Over the past few days I've been through a fair amount of frustration with Comcast. Three of four conversations with different reps left me feeling like I had done something wrong. I felt chided, even scolded a couple of times. I'd chuck the whole deal with them and go to another provider, but I'm in an older neighborhood and ... well, I feel stuck with Comcast. So, I'm negotiating and finding the arrangement livable.
I'm really not that hard to get along with, honest. But, like you, there's something in me that knows I have personal value. And when we experience "customer service" that isn't "customer care," we feel de-valued. Great service is about value.
We could happen into a restaurant where the food is excellent. I mean, the best we've ever eaten. But if the service is poor - slow, impersonal, or indifferent, we'll likely be so distracted by the lack of service that we'll miss just how superb the meal is.
That's why we'll stop going to a restaurant that can't seem to get our steak cooked as requested. It's why we'll switch dry cleaners after more than a couple shirts are ruined or not pressed properly. We're not snobs. We just know that value can be communicated, so we go to places, businesses and people where that's our consistent experience.
Our guests in our church do the same thing. Every weekend.
They assess - involuntarily - the sense of personal value they experience. It could be the best message our pastor has ever preached. It could be the most inspiring media, impactful music... but, if our guests didn't feel welcomed, found the restroom dirty, the parking lot difficult to navigate, the children's room crowded - they may sit in our service and completely miss the message that they matter to God.
They may choose, in one visit, to not return simply because they didn't experience value. Call it guest services, call it customer care, call it ministry. It doesn't matter the label. Our people will experience value - or not. And they'll make decisions about returning based on it.
We may only get one chance.
What are you doing to make that one weekend for that one guest be an experience of personal value? Will people be distracted or embraced by the excellence of your care? Will they leave and not return or come back to experience the love of Christ through his people?
Think "one chance."
