated and how you make them feel on their first visit will largely determine if they return or not.  Without a great first experience, the rest of these keys will fall flat.  Here are some ways to give guests a great first experience.

• 7 Steps to Really Caring for Guest Families

• 10 Ways to Get Better at Talking with First-Time Guests

• 3 Big Keys to Giving Guests a Great First Experience at Your Church

• 12 Reasons Guests Don't Come Back  

Key #2 - Make it personal.  If you send a follow-up email, make sure it's not just a mass email addressed to "Dear Friend" or "Dear Guest."  If you call them, don't use an automated phone call system.  Use their name.  The sweetest sound to any guests is their own name. 

One easy way you can make it personal is by intentionally mentioned something personal that lets the guest know you were personally thinking about them.  An example would be sending them a handwritten note that addresses them by name and says something that is unique about them.

Another great way to make it personal is by having a guest reception after the service.  Invite guests to come to an area where staff and key volunteers are available to meet with them, talk with them, get to know them and answer any questions they may have.  Have some light finger foods or desserts available.  Food will cause guests to stick around and talk with you longer. 

Key #3 - Make it timely.  Stats show if you follow up with guests within 48 hours of their visit, the chance they will return goes up significantly.  I know you'll probably be exhausted after Easter, having held extra services, special events like Easter egg hunts, musicals, etc.  It's important to get some rest after the big weekend, but make sure you leave margin for timely follow-up. 

Key #4 - Keep it balanced.  Have you ever been in a store, perhaps at a car dealership, where the salesman crowds you?  You end up feeling smothered, don't you?  As you follow-up with guests, don't do this.  You want to be personal, but not pushy.  You want to be caring, but not overbearing.  You want to be interested in them, but not interfering to the point where you disrupt their family (like showing up at their house unannounced).  You want to be welcoming, but not to the point where it makes them feel weird.

Key #5 - Give them a reason to come back.  Many churches strategically plan special series or events the first few weeks after Easter.  Starting a relevant teaching topic for adults or an exciting new series for kids the week following Easter is a great idea.  I have also planned special family events or experiences a week or so after Easter.  This gave us a great experience to invite families back to.  And if you can get them back the second time, there is a great chance they will become regular attenders.

Another great way to invite guests back is offering them a special gift on their next visit.  In this post, I share a creative way we did this that helped us see 18-20% of guests return.  The national average is only 7%.  

Your turn.  The floor is yours.  What are you doing to follow-up with Easter guests?  What have you seen work?  What are some new follow-up ideas?  Share your thoughts with everyone in the comment section below.

It's that time of year.  Churches everywhere are gearing up for their Fall Festival.  We're in the middle of our preparations.

One of the biggest questions churches ask as they prepare is, "How do we see the guests who attend come back on a Sunday for services?"

That's a question we wrestle with every year.  We've tried lots of different strategies.  We've tried big giveaways, follow-up emails, follow-up phone calls and starting an exciting new weekend series following the festival, just to name a few.

And to be honest...it has been with limited success.  Yes, we've reached a few families with these strategies, but we want to be more effective at seeing the guests who attend our Fall Festival return and become a part of our church family.

And I've got a feeling you're thinking the same thing.  I've yet to hear of a church that has cracked the code on this and been able to see a high percentage of guests return from their Fall Festival and become connected long-term to their church.

So with this in mind, we went back to the drawing board and have developed a new strategy that we're piloting this year.  I'm going to share it with you.

We're casting vision to our church familiy that the Fall Festival is a great opportunity to invite their unchurched friends, neighbors, family and co-workers to the church.  People will come to a Fall Festival that would otherwise never set foot inside a church...if they are invited.

We started this past weekend (4 weeks out) encouraging our church family to begin inviting people to come with them to the Fall Festival.  We showed this video and our campus pastors talked about it from stage. 



Provide invite tools.  We are providing invite cards that our church family can use to invite people with. 

We will have a guest VIP area at the Fall Festival that our church family can bring their guests by.  This area will be exclusively for guests who have never been to our church.  It will be stocked with extra candy and a gift for every guest.  The gift will be a ball with our children's ministry logo and website on it.  We will also have key staff and volunteers there to meet the guests and spend time with them.  Our church family will know ahead of time to bring their guests by this area.

We will give guest families an invitation to come back for a Sunday service.  At the guest area mentioned above, we will give guests an invite card to a weekend service.  The kids will be able to redeem the invite card for a free t-shirt when they return.  The t-shirt will have our logo on it.

We're casting vision for our church family to do the primary follow-up with the guests they bring.  The primary reason a guest is going to come back is because of a relationship they have with the person who brought them.  So we're going to be encouraging our church families to invite their fall festival guests back for a weekend service. 

We will provide photo opps with costumed characters for families.  We know families love to take pictures of their kids with characters.  They will stand for hours in line at Disney World for this.  The photo opps will also include our children's ministry logo as part of the background.  This will not only provide memories for families, but will also help us spread the word about our children's ministry as parents post the pictures on social media.

It will be interesting to see how this strategy does.  I'm excited to see what happens.

Your turn.  The floor is yours.  What are you doing to encourage Fall Festival guests to come back for weekend services?  Is there something you've done in the past that has worked well?  Share your thoughts and ideas with us in the comment section below.