Guest Services

How We Ask For Personal Information From Our Guests

By Casey Ross / Director of Ministry Services / Browns Bridge Community Church In the church world, a person's name and address can be highly sought-after information. With that information, a church can... mail the person a welcome letter. mail the person a handwritten note. send the person promotional material for months to come. drop by unannounced on a Tuesday night with a plant, cake, book, coffee mug, gift card, bag of brochures, etc. to give as a gift. count them on a first time guest report. Of course, before you can do any of this, you have to actually collect the person's name and address. And that can get a little tricky. The last thing a church wants to do is come across desperate or rude. People often inquire about how we ask for personal information from our guests. Our answer is simple. We don't. Well, we don't until they come to us and are ready to give it to us. We believe if a guest wants us to have their personal information, they will give it to us when they're ready to take a step. Honestly, it's a risk. If they choose to self-identify, then we hopefully give them clear and easy ways to do so. If they choose to remain anonymous, they can easily do so. So how do we receive people's personal information? After all, we do have a database. One primary way we collect this information is in our Family Ministry environments when someone registers their child. Another way is when someone takes a step...Starting Point Orientation, NEXT, baptism, membership, volunteer, financial giving, etc. Collecting people's personal information is important and strategic. But you may not have to collect it as aggressively as you think. Be patient and let people come to you. Their information will probably be more valuable this way.

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Our Guests Are The Most Important Part Of Drive

By Casey Ross / Director of Ministry Services / Browns Bridge Community Church Our Drive Conference starts next week! It's one of my favorite times of the year! It’s so humbling to have leaders from around the world come to our North Point campus. And it’s such an honor to talk with them and learn from them. When you attend a conference, there are certain expectations you have. You expect the content to be helpful. You expect the quality to be excellent. You expect the systems you have to go through to be efficient. You expect the group putting on the conference to wow you. Those who attend Drive will experience these things! But my goal for next week is that each person who attends Drive will feel like they were the priority of the conference. Yes, we paid attention to content, quality, systems, etc. But we paid the most attention to them. One thing we take very seriously…in a really fun way…at Drive is how we welcome, inform, and serve those who attend. Every person who attends is our special guest for these few days. And every one of our staff members is a part of Guest Services for these few days. This year, however, we have six specific teams whose jobs are to pay special attention to our guests: Information Center Team Parking Team Inside the Auditorium Host Team Outside the Auditorium Host Team Rest Stop Team Wish Granting Team You can’t just say people are the most important thing to you. You have to act like it. I am praying we act like it next week. If you are coming to Drive, we cannot wait for you to get here! Thank you for giving up a few days so we can learn from you! If you are here looking for help with Guest Services, the same can be said about your church. The people who walk through your doors have expectations. And you hopefully meet these expectations through your content, quality, systems, etc. Make sure, though, you prove people are the most important part of everything you do on Sundays. [This is a re-post with some tweaks.]

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Do Something Small This Sunday

By Casey Ross / Director of Ministry Services / Browns Bridge Community Church Forgive me if this is TMI. My wife, who is pregnant, recently went to the doctor for a routine ultrasound. When they put the gel on her stomach so they could take a peak at our child, she immediately noticed the gel was nice and warm. When she came home, she made sure to tell me about the warm gel. She assures me the gel is usually shockingly cold. It's the small things. One of the people I work with recently overheard another staff member mention that he was out of blue pens. She ordered him some blue pens and let him know they were on the way. I heard him tell at least ten other staff members what she had done for him. It's the small things. Small things only seem small to the person doing them. They are often big things to the receiver. Small things get people's attention. Small things put a smile on people's faces. People tell their friends about the small things. What "small things" can you do for your church's guests? Have volunteers hold the doors open for your guests. Have volunteers walk guests from where they are to where they want to go. Put wrapped mints in the restrooms. Have umbrellas available. Give volunteers permission to leave their posts and meet guest's needs. Return phone calls and emails within 24 hours. Have warm water in the baptismal. Have wrapped candy at your Information Center. Send hand-written thank-you notes to volunteers. Provide towels for guests getting baptized. Look for ways to do the small things for your guests. And do something small this Sunday!

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When A Child Is Missing

By Casey Ross / Director of Ministry Services / Browns Bridge Community Church My family and I were about to leave the YMCA recently when a lady came running by us saying she could not find her daughter. Of course, we immediately joined the search for the little girl. Minute by minute, more and more people joined in the search as we looked all over the three levels of the building, the parking lot, and anywhere else we could think of. Thankfully, after about five minutes, the little girl was found safe and sound. Whew! During the frantic search, something really grabbed my attention. It surprised me. It was obvious that the Y staff had no plan in place if a child was reported missing. They helped in the search, but they were just as frantic as everyone else. No one took charge. No on locked down the building. No one utilized the building's security cameras or intercoms. Clearly, there was no plan in place to deal with a lost child. What about your church? Regardless of the number of preschoolers, kids, and students who attend your church, you need a plan. I won't bore you with Browns Bridge's missing child plan. Our plan is based on the layout of our building / campus, other volunteer teams and their locations, our camera and communications systems, etc. It's specific to us. Your plan should be specific to you. Take into account how your building and campus are laid out, the volunteers from the children's and student environments, other volunteer teams and their locations, your resources, etc. Here are some things we believe should be basic elements of any missing child plan: Don't let anyone in or out of your building. Don't let any vehicle enter or exit your campus. Know who is in charge of the search. Communicate with the right people during the situation. Make sure the right staff and volunteers know the plan before you use the plan. Stay calm.

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Managing A Tension In Guest Services

By Casey Ross / Director of Ministry Services / Browns Bridge Community Church There is a tension in Guest Services. It's not a problem that needs to be solved. It's a tension we have to learn to manage. Our Guest Services teams (Parking Team, Host Team, Usher Team, Information Team) welcome, inform, and serve every guest who comes onto our campus and into our buildings on Sundays. We place our volunteers at strategic locations from the parking lots to the hallways to the aisles in the auditorium so they can interact with as many guests as possible. We don't want anyone to not be influenced in some way by one of our Guest Services volunteers. And here is where the tension happens every Sunday. Not every guest wants to be welcomed, informed, and served by our Guest Services volunteers. Some people want to be left alone. Some people want to remain anonymous. Some people need their space. It's important we realize this about people. So how do we manage this tension? Here are some of the ways we try: We teach our Guest Services volunteers to look for nonverbal signals that a guest needs assistance. At Browns Bridge, we've learned guests who need help often look up...maybe they're taking everything in, maybe they're looking for signage, or maybe they're asking God for help. We make all Guest Services volunteers very easy to identify so a guest knows who to approach for help. At Browns Bridge, we require all Guest Services volunteers to wear the same t-shirt we provide to them. We instruct our Guest Services volunteers to not go "over the top" in how they welcome people. For instance, we don't want them hugging or high-fiving every guest who walks by you. We typically do not approach a guest. Instead, we let the guest approach us. It's a tension we have to manage. I'm sure there are times we do not go far enough in helping a guest. And I am sure there are times we go too far in helping a guest. But most of the time we want to live in the middle of the tension where we welcome, inform, and serve every guest in just the right way for them. This tension within Guest Services exists where you are. How are you managing it?

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