Archives for posts with tag: Guest Services

Here’s the bottom line principle when it comes to designing processes for guest services:

An organization needs to think like a customer (or in this case, a Guest)

Put yourselves in the shoes of the typical guest coming to your campus this weekend. Walk through (literally) every touchpoint and interaction that your guest might conceivably encounter. Develop a process or system that will anticipate their need and meet it before it becomes apparent to the guest.

Need help working it out? Try this six-step continuous improvement cycle from Xerox:

  • Identify and select the problem to be worked on
  • Analyze the problem
  • Generate potential solutions
  • Select and plan the best solution
  • Implement the solution
  • Evaluate the solution

Once you have identified a solution and find that it works, continue to use it, evaluating it periodically as needed, replacing it completely when it no longer works.

Here’s a real world situation as an example:

I serve as a Guest Services Team Coordinator for Elevation Church’s Uptown campus in Charlotte, NC. We meet in McGlohan Theater in Spirit Square (the former First Baptist Charlotte campus, turned into an entertainment venue in the 1970′s when the church relocated).

Problem: Almost everyone attending the Uptown Campus drives from somewhere else in Charlotte – which means lots of cars.

Analysis: The theatre only has about 40 parking spaces associated with it. Wanting to reserve those for VIPs (first time guests) and families with small children, we had to locate other parking.

Potential Solutions: Everybody for themselves (no way!); utilize street parking (not enough, and used by businesses or not available many Sundays); negotiate favorable rates with surface parking lots (not so favorable rates, it turns out); negotiate the use of a parking deck 1 1/2 blocks away (good rate, but a little far)

Select the Best Solution: Utilize the parking deck because it puts the majority of cars in one place, allowing maximum efficiency of guest services teams; helps with security; gives a sense of “place” to everyone coming Uptown

Implement the Solution: Determine the traffic patterns of cars coming Uptown and design appropriate signs and locations to maximize impact; develop a checklist of the different types of signs and their locations; negotiate with parking company to insure staff is on site or nearby in case of mechanical problems; promote the “how” of the parking deck through website videos, print materials, and live announcements as needed; plan for inclement weather; coordinate Parking Team, VIP Team, and Greeters to insure smooth transition from parking deck to theater

Evaluate the Solution: Every week the parking team notes hits and misses, and adjusts the process to eliminate them

That’s how we do it at Uptown!

Now, take the principle and apply it in your context.

Efficient processes can transform your Guest Services Team

My favorite post from August, 2012

Now I know where I get it from.

My father.

Regular readers of this blog know of my borderline fanaticism in the area of Guest Services related to ChurchWorld. Some leaders cringe at those words, but the fact is people who come to church are consumers, and leaders in ChurchWorld can learn a lot from good customer service practices wherever they find them – even in a 1946 training manual for Gulf Dealers.

After my father was discharged from the Army Air Corps following WWII, he and his brother built a Gulf Service Station outside of Nashville TN. My father operated it for 44 years, closing it when he retired in 1993. Growing up in that gas station (literally – our house was about 100 feet away) I learned a lot about how to deal with people by watching my father interact with his “customers.” What I didn’t realize until recently was that his natural, easygoing style was augmented by customer service training materials supplied by the Gulf Oil Company.

During the days following my father’s funeral last month, my sons and I took great delight in looking through some of the items he had saved and stored over his life. When my oldest son found this manual, I knew it would become a special part of my Guest Services resources.

It seems that good service is never out of date.

Notice the red dotted line around the vehicle – that’s the suggested travel path for the service man – or two – to take when a customer pulled up to the gas pumps to have gasoline put into his tank (I realize many readers have no clue nor experience of this, but it did happen!). Here are a few of the suggestions for engaging the customer:

  • Always be prompt – the service plan starts when you see a customer driving into your station. Whenever possible, be alert and at his side when his car stops, ready to greet him.
  • Greet the customer – your greeting is your first important step in showing courtesy to the customer, and it should be friendly, cheerful, and always in your own words.
  • Acknowledge the other customer – when a second car drives in, you should immediately recognize the other customer and saying you’ll be right with him. This kind of greeting pays off because you not only please the customer who is waiting but you also please the customer you are waiting on, who notices that you are courteous to others.
  • Improve the rear view – while you are at the rear of the vehicle putting gas in, wipe the rear window and tail lights. Should a light be out, call it to the attention to your customer at the proper time.
  • Look at those tires - while you are back there, take a look at both rear tires for cuts, blisters under inflation, etc. and make a mental note to tell your customer before he leaves your station.
  • Work to the front end – walk around the right side, cleaning the right windshield, checking the wiper blades, and inspecting the front tires.
  • Under the hood – check the oil and water levels; it’s your responsibility to protect your customer’s car. If any is needed, ask him if you may bring the levels up to the correct level.
  • Keep alert under the hood – while you have the hood open, keep alert for other service needs. Train yourself to quickly observe all needs, informing the customer as appropriate.
  • Collect for the sale – it is important to give the customer the right change, so count the change back into his hand. If he is using a credit card (yes, they had those in 1946!), learn to fill out the invoice quickly and accurately.
  • Courtesy is pleasant – before your customer leaves the station thank him and ask him to come in again. By this time you should have learned his name, so make it personal.
  • Help him safely on his way - if your station is on a busy street where it’s difficult to get into traffic, give your customer a hand. Guide him into the moving traffic safely. He may not expect this added courtesy, but he’ll be glad to get it and remember it. Every courteous act will be appreciated by your customers, and make them regular patrons of your station.

And a closing reminder:

With the Gulf Service Plan, every time you do some little service for the customer, it makes him realize that you know your business, and that you’re looking after his welfare. These services keep your customer coming back again and again. Good will – the tendency of the motorist to return to a place where he has been well-treated – is being created every time you give him not only what he wants, but what he needs. He remembers you are the man who looks after his best interests by taking good care of one of him most prized possessions – his car.

To all of us who live in 24/7 always on, wired world, the actions above probably seem like a throwback or an anachronism of the good old days.

I happen to think they are a timeless reminder that service still matters - even in ChurchWorld, where there is no “product” per se, but the outcome of the interactions with our Guests may be eternal.

Thanks Dad, for the lessons you taught me even when I didn’t realize it, and for the lessons you still teach me after you’re gone.

Favorite post from April, 2012

Customer service is, quite simply, how customers perceive their every interaction with an organization.

This may come as a shock to you, but churches should have customers, too. 

We just call them Guests.

Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine, customer experience analysts at Forrester Research, have just released a new book entitled “Outside In.” Subtitled The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business, Outside In offers a complete road map to attaining the experience advantage.

If you are a ChurchWorld leader, you need to understand the powerful truths contained in this book. Outside In certainly stands on its own, but over the next few days I’m going to be translating the content into the language of ChurchWorld Guest Services, and making applications to how you can take advantage of the Guest Experience in your church.

Go ahead and order a copy from Amazon now. It’ll be here in a couple of days. You’ll be referring to it frequently.

In the meantime, here’s an outline for your consideration.

The Value of Guest Experience

  • You need your Guests more than they need you
  • You are in the Guest experience business – whether you know it or not

The Guest Journey

  • Discover
  • Evaluate
  • Attend
  • Access
  • Use
  •  Get support
  • Leave
  • Re-engage

The Three Levels of Guest Experience

  • Meets needs – I accomplished my goal
  • Easy – I didn’t have too work hard
  • Enjoyable – I felt good about that

The Guest Experience Ecosystem

  • Deconstructed
  • Visible to customers
  • How to create a Guest experience ecosystem

The Six Disciplines of Guest Experience

  • Strategy
  • Guest Understanding
  • Design
  • Measurement
  • Governance
  • Culture

The Path to Guest Experience Maturity

  • Improve
  • Transform
  • Sustain

The Four Adoption Levels of Guest Experience

  • Missing
  • Ad Hoc
  • Repeatable
  • Systematic

Transformation Priorities

  • Build on strengths
  • Shore up weaknesses

The Rise of the Guest Experience Team

Understanding the importance of Guest Experiences in your church begins next Tuesday, September 4.

Class dismissed – enjoy the holiday weekend!

 

Part 1 of a multi-part series based on the book Outside In, by Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine

These posts “translate” the world of customer service to the language and setting of Guest Experiences in the church.

In yesterday’s post the concept of the “setting” at Disney was introduced. Going a little deeper, from the excellent guest services book Be Our Guest, Disney vice chairman Marty Sklar gave the following list of setting design principles:

  • Know your audience – before creating a setting, obtain a firm understanding of who will be using it
  • Wear your guest’s shoes – never forget the human factor; evaluate your setting from the guest’s perspective by experiencing it as a guest
  • Organize the flow of people and ideas – think of your setting as a story; tell that story in an organized, sequenced way
  • Create a visual magnet – a landmark used to orient and attract guests
  • Communicate with visual literacy – use the common languages of color, shape, and form to communicate through setting
  • Avoid overload – do not bombard guests with information; let them chose the information they want when they want it
  • Tell one story at a time – mixing multiple stories in a singe setting is confusing; create one setting for each big idea
  • Avoid contradictions – every detail and every setting should support and further your organizational identity and mission
  • For every ounce of treatment provide a ton of treat – give your guests the highest value by building an interactive setting that gives them the opportunity to exercise all of their senses
  • Keep it up – never get complacent and always maintain your setting

Around the Disney organization, these principles were known as “Mickey’s Ten Commandments for the Setting.” Whether it was a movie, a book, or a theme park, the Imagineers at Disney know the importance of setting as they told their stories.

What stories are your settings telling?

From Be Our Guest, by The Disney Institute

All organizations, knowingly or unknowingly, build messages to their customers (Guests) into the settings in which they operate.

Consider these pairs:

  • A luxury car dealership and a used car lot
  • A theme park and a traveling carnival
  • A designer clothing retailer and an outlet store

In each pair, people are buying a similar product – cars, entertainment, and apparel. But in each case, the setting in which they buy these products is communicating a great deal about the quality of the products and services customers can expect, not to mention the price they are willing to pay.

The simple fact is that everything, animate and inanimate, speaks to customers.

The above words come from “Be Our Guest,” the fantastic customer service book published by The Disney Institute. Talk to me very long about Guest Services, and you will hear me talk about Disney – probably several times!

Yesterday it was about Process; today, it’s all about Place.  When you think about a physical setting, it’s appropriate to start at Disney and understand what they call “the magic of setting.”

Setting is the environment in which service is delivered to customers, all of the objects within that environment, and the procedures used to enhance and maintain the service environment and objects.

Components include:

  • Architectural design
  • Landscaping
  • Lighting
  • Color
  • Signage
  • Directional designs on flooring and wall coverings
  • Texture of floor surfaces
  • Focal points and directional signs
  • Internal and external detail
  • Music and ambient noise
  • Smell
  • Touch and tactile experiences
  • Taste

Quite a list, right? Remember that when considering Guest Services…

Everything matters.

From Be Our Guest, by the Disney Institute

When it comes to refined service and exquisite hospitality, one name stands high above the rest: The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. With ceaseless attention to every luxurious detail, the company has set the bar for creating memorable customer experiences in world-class setting.

With unprecedented access to the company’s executives and staff, best-selling author and business consultant Joseph Michelli obtained the leadership secrets behind the company’s extraordinary success. In “The New Gold Standard,” Michelli takes an exclusive tour behind the scenes of The Ritz-Carlton and comes away with great reference work for church Guest Services Teams who want to learn and apply principles of a WOW! Experience to their own practices.

Michelli develops “5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience” that you can explore in the book. I’ll take a look at those principles in a later post. First, here’s a quick look behind the brass lion that symbolizes excellence at the Ritz:

The Credo

  • The Ritz-Carlton is a place where the genuine care and comfort of our guests is our highest mission
  • We pledge to provide the finest personal service and facilities for our guest who will always enjoy a warm, relaxed, yet refined ambiance
  • The Ritz-Carlton experience enlivens the senses, instills well-being, and fulfills even the unexpressed wished and needs of our guests

The Three Steps of Service

  • A warm and sincere greeting, using the guest’s name
  • Anticipation and fulfillment of each guest’s needs
  • A fond farewell, giving a warm goodbye, and using the guest’s name

Service Values of Ritz-Carlton Staff

  • I build strong relationships and create Ritz-Carlton guests for life
  • I am always responsive to the expressed and unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests
  • I am empowered to create unique, memorable, and personal experiences for our guests
  • I understand my role in achieving the Key Success Factors, embracing community footprints, and creating the Ritz-Carlton mystique
  • I continually seek opportunities to innovate and improve the Ritz-Carlton experience
  • I own and immediately resolve guest problems
  • I create a work environment of teamwork and lateral service so that the needs of our guests and each other are met
  • I have to opportunity to continuously learn and grow
  • I am involved in the planning of the work that affects me
  • I am proud of my professional appearance, language, and behavior
  • I protect the privacy and security of our guests, my fellow employees, and the company’s confidential information and assets
  • I am responsible for uncompromising levels of cleanliness and creating a safe and accident-free environment

Gold standard indeed! These are priceless nuggets of truth that you can mine and put into practice in your Guest Services team immediately…

Why not start this week?

…illustrated by parking cars…

…for a church…

…meeting in a rented facility.

Translate “customer” into Guest and you have a real opportunity for learning how to deliver WOW! Guest Services at your church.

A Perfect Product

Customers want defect-free products and services. You need to design your product or service so that it can be expected to function perfectly within foreseeable boundaries.

At Elevation Church’s Uptown campus, we meet in a rented theater – the former First Baptist Charlotte’s sanctuary, purchased by the city in the 70′s and turned into a performance venue. It’s a beautiful, intimate setting for our worship experiences – but it has no parking, other than a few spots along the street. Practically everyone attending drives from all over the city, so we have to provide parking to accommodate them. Our solution? We rent 2 adjacent lots for VIPs (our term for first time guests) and families with small children, a parking deck 1 1/2 blocks away for attendees, and a small lot about 3 blocks away for volunteers. All parking is free for people attending our services; we put up signage in a 1 block radius around the facility to direct traffic to the right place; we have friendly parking teams to provide the human touch; and our web site has a campus welcome page that includes video of where to park.

Application: Design the product (in this case, a service system) to get people from point A to point B, foreseeing all that is foreseeable. It’s just parking, right? But when you’re averaging over 50 new guests every Sunday, along with 1,100 other attenders, all coming into the same 2 block area in a short amount of time, you’ve got to remove as many barriers as possible. We drove and walked through the process of getting to campus, and designed  systems to get people into the garage or lot, up the sidewalks, and into the theater. Once there, the rest of the amazing team of Guest Services (VIP team, Greeters, Ushers, and First Impressions) takes over – each with their own unique system of providing an audacious welcome to guests and attendees. It’s an ongoing process, reviewed constantly to adjust to lessons learned.

Delivered by Caring People

Your perfect product now requires caring, friendly people to deliver it.

At the Uptown Campus, parking is concentrated into 2 primary areas, with the majority of that being in one parking garage – with only 2 entrances/exits. That simplifies the Parking Team a little bit (one of our other campus locations is in a mixed use environment, and has 5 surface lots, each with multiple entrances – but that’s another story!). With an optimum team size of 5 people, it’s our job to smile and wave at each car entering the lot, personally greet everyone, be visible inside the deck on multiple levels, and take the validated ticket as the car leaves.

Application: An interaction with just a single, caring, friendly team member can make a guest feel good about being there in the first place, and sets the stage through a powerful first impression about what’s in store for the rest of the morning. We’re the first face of Elevation – we take that responsibility very seriously.

In a Timely Fashion

In this fast paced world of instant results, our customers (guests) decide what is and isn’t an appropriate timeline. A perfect product delivered late by friendly, caring people is the equivalent of a defective one. Ouch!

Application: Learn your own customer’s definition of “on time” – and structure the process to meet that definition, not your own. I don’t know about your church, but at Elevation’s Uptown campus the intensity and volume of traffic increases incrementally the closer the worship experience start time approaches. For the 9:30 start time, traffic trickles in beginning at 9, picks up the pace around 9:20, and by 9:30 it’s cars lined up the street waiting to get in. We move the cars through as fast as possible, and encourage those in a long line to drive around the block and use the other entrance. As we greet, we remind drivers of the second entrance. In between services, we open two exit lanes, allowing the deck to empty quicker. For the 11:15 worship experience, it’s more of the same, only worse – the rush comes from 11:15 – 11:25. Our team is always brainstorming ways to make it flow quicker and smoother. Valet parking? Nah, just kidding! Would it be easier for everyone if they came earlier and weren’t as rushed? Sure – but it’s not going to happen.

With the Support of an Effective Problem Resolution Process

Everything described so far is great – in theory. But like most things in life, there’s reality. Sometimes we are short-handed on our teams. Occasionally we have equipment malfunctions with the gates or ticket machines, or our validator in the lobby isn’t working right. An occasional Uptown event (a Panther’s or Bobcats game, the circus, a big convention) sometimes creates more traffic on a Sunday morning. We’ve even arrived to find the main entrance closed, along with the first floor of parking, due to maintenance that we weren’t notified about. When these unexpected surprises occur, effective problem resolution is measured not when we have restored the situation to the status quo, but when we have restored customer satisfaction.

Application: Because until a problem occurs, the customer doesn’t get to see us fully strut our service. It’s almost become a game among our parking team to brainstorm what could go wrong with the process, and then come up with a solution to use when it happens. Main entrance blocked? No problem – in 5 minutes we can shift all the signage and personnel to redirect traffic down the block, around the corner, and into the rear entrance. Ticket validated but not working? We have pre-validated tickets to get out guests out and on their way. Lost ticket? Ditto. Guest have a flat tire, potentially blocking the whole deck? Pull off our best impression of a NASCAR pit stop to get them on their way. A guest wants to grab a quick cup of coffee or meal? We have a map of nearby coffee shops and restaurants. Someone pulls up wanting to know when the Children’s library opens? Our team leader has the schedules of nearby venues to give information as requested. Here’s the real goal: Resolve a service problem effectively and your guest is more likely to become loyal than if they had never run into a problem in the first place.

Want to learn how to provide extraordinary, loyalty-building customer service to your guests? The first step, as outlined above, is to learn what makes them satisfied. Customer satisfaction is based on the four predictable factors above. I’ve used just one part of the Guest Services practices of Elevation Church to illustrate the principles. Take these four factors, apply them in the context of your own place, and watch amazing things happen.

Check out Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit by Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon for more big ideas you can put to use as you build a five-star service organization.

Today would have been my father’s 85th birthday.

It’s also Book Lover’s Day.

Those two seemingly incongruent circumstances actually have a powerful connection for me.

After suffering a major stroke on February 10th, my father passed away on February 25th of this year. By the time I was able to get back to Tennessee to see him, he had lost motor functions and speech capacity. Over the few days I was there, the slow but steady decline continued.

I had last seen him during the Christmas holidays. While there, I spent some time alone at home with him. After suffering a series of strokes over the past several years, he could no longer read – but the legacy of his reading lines the bookshelves all over my boyhood home. In the quiet hours when everyone is asleep, I scanned the shelves and remembered hearing him talk about this book or that one. I pulled a few off the shelf, and opening them, was instantly transported back in time to a conversation about the subject, or to memories of the event itself.

I’ve been a reader of books since, well, before I can remember. My father was an avid reader, and he passed that passion along to me at an early age. Even though he worked 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, he often spent several hours reading at night. He and my mother insisted we go to the library in the next town and check out books – every two weeks. I would get the maximum number of books, take them home, and read them – usually in the first day or two. Then it would be an impatient wait till the next library trip.

Reading is a passion I treasure, and one that I am thankful to my dad for.

So here it is Book Lover’s Day, not an official holiday but one I eagerly celebrate. Book reading is a great hobby. It’s an important one, too. Employers look for it on resumes. Reading is educational, informative, and relaxing. It makes us both smarter, and happier people.

Book Lovers Day is a great day to celebrate. Just grab an interesting book, find a quiet, cozy place, and crack open the cover. Celebrating Book Lovers Day in August is pleasurable on the deck, under a shady tree, poolside, or in a cozy hammock. If you fall asleep while reading, that’s okay. It’s all part of the relaxing benefits of being a book lover.

I’m celebrating this Book Lover’s Day in a new vocation – Vision Room Curator at Auxano. My role requires me to read – and then write book summaries, Tweets, and blogs about what I’m reading.

How cool is that!

On this Book Lover’s Day, and in memory of my father, I’m trying to emulate Thomas Edison, who believed that voracious reading was the key to self-improvement. He read books on a remarkable range of subjects to address his endless queries. As Edison noted, “I didn’t read a few books, I read the library.”

My reading list this week:

  • Black Horse Riders, Philip Keith
  • Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield
  • The Scottish Prisoner, Diana Gabaldon
  • The DNA of Customer Experience, Colin Shaw
  • I Love You More Than My Dog, Jeanne Bliss
  • This Is Service Design Thinking, Marc Stickdorn
  • Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Leonard Schlessinger
  • Indescribable: Encountering the Glory of God, Louie Giglio
  • The Explicit Gospel, Matt Chandler
  • Counterfeit Gospels, Trevin Wax
  • Gospel: Recovering the Power That Made Christianity Revolutionary, J.D. Greear
  • The Permanent Revolution, Alan Hirsch

I prefer to think of it as creating innovation literacy.

If you want to know more about my dad, here is the eulogy I gave at his funeral. After the funeral, while my sons and I were moving some things around his gas station and I discovered one reason I am so passionate about guest services. And read this post to find out why readers are leaders.

You see it used in all kinds of movies and television shows, usually the police drama type.

The good guys and the victim are on one side, the suspects on the other. Each is nervous for different reasons: one person thinks “Can I be seen?” while the other is thinking  “Will I be recognized?”

It’s called a two-way mirror.

We have them in ChurchWorld, too. And they are used a lot of different ways.

How about Simplicity/Complexity?

On one side, we should strive to make everything as compelling, seamless, and simple as possible. The way we welcome guests (facilities, processes, people); how we navigate inside (wayfinding); the worship experience (flow, communicating The Big Idea, call to action); gathering information (connection card, digital system). You get the idea. We want everything our guests and participants see to be clean, elegant, simple, and logical.

Then there’s the other side of the mirror – the darkened room of reality where it’s often chaos, confusion, last-minute changes, and sometimes flat-out failures. It’s the hundreds of details that go into a simple print piece. It’s weeks, if not months, of planning and work to make sure the worship experiences go smoothly. It’s arriving early to set up, clean up, polish up, and look at your absolute best – because you only get one chance to make a first impression.

Guests and attendees don’t need to see the complexity of the systems designed and implemented to give them simple, powerful, life-changing experiences.

But they wouldn’t have those experiences without the complexity.

Most churches do a pretty lousy job at wayfinding. Because many churches are built as add-ons over time, sometimes many years, buildings tend to be mazes of corridors and stairwells with little rhyme or reason. Many churches suffer from poor layout, people-traffic control, and wayfinding.

Wayfinding is the process of using spatial and environmental cues to navigate through an environment. In its most literal sense, wayfinding is the ability of a person to find his or her way to a destination. It can also be defined from the standpoint of the designer or owner who is seeking to improve the function of a particular environment.

Wayfinding is not separate from traditional signage design, but is a broader, more inclusive way of assessing all of the environmental issues that affect our ability to find our way to a given destination.

A comprehensive wayfinding system can greatly improve your congregation’s ability to not only find areas of the church campus they are seeking, but to direct guests and others to these areas as well. A clear wayfinding system can add to the accessibility and friendliness of the church buildings. Here are a few tips on wayfinding:

  • Focus people on buildings by labeling them
  • Avoid long directional signs that slow people down
  • Divide the campus into distinct zones
  • Use color and monuments to create bread-crumbs
  • Make room numbers make sense
  • Develop a simple campus map

A church of even moderate size should address basic wayfinding…

After all, how can anyone really connect with your church if they can’t find the front door?

More information about wayfinding:

Where is Your Red X?
Wayfinding 101
The Wayfinding Design Process
Wayfinding Planning and Strategy
Sign Language
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,409 other followers