Part 2 of a 4-part series exploring Beyond Philosophy’s Customer Experience Orientation, as applied to Guest Experiences in Church World 

Transactional Orientation – a church that focuses primarily on the physical aspects of the Guest Experience. It has recognized the importance of the Guest. However, its focus is rudimentary, as many aspects of the Guest Experience remain left to chance and are uncoordinated and “inside out.” Research indicates that approximately 67% of organizations exhibit a Transactional Orientation.

The Transactional oriented church understands some of the basics of the Guest Experience but still remains quite reactive to Guest demands. If has recognized that the Guest is quite important and it has made some changes to reflect this. The core of its operation is primarily around the physical aspects of Guest Experiences: a few special parking spots, maybe a welcome area, a few people greeting everyone. It is, in reality, still “inside out” and its Guest Experience is not deliberate, but just happens.

Organizationally, the Transactional church is often functionally siloed, with each silo treating the Guest in a different manner. Little information is shared across functions and Guests are forced into dealing with many different parts of the organization.

Typically, the senior leadership team in a Transactional church claims they are Guest focused but the words and deeds do not match. This contradiction is seen by team members throughout the organization – who then mimic the behavior.

Good intentions are no substitute for action; failure usually follows the path of least persistence.  – Anonymous

In the Transactional Church the brand and the actual Guest Experience are not aligned. “The Friendliest Church in Town” usually isn’t. A great deal of time is spent by the Transactional Church in building its brand image, but it has not gone that critical one stage further and defined how it will manifest itself in the Guest Experience.

The core of the Transactional church remains “inside out.” These churches do think Guests are important, which is a marked improvement from the Naïve church. However, they believe the Guest is still not as important as the organization is. Transactional churches remain primarily physically based and do not look at the emotions they should be evoking.

What does a Transactional church need to do to Revolutionize Their Guest Experience?

• Understand that emotions play a key role in the Guest Experience
• Start to enlist people with emotional awareness
• Review processes so that they evoke the right emotions
• Implement cross-silo communications to give a complete Guest view
• Understand the importance of team member’s well being
• Define the Guest Experience
• Align the Guest Experience throughout the organization
• Look at Guest’s emotional expectations
• Build an overall Guest journey
• Increase the time the senior leadership team spends with Guests

Next time: The Enlightened Orientation

For more information on this subject, check out Revolutionize Your Customer Experience by Colin Shaw, pp. 19; 108-125.

You can also find more information at Beyond Philosophy’s website.