Customer Service: How Can it Improve? Terry Storch

Today's writing is from my brother Terry at Fellowship Church.  Please leave your comments below!

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Customer Service Fellowship Church style!

“We are not a large church…we are a small town.”

A “small town feel” in a worship center that seats over 4000 people? That’s the goal! With Fellowship Church’s growth to over eighteen thousand worshipers and seekers every weekend, plus the expansion to two new campuses that started this past weekend, it is not only a goal, but a MUST. And excellent customer service is one of the keys.

Over the years we have developed innovative ways to serve our members and visitors. By the time our guests pull into our parking lots till the moment they are seated in the

Worship Center, they will have been personally greeted 3-5 times.

Our Parking Volunteers direct traffic into the parking lots and to the nearest parking spots. Our Greeting Ministry Volunteers hold open every door to the Church as our guests come inside, they smile and welcome all that walk in. At that point our Hospitality Volunteers can be found located at various points in the Atrium to serve coffee, OJ, bagels and cookies. Our Ushers help visitors to find a seat and answer questions about the service before it starts. After the service at the Information Kiosk we have volunteers and staff members available to answer any questions or to pray with them. The experience of being in such a large building, surrounded by thousands of people can be a little intimidating and even overwhelming at times. Our volunteers stand ready to make all visitors feel completely at home, and most of all, welcomed.

Our customer service only begins on the weekends….our Information Services staff processes every new visitor card into our database and all new visitors receive a personal phone call from a pastor on staff to thank them for coming and to answer any questions they may have. If they’ve indicated that they’d like to receive further information about a specific ministry, a letter and a phone call is placed in attempt to get them more involved in the life of Fellowship Church.

Striving for the most excellent customer service, we have also listened to suggestions from our members and have created some really cool perks. One would be our free wireless Internet in The Source, our Bookstore and Café. Another would be the opportunity to “build your own worship service” when we released our “Total Request Wednesday” idea, where FC Members could go to the FC website and vote for their favorite songs. The Top 10 songs were performed at our following First Wednesday service.

We want to make “Plugging in” as easy as possible. We provide Internet kiosks located in the Atrium for easy access to the FC website to register for any upcoming event. We provide event registration on-line, by phone or by Registration forms turned in to the church.

Other examples of leveraging customer service:

• Birthday Cards personally signed to every child (K-5^th grade)

• Volunteer appreciation

• Youth Strikeforce (new visitors to Jr. High get a strikeforce sign in their front yard the next morning thanking them for attending the youth service)

So you might be asking, why do you go to all that expense and trouble for church? Well, we believe that there is nothing greater and more important than the local church. And because of that, we will stop at nothing to make your “experience” at Fellowship excellent. It’s quite simple; we want nothing more than your experience at Fellowship to lead you to a life long relationship with Christ. That’s customer service!

Comments

[matt]

Terry,
I could not agree more with your view of customer service. In fact before reading your thoughts I had posted something on customer service on my blog that in some ways is very similar. The fact is at Fellowship you are putting customer service in the hands of everyone and making it not a "job" but an "attitude and a culture". You said it best when you said it starts when they drive into the parking lot. It's no wonder that your church has experienced the growth that it has over the past few year. Great job!!!!!

[Terry Storch]

Matt, thanks for your comments. You are right on. At Fellowship our customer service is all about our culture. It is a part of our DNA. Now...this is not easy, and it gets harder and harder as we get bigger and add more staff. We have to fight to keep this in our DNA and not turn "inward". One of the great things about this, is, it starts at the top and bottom. Ed Young drives it and our volunteers drive it.

[Darryl]

Nice example of excellent customer service!

[Bren]

Terry, I have a huge aversion to huge churches, but your description of Fellowship puts a lot of my concerns to rest. Sounds like you guys are honestly focusing on making people truly welcomed and not just giving lip service to it.

Shoot, if I was in the area I might even come visit! :-)

[Rosa]

Aloha Terry, to piggyback on Bren's comment, if I was in your area I definitely would come visit! I'd also bribe you with a lunch to pick your brain some more.

I have been impressed with the current reinvention of church communities in the past few years, and in particular I have had a great admiration for their willingness to take leadership roles in challenging traditional management theory. Clearly business people everywhere can learn from you and your peers.

Mahalo nui for giving us this insight into your organization today.

[Sarge]

Great idea... I'm trying to relay the same mindset to our chruch. We must value people!