Guest Experience Survey Results Provide 4 Key Findings

Posted on July 23, 2014 by Bob Adams

In the fall of 2011, I collaborated with Worship Facilities Expo on a brief survey about guest services practices to its online audience. The survey was not intended to be a scientific survey, but instead sought baseline information to indicate trends in guest services in churches.

The 22 questions dealt in broad areas ranging from sanctuary size to number of worship services held weekly to the number of volunteers in guest services roles to training for guest services teams. From the responses, a snapshot of guest services practices in churches is beginning to take shape.

I’m in the process of preparing an updated survey, but I thought it would be helpful to look at the original results one more time: Here’s a look at some summary findings, four key points, and an invitation to continue the conversation.

Selected Survey Stats

Responses came from 33 states in the US and 9 countries around the world
Church attendance ranged from 100 to 19,000
The majority of churches responding offered multiple worship services
The majority of churches responding had only one location
About one-third of respondents had auditoriums seating 300 or less; almost one half had auditorium seating for 300-800
Guest service components include a wide range of services – from parking to greeting to ushers to information centers and more
The size of Guest Services teams ranges from a few to hundreds
Leadership of Guest Services teams is primarily voluntary
1-3 hours of initial training is provided to Guest Services teams by a large majority of respondents
Almost half of the respondents offer no updated or ongoing refresher training
A large majority of respondents have no formal statement of expectations for Guest Services teams
Recruiting and retaining team members and developing leaders are the biggest needs of Guest Services teams
Respondents had great success stories and encouragement for other Guest Services teams

A more detailed review of the survey responses began to show a pattern – there were four key findings that a majority of the respondents identified:

1. Guest Services Components The survey identified the following eight areas of typical Guest Services teams: Prayer, Greeters, Ushers, VIP/First Time Guests, Resources, Next Steps, Set-up, and Parking. Additional responses included Kiosk check in, Hospitality time with Pastor, Gift for Guests, and Communion. The largest areas of service were Greeters and Ushers – every respondent had some level of service in these areas. Prayer was another large component, reported by majority of respondents. Areas on the low side were VIP/First Time Guest and Parking.

2. Expectations/Covenant Less than twenty percent of respondents indicated that their Guest Services teams had a formal statement of expectations or covenant agreement.

3. Greatest Need As with any mainly volunteer ministry, a wide range of needs were identified by the respondents. After a closer review of individual responses, the following three areas began to emerge:

Training of existing volunteers
Recruitment of new volunteers
Organization and leadership of the volunteer teams and process

4. Success Stories Respondents were asked to list a brief success story of their Guest Services teams. The responses were able to be categorized into four areas:

Being known as a friendly church and/or providing a warm environment
No success story! (more below)
Commitment of the Guest Services team members
Follow-up by Guest Services team members

It’s beyond the scope of this post to go into detail on all the findings, but a review of the four summary findings above do provide a unique glimpse into what Guest Services teams are doing – and how they might be challenged to improve on their services. Here are a few that I see:

Guest Service teams are a very visible and important part of the experience on your church campus – no matter the size. From the street to the seat, your Guest Services team has an opportunity to provide a ministry to Guests and members so that they enter into worship ready to worship. Adjust the services you provide to the scale of your church, but make sure that your Guests and members have no doubt they are welcome
Guest Services teams – like all volunteer teams at your church – need a vision to serve, a target to aim at, and guide to serve by. A statement or expectations or covenant of service – common to all volunteer teams in your church but tailored to the specifics of Guest Services teams – is the best way to help them minister to the people they encounter every weekend.
Not surprisingly, Guest Services teams want to know what they are supposed to be doing – and given the tools and training to carry out their jobs. It’s critically important that your Guest Services teams – and all volunteer teams at your church – be a part of solid training at the initial training AND ongoing continuing education along the way.
Serving should mean celebrating – individuals serving on your Guest Services team provide the front line, first contact experience with Guests and members. They should be delivering and receiving powerful opportunities to pour into people’s lives. When the second largest category of responses to the survey’s “Success Story” question is “None,” something needs to change!

You’ve probably figured out by now that Guest Services is a big deal to me! It’s more than a big deal – it’s a passion of mine. I want churches to realize that they have a chance – usually a single chance – to make a WOW! first impression on Guests coming to their facility this weekend.

If you would like to be a part of the ongoing research and communication in the next Guest Services survey, just drop me a note at bob@auxano.com and I will send you the survey when it is available later this summer.

Starbucks, Customer Service Recovery, and What Happens at Your Church…

Posted on July 21, 2014 by Bob Adams

Even when it’s not really their fault, the baristas at my Starbucks know how to make things right.

Facing a writing deadline today, I needed a little caffeine boost and a change in venue. I headed over to my Starbucks for my favorite breakfast: Tall White Chocolate Mocha and an chocolate croissant. The barista told me that he was sorry, they were out of the White Chocolate syrup. That’s no big deal for me – there are plenty of other drinks to choose from. I paid and walked over to grab a table.

On the way, I ran into a couple of friends I hadn’t seen in a while, and we began catching up. Within a couple of minutes I heard my beverage being called, so I went to the counter and grabbed it from a different barista and headed back to my table.

As I sat down, I realized I had not received my croissant, so I went up to the counter to get it. With a horrified look on his face, the second barista said “I’m so sorry we forgot your pastry,” and handed me this:

This voucher is Starbuck’s way of saying “we goofed, but we want to make it up to you.”

He explained that the voucher was good for any size beverage anytime at any Starbucks location. The first barista joined the conversation and added that he was sorry to disappoint me about having to choose another beverage, and but then to forget my pastry? “Unacceptable.” The other barista also apologized, and the pastry was brought out to my table when it was warmed less than a minute later – again with an apology.

Breakdowns in service are unavoidable, even in a well-run organization like Starbucks (and this is the first time in over 4 years at “my” Starbucks that a mistake has been made). Service breakdowns, while unavoidable, are a great opportunity for an organization to show what they’re made of, an opportunity to bring a customer closer to you.

Starbucks practiced these four steps to service recovery (thanks Micah Solomon!):

Apologize and ask forgiveness
Review the complaint with the customer
Fix the problem and then follow-up
Document the problem to allow a permanent fix (later I heard the shift leader talking with the barista who took my order)

I was already a regular customer, and it was really no big deal.

But they (the whole staff at the time) made it a big deal…

…and reinforced my positive feelings and actions towards “my” Starbucks (and by extension, to the Starbucks brand) even more.

Here’s the lesson for ChurchWorld:

I’m willing to guess that things don’t always go peachy at your place every weekend. Shortage of volunteers, room assignments messed up, AVL problems in the worship experience, sermon that didn’t preach like you wrote it, etc.

It’s going to happen.

But what happens next is up to you, and might just make all the difference in the world in one of your Guests coming back again next week.

Great Guest Experience Teams Pay Attention to What’s Out of Sight

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Bob Adams

…at least, out of their line of sight.

Spatial awareness and quick reactions aren’t just characteristics of great athletes – they are absolutely necessary to exceeding your Guest’s expectations.

I recently read a great post by Micah Solomon on developing effective customer service leadership. Solomon always has great advice – both in a regular column at Forbes.com and his books Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit and High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service.

But it was a single phrase that caught my attention:

The waiter with no peripheral vision

Solomon goes on to explain that in comparing two team members with equal skills and service standards, the one who exhibits peripheral vision will be the more successful one, and, surprisingly, attributes peripheral vision to understanding the difference between Purpose and Function.

Could that be true in your Guest Experience Teams as well?

Here’s how Solomon differentiated the two:

Every team member has a job function, and a purpose in (and of) the organization. The function is what’s written, in detail, on the team member’s job description. It’s the technical side of the job.

A team member’s purpose is something different. The purpose is the reason you’re doing all the technical things, and sometimes stepping out of your technical role to do whatever it takes.

That’s peripheral vision – seeing beyond the obvious, noticing what’s outside the very center of your gaze.

It’s a Parking Team member noticing steam coming out from under the hood of a parked car – and volunteering to repair the cracked hose while the family attends the worship experience.
It’s a Greeter noticing a young mother struggling with an active toddler while trying to maneuver an infant stroller through the crowd – and asks if he can push the stroller for the mother.
It’s an Usher being sensitive to the unspoken request of a worship attender – and seating them to accommodate a special need.

When your Guest Experience Team members exhibit peripheral vision, they are going beyond their “job” and serving the people out of a sense of purpose and mission that undergirds all they do.

Is it time for your Guest Experience Teams to have a “vision check?”

Create a Culture of Extreme Guest Experience Focus

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Bob Adams

Here is a short checklist for how to create a culture of extreme Guest Experience focus.

1. Create a Guest Experience vision. Much like creating a vision statement to direct the organization, you should also create a clear and compelling “Guest Experience vision” that describes the level of service your organization aspires to deliver.

2. Infuse your entire organization with the Guest Experience journey. Create strong, trusting relationships with your Guests. Solicit feedback, communicate that feedback throughout the entire organization, and then be sure to take action on the feedback your Guests have given you.

3. Become an expert on delivering superior Guest Experiences. Find out everything you can about how to deliver a great Guest Experience. Steal the best ideas, benchmark against the top performers, share that information across your organization and make learning about and working on improving Guest Experience a core competency of your organization.

4. Turn every team member into a Guest Experience champion. Make serving the Guest the number one job of every team member in your organization. Help them with the tools, training, equipment and support they must have to deliver excellence consistently. Reward and praise those who deliver above and beyond the call of duty, deal quickly and effectively with anyone who does not embrace the Guest Experience values.

5. Remove any barrier that stands in the way of delivering superior Guest Experiences. Look at all systems, policies, procedures, reports and rules. Wipe out anything that creates roadblocks or frustrations in the effort to delight and amaze the Guest. Stupid rules that make it hard for team members to serve superbly impact your organization negatively.

6. Measure, measure, measure, measure, measure & communicate. Create a clear, specific and extremely well thought out and over-communicated program for systematically collecting and quickly communicating the most important Guest Experience delivery measurements to the people who can then act on them. Make it easy for your people to win.

7. Walk the talk. Every level of the organization, starting at the very top, MUST be a living example of your Guest Experience strategy. If the senior leadership team in your organization does not support and demonstrate the critical importance of Guest Experiences, there is absolutely no hope that your front-line people will deliver great Guest Experiences. All team members must demonstrate an obsession for delivering consistently Guest Experiences.

What would have to change in your organization to create a culture of extreme Guest Experience focus?

What are you waiting for?

Adapted from Awesomely Simple by John Spence

Execution: Turning Strategy into Performance

Posted on June 23, 2014 by Bob Adams

You want your organization to be the best it can be at what is does – to be a winner.

How do you make that happen month after month, year after year? A brilliant strategy or a killer brand isn’t enough.

You need to be able to articulate your strategy in simple terms and then consistently put it into action.

Without execution, the breakthrough thinking breaks down, learning adds no value, people don’t meet their goals, and the revolution stops dead in its tracks. What you get is change for the worse, because failure drains the energy from your organization.

– Larry Bossidy

3 Keys to Execution

Execution is a discipline, and integral to strategy – People think of execution as the tactical side of an organization. That’s the first big mistake. Tactics are central to execution, but execution is not tactics. Execution is fundamental to strategy and has to shape it.

Execution is the major job of the organization leader – An organization can execute only if the leader’s heart and soul are immersed in the organization. Execution requires a comprehensive understanding of the organization, its people, and its environment.

Execution must be a core element of an organization’s culture – Execution doesn’t work unless people are schooled in it and practice it constantly. It doesn’t work if only a few people in the system practice it. The discipline of execution has to be part of an organization’s culture, driving the behavior of all leaders at all levels.

Leadership without the discipline of execution is incomplete and ineffective.

Without the ability to execute, all other attributes of leadership become hollow.

Adapted from Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan

Seven Rules for Successful Strategy Execution

Posted on June 20, 2014 by Bob Adams

Most organizations’ strategies deliver only 63% of their promised value (HBR study, 2005).

Why?

Leaders press for better execution when they really need a more sound strategy. Or they craft a new strategy when execution is really the weak spot.

Leaders can avoid these errors by viewing strategy and execution as a linked pair.

Here are seven rules for successful strategy execution:

Keep it simple – avoid drawn-out descriptions of lofty goals. Instead, clearly describe what your organization will – and won’t – do.
Challenge assumptions – ensure that the assumptions underlying your long-term strategic plans reflect reality, not wishful thinking.
Speak the same language – everyone on the team, from senior leaders to front-line team members, need to have a common framework for assessing performance.
Discuss resource deployment early – challenge teams to be realistic about when and how they will execute the strategy. Push them earlier rather than later for the most feasible plans.
Identify priorities – delivering planned performance requires a few key actions taken at the right time, in the right way. Make strategic priorities explicit, so everyone knows what to focus on.
Continuously monitor performance – measure real-time performance against your plan, resetting planning assumptions and reallocation resources as needed. Doing this will remedy flaws in your plan and it execution, and avoid confusing the two.
Develop execution ability – no strategy can be better than the people who must implement it. Strategy development must include team selection and training.

By following these rules, you reduce the likelihood of performance shortfalls. If you do happen to falter, you can quickly determine whether the fault lies with the strategy itself, your plan for pursuing it, or the execution process.

The payoff will be that your organization can make the right mid-course corrections – promptly.

To read the full article this content was adopted from, go here.

If you liked this post, you might also like these:

Execution: Turning Strategy into Performance

Moving from the Chief Executive Officer to the Chief Execution Officer

Moving from Chief Executive Officer to Chief EXECUTION Officer

Posted on June 18, 2014 by Bob Adams

What happens when the CEO gets involved in the details of strategy execution?

The E in CEO gets changed.

It’s all too easy for a leader to delegate the actions of strategy execution to levels of management below them.

And it’s a mistake.

By retaining the execution of strategy, the Chief Execution Officer can achieve consensus and commitment across the leadership team; establish and preserve the integrity of the strategy; and engage the team. If done correctly, this approach and these achievements can greatly improve any strategy’s performance.

Randall Russell, VP at Palladium Group and founding editor of Balanced Scorecard Report, has identified the following three practices that can lead to a successful management style of a Chief Execution Officer.

Lead the Leadership Team – creating a leadership team that is unified around the strategy is the most important prerequisite for successful strategy execution. Consensus on and commitment to the strategy provides a litmus test for determining who should stay on the team – and who should go.

Share the Story of the Strategy – too many strategies never get executed because they remain the closely guarded secrets of the leadership team. To be effective, strategy should be shared with all team members. Successful organizations believe that people who perform non-strategic but vital roles should know the general outline of the strategy so that they can become more engaged and find ways to contribute.

Leverage Strategic Performance Feedback – Once the strategy is se and the extended team is engaged, a system of strategic performance feedback must be established. Alignment of performance reward and recognition systems with strategy execution must be done early in the process. Team members who see how their individual roles make a difference will be powerfully motivated.

Application for ChurchWorld Leaders

Establish cross-functional integration, high-level consensus, and commitment to the strategy across your leadership team.
Translate the strategy into a set of measurable objectives that guide behavior across all your teams.
Integrate organization-wide measurements that enable individuals to understand their contribution to the strategy
Align reward and recognitions to the overall strategy while acknowledging unique individual contributions.

Smart leaders translate strategy into execution.

For more information, see the full story here.

Summer Time is Reading Time!

Posted on June 10, 2014 by Bob Adams

What’s on your bookshelf for reading this summer?

Here’s a couple of new books for your consideration:

Who’s the Leader of the Club: Walt Disney’s Leadership Lessons, by Jim Korkis

Disney’s Hollywood Studios: From Show Biz to Your Biz, by J. Jeff Kober

Korkis and Kober are no strangers to the Disney organization – both are former Cast Members, and both have written extensively about various aspects of Disney.

Who’s the Leader of the Club is Korkis’ first venture into a business application of his vast knowledge of all things Disney, and he certainly doesn’t disappoint. He provides a section on Disney and Leadership and then follows that with seven leadership lessons as exemplified by Walt Disney. The final section is a collection of quotes, bad leadership examples, and stories by and about Walt Disney’s leadership.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios is Kober’s second Disney-specific book with a business theme, and takes the reader “behind-the-camera” to understand and apply the Disney magic to any organization. The book contains over forty chapters of park history, Disney trivia, and business best practices designed to help your organization get ready for its closeup.

Remember: Leaders are Readers!

Improvise Your Way to Clarity

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Bob Adams

The major reason why improvisation works is that the musicians say an implicit yes to each other – Frank J. Barrett

As with jazz soloists, so it is with organizational leaders. The competent ones hit the right notes, but the great ones are distinguished by how far ahead they are imagining and how they strategize possibilities, shape the contour of ideas, adapt and adjust in the midst of action, and resolve organizational tension.

What we need to add to our list of leadership skills is improvisation — the art of adjusting, flexibly adapting, learning through trial-and-error initiatives, inventing ad hoc responses, and discovering as you go.

Curious about the origin of “improvising,” I found the following in the dictionary:

French improviser, from Italian improvvisare, from improvviso sudden, from Latin improvisus, literally, unforeseen, from in- + provisus, past participle of providēre to see ahead

Sometimes you just have to improvise your way to clarity.

The major reason why improvisation works is that the musicians say an implicit yes to each other.

Because jazz improvisation borders on chaos and incoherence, it begs the question of how order emerges. Unlike other art forms and other forms of organized activity that attempt to rely on a pre-developed plan, improvisation is widely open to transformation, redirection, and unprecedented turns.

So it is with many jobs in organizations. They require fumbling around, experimenting, and patching together an understanding of problems from bits and pieces of experience, improvising with the materials at hand. Few problems provide their own definitive solutions.

Jazz improvisers focus on discovery in times of stress.

This is what improvisational leaders do. They come at challenges from different angles, ask more searching questions, and are born communitarians. They’re not going for easy answers or living off of old routines and stale phrases. Instead of focusing on obstacles (a form of negative self-monitoring), they create openings by asking questions that entertain possibilities.

Critically, too, improvisational leaders assume that the improv will work: that the mess is only a way station on the path to a worthwhile destination.

The message here is powerful: start by asking positive questions; foster dialogues, not monologues; and you can change the whole situation, maybe even your life.

Adapted from Say Yes to the Mess, by Frank J. Barrett

Until a Problem Occurs, the Guest Doesn’t Get to See You Fully Strut Your Service

Posted on May 10, 2014 by Bob Adams

Does your approach to Guest Experiences include an effective problem resolution process?

Service breakdowns and other problems experienced by Guests are crucial moments in an organization’s attempt to establish a relationship with someone. It only stands to reason, then, that solving these problems will have a potentially outsized impact on your organization’s success. That’s why you need an effective problem resolution process.

There’s no better way to illustrate this than a personal experience that just happened with my wife:

A Positive Disappointment

My wife travels often in her business, mostly to the same cities, staying in the same hotels, and eating in a lot of the same restaurants. This week she was out of town most of the week – including her birthday.

While I had made special birthday plans for her later (it will be very evident what those are!), I also wanted to make her birthday a little special. I had hidden cards, snacks, and magazines she likes but never gets to read in her suitcase and briefcase; she enjoyed finding them.

She stays at the same hotel for several days each month, and has for several years, always talking about how good they are when it comes to guest services. I thought I would talk to the staff there to see what kind of special birthday treat they could arrange. I was not asking for a freebie, just their help in arranging it.

Tuesday, the morning of her birthday, while she was flying to her destination, I called the hotel staff and talked to the Guest Services director. She recognized my wife as a regular guest and seemed to know who she was. We agreed on an appropriate surprise, and I was assured it would be delivered to my wife upon her arrival after a full day of meetings and site inspections. And, by the way, it was compliments of the hotel.

In the mid-afternoon, someone from the food/beverage staff called, confirming the arrangements. Everything was ready to go.

Except the birthday treat wasn’t delivered on her birthday.

Or the next day.

At the end of the second day, unable to contain my curiosity, I asked her if she had received anything unusual in her room. “No,” she replied, adding, “As a matter of fact, my room had not been serviced so I called down to ask for more towels and bath supplies, and they didn’t deliver them as promised. I had to go down and ask for them in person. And they never cleaned my room while I was here.”

Strike One, Two, and Three all in one swing.

While my wife doesn’t share my Guest Experience passion with quite the same enthusiasm as I do, she is very attuned to it and decided to wait until checkout to bring the matter up.

At checkout, she brought up all the misses with the front desk: the failed birthday treat, the missing supplies, and the lack of cleaning of the room. With an apology, the front desk clerk said she would let the manager know.

On the way to the airport, my wife received a very polite and apologetic email from the General Manager of the property, with the following actions:

Thanks for being a regular guest
Acknowledging my wife’s status in their rewards program
Acknowledging the plans their staff had worked out with me in advance
Detailing, by position, where they dropped the ball on the treat
Acknowledging that the failure to clean was inexcusable
Acknowledging that having to come down in person was inexcusable
Apologizing for the three misses
Stating that she had addressed, personally, the misses with the staff and supervisors involved
Acknowledging how valuable my wife’s business and loyalty to their hotel was
Applying a generous rewards bonus to my wife’s account
Stating the hotel chain’s and her pride in delivering great service to guests
Apologizing again for the three misses
Requesting that my wife notify her personally the next time she is a guest so the GM can make sure the experience is 100%
Thanking my wife again for her business and wishing her a good weekend

I would call those actions an effective problem resolution process.

Effective, in this case, is measured by whether Guest satisfaction has been restored. In my wife’s case, it was. She’s looking forward to returning to the hotel next month.

Effective Problem Resolution can be challenging, but is well worth the effort. Hospitality studies have shown that when you resolve a service problem effectively, the Guest is more likely to become loyal than if she had never run into a problem in the first place.

Because until a problem occurs, the Guest doesn’t really get to see you fully strut your service.

(effective problem resolution process inspired by Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon’s book Exceptional Service, Execptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five Star Customer Organization)