The Six Disciplines of Guest Experiences

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Bob Adams

Organizations that want to produce a high-quality Guest experience need to perform a set of sound, standard practices. Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine, in their book Outside In, have developed six high-level disciplines which can be translated into Guest experiences: strategy, Guest understanding, design, measurement, governance, and culture.

These disciplines represent the areas where organizations that are consistently great at Guest experiences excel. If you want to deliver a great Guest Experience, these disciplines are where you need to focus, too. Listed below are brief explanation of each of the six disciplines; a full post on each discipline will follow at the end of this series.

Strategy

This is your game plan. It’s a set of practices for crafting a Guest experience strategy, aligning it with the organization’s overall attributes and brand attributes, and then sharing that strategy with team members to guide decision-making and prioritization across the organization. The strategy discipline is critical because it provides the blueprint for the experience you design, deliver, manage, and measure.

Guest Understanding

You need a set of practices that create a consistent shared understanding of who Guests are, what they want and need, and how they perceive the interactions they’re having with your organization today. This discipline includes research practices, analyzing the information you’ve collected, and documenting your findings. Guest Understanding provides a foundational level of insight that guides the rest of the disciplines.

Design

Design isn’t just choosing the right images and fonts for your next website revision. It’s a problem-solving process that incorporates the needs of Guests, team members, and partners in your mission. It’s a way of working that creates and refines real-world situations.

Design is the secret weapon of organizations that gives them a strategic advantage in figuring out what services their Guests need and in defining the exact characteristics of every Guest interaction. Design helps you understand how a Guest accesses your website, what a Guest is likely to do as they approach your campus, and gives you clues about creating a welcoming environment.

Design is the most important discipline that you’ve probably never heard of.

The human-centered design process starts with research to understand Guest needs and motivations. It’s all those activities in the discipline of Guest Understanding. Analysis is next – synthesizing the data into useful forms. The next phase is ideation, which is just what it sounds like – coming up with ideas. After that, it’s time to prototype – ranging from a simple redesigned Guest survey to a full-scale mock-up of your typical Guest experience on the weekend. Next, these prototypes are put into action with real people while you observe the results. Finally, you must document the features of the resulting product or service that has evolved.

Measurement

As the saying goes, “What gets measured matters.” Measurement practices take the guesswork out of managing your Guest Experience. It does this by capturing data about what actually happens in a Guest Experience, how the Guest felt during the interaction, and whether the Guest is willing to recommend your organization to others afterward. Measurements tell your team what’s going right (or wrong), what, if anything to do about it, and what impact your organization can expect as a result.

Governance

The word governance may bring to mind images of executives in closed-door meetings talking about compliance. Senior decision makers are important part of governance at many organizations, but governance isn’t about a committee that hands out edicts from the top floor.

In reality, governance models are as varied as the organizations they support. Governance practices will help you drive accountability by assigning specific Guest Experience management tasks to specific people within your organization.

You need to use your insights and metrics to identify Guest Experience improvement opportunities and, as you put new programs into place, keep tabs on the progress of those initiatives.

Culture

Now matter how solid your strategy is or how carefully you design your Guest Experience, it’s simply impossible to plan for every single Guest interaction at every last touchpoint. At some point, you need to put your trust in your organization’s most valuable resource – your team members – to do the right thing for Guests.

Building a Guest-centric culture is critical to your success.

How exactly to you get to this level of a Guest-centric culture? First, you overhaul your recruiting practices so that you get Guest-obsessed people on the front lines. Second, you need to socialize the importance of Guest-centricity through storytelling, rituals, and training. Third, you’ve got to reinforce new values and behaviors through informal and formal rewards. Finally, tie it all together with a steady cadence of communication that never lets team members forget why they’re doing all of this in the first place.

Mastering the six essential disciplines of Guest Experience takes time and effort but it’s something you have to do.

If you want to succeed – today and in the immediate future – you have to decide – right here, right now – to roll up your sleeves and do the work of building competence in these six disciplines. While that may scare you, what should scare you more is the thought of becoming irrelevant to your Guests.

If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less. General Eric Shinseki, retired Chief of Staff, US Army

Part 6 of a multi-part series based on the book Outside In

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

>> Part 5

Understanding Your Guest Experience Ecosystem

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Bob Adams

One of our favorite vacation spots is at the beach – not the glitzy, 24/7 world of neon lights, endless traffic, and crowds, but instead a quiet, sparsely populated beach where the beauty of sand and sea oats takes center stage.

The beach we stayed at was located right next to a large state park containing hundreds of acres of salt marsh. I took a little time to explore the park and was reminded that what looked like a soggy wasteland was actually a critically important ecosystem. The marsh is located between land and salt water and contains dense stands of salt-tolerant plants that support animal life and are essential to the nutrient supply of coastal waters.

It would be a simplistic and tragic mistake to assume that what was not really habitable or useful to one species (mankind) was actually an important link in the whole food chain – including man.

The natural ecosystem of the salt marsh is an instructive example of a parallel system: the Guest Experience ecosystem.

A Guest experience ecosystem is complex set of relationships among an organization’s team members, partners, and guests that determines the quality of all Guest interactions. It is the single most powerful framework of diagnosing and then fixing guest experience problems in ways that make the fixes stick over time.

The simple truth is that if you have Guests, you have a Guest experience ecosystem. And if you are struggling in small or big ways with Guest experience problems, something has gone wrong with the complex and interdependent relationships that comprise your Guest experience ecosystem.

Solutions to Guest experience problems that aren’t clear from the inside-out perspective of most team members can become obvious once you look at the problem from the Guest’s perspective – from the outside in.

If you take that perspective, you will take the time to understand the complex, interdependent relationships that make up your Guest experience. You will begin to understand what needs to change and who has to be involved in the change. You will even begin to understand how to bring disconnected parties in your Guest experience ecosystem together and fix problems that previously looked unsolvable.

Are you trying to solve Guest experience problems without understanding your Guest experience ecosystem?

It’s time for you to understand your Guest experience ecosystem by understanding the disciplines of Guest Experiences.

Part 5 of a multi-part series based on the book Outside In

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

>> Part 4

The 3 Levels of Guest Experience at Your Church

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Bob Adams

Guest Experience is about Guest perception.

To fully understand why, you need to know that Guests perceive their experiences at three different levels:

Meets needs
Easy
Enjoyable

If you imagine these experiences as a pyramid, the foundation is “meets needs,” the middle is “easy,” and the top is “enjoyable.”

The base of the pyramid, the foundation – it’s where the Guest’s basic needs are being met:

Were they able to find out when your worship experience started from your website – easily?
Were the directions (on the website or app) clear and concise?
Is your facility easy to enter, park, and access?

The next level is ease of use, meaning, “does the level of service you provide Guests” give you an advantage in helping them to return again?

Were their questions answered quickly and efficiently?
Were all the interactions with our Guest memorable enough to stick out in their minds next weekend?

Finally, the top of the pyramid: did your Guests enjoy their time on your campus?

Did they receive a tangible thank you gift and a reminder of future events?
Do they know “what the next step is” if they so choose?
Did they receive a “fond farewell” – so that their last impression is a positive one?

Every time your Guests interact with your organization, they judge how well the interaction helped them achieve their goals, how much effort they had to invest in the interaction, and how much they enjoyed the interaction.

What level is your Guest Experience on?

Part 4 of a multi-part series based on the book Outside In

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

>> Part 3

Understanding and Using a Journey Map

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Bob Adams

Journey maps are documents that visually illustrate the particular range of activities of a Guest over time. Many journey maps plot the entire course of a Guest’s relationship with an organization – all of the steps that Guests take as they discover, evaluate, attend, access, use, get support, and leave – or re-engage – the church. Others zoom in to just one particular part of the journey.

The scope of the journey map, the exact visualization, and the degree of detail it contains vary based on how the organization wants to use it.

Jonathan Browne, Forrester Research

At Auxano, our version of a simple journey map is called “The Seven Checkpoints.” We believe the first place to start is to imagine seven checkpoints for your guest. Think of the checkpoints as “gates” or even “hurdles” that any first time Guest must navigate to get from their comfy family room to your worship service.

With every gate comes a simple question: Has the church removed the inherent difficulty of navigating the gate for the first time?

More specifically we look for every opportunity to make each gate simple, easy and obvious to navigate.

The Seven Checkpoints

#1 Before Departure: Are directions and service times immediately accessible to Guests from your church website, phone recording and yellow pages (yes – they’re still around!)?

#2 Travel to Location: Do Guests know where to turn into your church location?

#3 Parking Lot: Do Guests know where to park?

#4 Building Entrance: Do Guests know which door to enter?

#5 Children’s Ministry: Do Guests know where to take their kids?

#6 Welcome Center: Do Guests know where to go for more information?

#7 Worship: Do Guests know which door to enter?

These seven checkpoints can be plotted on a graph that illustrates how your Guest ministry is doing: is it simple, easy and obvious where your hospitality creates a WOW! or is it complex, confusing, and frustrating where your Guests cry out “Someone help me now?”

Any particular difficulties created by your location or facility should be viewed as hospitality opportunities. By providing a great solution to an obvious barrier, you enhance the wow-factor of the hospitality.

Have you ever considered creating a journey map for Guests coming to your church?

Part 3 of a multi-part series based on the book Outside In

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

>> Read Part 2

The Value of Guest Experiences

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Bob Adams

You Are in The Guest Experience Business – Whether You Know It or Not

Guest Experiences should be fundamental to the success of your church.

For many churches, Guest experiences are the single greatest predictor of whether Guests will return – or go somewhere else.

A Guest Experience goes to the heart of everything you do – how you conduct your weekend services, the way your teams behave when they interact with Guests and each other, the sense of welcome you provide. You literally can’t afford to ignore it, because your Guests take it personally each and every time they touch your organization – be it services, people, or places.

If the above is true, why are so many church leaders seemingly blind to the importance of Guest experiences? Primarily, it’s because they don’t know what they don’t know – starting with what a Guest Experience actually means. While most church leaders have at least heard the term Guest Experience, they often believe it’s just another way welcoming “visitors” (more on this dreaded word here).

That misunderstanding is a disaster in the making. If you don’t understand what the Guest Experience is and why it’s important, you risk losing your Guests to organizations that do – and I don’t mean other churches.

Your church has competition…and it’s not the church down the street.

Like it or not, we live in a consumer-driven society, and the people who come to our church – you and me – and the people we are trying to reach are consumers.

With consumers comes competition.

If your church is going to be effective in its mission, you must beat the competition.

Mark Waltz, Granger Community Church

Pretty strong words…

But dead-on accurate.

The good news is that our “competition” is not the other churches in your town. As a matter of fact, most of them are on your team.

So who is your competition? Here is how Waltz sees it:

Your competition, the rival that will keep people away from your church, is any business, services, or experience your Guests have encountered in the past few weeks.

That competition includes restaurants, malls, golf courses, amusement parks, movie theaters, sporting events, and so on.

Bottom line: the competition for your Guests began when they were wowed in another environment. Your Guests have high expectations that are formed every day from new encounters with excellence and conscientious care.

Although too much of their world is merely adequate, they know excellence, and they return to place where they experience it.

Bottom bottom line: Will your Guests’ experience in your church be worth getting out of bed?

To appreciate what Guest Experience really means, let’s start by clearing up a few misconceptions about it. Here are a few things that the Guest Experience is not.

It’s not soft and fluffy – you love your Guests because you think your church offers them something they can’t get anywhere else. But loving your Guests won’t help you succeed unless you do something about it; like making it easy to find your building and then get inside; finding the right place for your family; providing opportunities for them to engage with others; encouraging them to take the next step – whatever that might be. All of these (and more, as you will see) are critical aspects of Guest experiences.
It’s not Guest Services – This is a subtle concept, but Guest Services is more of a reactionary term. People come to Guest Services when they have a problem or need help. It’s like saying that a safety net is a trapeze act. The net is important to the act, but if the performer has to use the net something has gone wrong with the show.
It’s not welcoming visitors – Do you have Visitor parking? Visitor packets? A Visitor’s Center? Do you welcome your visitors during the worship experience? And on and on…The first step in creating a WOW! Guest Experience is to remove the word visitor from your vocabulary, never to be used again.

If these are some of the things that the Guest Experience is not – what, then, is it?

Here’s the beginning of definition, which I hope you will customize to your own setting:

The Guest Experience is all the connections and services your organization offers to someone who comes to your campus, how they interact with the people and processes there, what your brand stands for. It’s what your Guests think happened when they tried to learn about you online or in person, or maybe over the phone. What’s more, it’s about how they felt about those interactions: excited, happy, and reassured, or nervous, disappointed, and frustrated.

Guest Experiences are how your Guests perceive their interactions with your organization.

Once you understand this, you can lead your organization from the outside in, bringing the perspective of your Guests to every decision you make.

Part 2 of a multi-part series based on the book Outside In

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

>> Read Part 1

Take the Magnetic Test for Your Guest Experience Teams

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Bob Adams

Magnets have wonderful properties; one of the most amazing is they can both attract and repel.

In a previous post, I wrote about “Magnetic Personalities“. If you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to jump over and take a look at it – it’s a quick read, and it will give some background to the rest of this post. Go ahead – I’ll wait…

What goes for magnetic persons also goes for magnetic teams – like the Guest Experience team at your church. Sometimes the very thing that makes you “attractive” may also be “repelling” to someone else. Your team may go by another name, you may have multiple teams, but I am willing to bet that if you are the leader of such a group, you are always looking for ways to improve how you do what you do. Are you ready?

Not so fast! Before you can improve, you need to know where you are – you need to establish a baseline measurement.

Here is a list of questions to assist you in identifying your present level of Guest Experiences. The list is adapted from a great book by Chip Bell entitled Magnetic Service. Answer “Yes” or “No” to each question:

Do your Guests believe your church listens to them more deeply than almost any other organization they can think of?
Do you anticipate Guests’ future needs so well that Guests feel you can practically read their minds?
Are Guests given an opportunity to participate in a different way than they would have expected?
Does your Guest Experience have such sufficient consistency such that Guests can trust it as being repeatable and not serendipitous?
Do Guests see your church as rather daring or gallant in this approach?
Do Guests think you and other team members in your church have more fun than most people?
Are Guests given a chance to learn a lot simply through their encounter with your church?
Do Guests witness you and others on your team perpetually improving service?
Is the interpersonal engagement with you so unforgettable that Guests think positively about it again and again?
Do Guests view their Guest Experience as special, distinctive, and not the usual “same old same old” approach?
Do Guests comment on how the church is almost always super comfortable to be a part of?
Do Guests feel completely free of dissonance and anxiety when dealing with your church?
Does your Guest Experience reflect a deeper destiny, vision or commitment to serve?
Is your Guest Experience delivered in a way that clearly reflects a wholesome and generous attitude?

How many honest “no’s” did you have? If you answered “no” more than three or four times, you have gaps to fill, holes to repair, and practices to start.

Congratulations! You now have a baseline measurement of your Guest Experience…

…where do you go from here?

Exceeding Guest Expectations Has a Unique Starting Point

Posted on September 25, 2014 by Bob Adams

There are 2 steps you must take in order to exceed your Guest’s Expectations.

First, you have to meet their expectations. What you add from there will create experiences that are memorable. That’s the “easy” part!

Second, you have to become one of them – a guest.

Bet you haven’t thought about that one much – or at all!

As a matter of fact, it takes a lot of work to see through a Guest’s eyes. After all, everything to you is old hat, normal, and just fine.

But to a Guest? Maybe not so much.

When is the last time you talked to Guests – of all ages, backgrounds, and family situations? Have you asked them questions that reflect your interest in them, and give you insight into their thoughts and expectations?

Have you entered your campus for worship and considered what your expectations might be if this were your first time?

Where do I turn in?
Where do I park?
Which door do I enter?
Where do I take my kids?
How do I find out more information about anything?
Where do I go for worship?
What’s my next step?

Remember, your Guest hasn’t been to your campus before, so they don’t know anything about the questions above!

What about Guests in a wheelchair? Or a single mom carrying an infant in one arm with a diaper bag over her shoulder while holding on to a 4-year old? Or a hearing-impaired Guest? Or…

You don’t know what the expectations of your Guests are until you understand who your Guests are.

If your Guests don’t have their expectations met, then you’ve missed the first step in exceeding those expectations. To first meet their expectations, you have to know and understand who your Guests are, and what they are expecting.

First Impressions Last…

Posted on July 29, 2014 by Bob Adams

…but the Last Impression is Remembered!

Hellos and good-byes are beginning and ending points, the two highest positions in what memory researchers call the serial position curve. In a list of items or a series of events, they will be remembered most easily.

I have long been an advocate of a WOW! First Impression – there are literally dozens of posts on this blog that will speak to that. While I don’t intend to change that high opinion of your First Impression, I am increasing becoming aware of the power of the Last Impression.

Good-byes are often rushed – or skipped altogether – in ChurchWorld. Even the name for one of the most common Guest Experience positions – Greeter – is emphasizing the welcome. I’ve never heard of a “Good-Byer” and it’s probably not even a word, but the intent should be!

The goal should be to close your interaction with your Guest in a way that is memorable and sincere.

Never miss a chance to say good-bye without providing a warm smile, words of farewell (if possible), and an invitation to return.

The Last Impression will become a First Memory.

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.

energized by the steady, deliberate journey in generational learning

Tag Archives: Church Guest Experience