Church Loyalty and Customer Satisfaction
Two items that caught my eye this week seem to have something in common – Customer Satisfaction Doesn’t Matter and Americans not losing their religion, but changing it often. Both discuss how people change brands – or churches – even though they aren’t disatisfied with what they have been getting. Consider this:
By every metric you could choose to assign to my experience, I’m a satisfied customer.
Now let me tell you something that should scare you, no matter what business you’re in. If something even slightly better came along as another option for me, I would switch without hesitation. (Customer Satisfaction Doesn’t Matter)
Her shift in religion was gradual, said Case, 41, a freelance writer and editor in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“It wasn’t so much ‘You people stink and I am out of here,’ as ‘I like this better and this is what I want to do.’ ” (Americans not losing their religion…)
In the church world, some say the Christians are to blame for being finicky and immature. Others blame churches for either not adapting to people’s desires or for failing to create mature Christians who remain loyal.
Instead, I see a different reason. Customers and church goers alike have little loyalty these days. It’s the result of a mobile society, where relationships and their counterpart – loyalty – take a backseat to what is best for the moment. Can churches counteract this?
Some people are surprised that I have remained loyal to my home church, where I have attended for 15 years. It’s a good church, but there was a time when I wasn’t a satisfied member. Yet I stayed because of a few key relationships and a network of acquaintances. Today, I couldn’t be happier.
Likewise, I remain committed to the denomination – not because it’s perfect, but because it’s my family. I see its short-comings, and I’m not motivated to remain because of a misguided elitism. I want to serve as part of the team that reached me, taught me, and trained me.
Yet, I don’t know how to connect with others in the denomination who share similar interests or are engaged in the types of ministries I’m truly passionate about. I know they exist, but the people who I personally know that do the things I really care about aren’t part of my denomination. I wonder at times if it isn’t God’s hand at work, leading me to the people He wants me to be with. Meanwhile, a few key relationships and a network of acquaintances keep me loyal.
Are you religious?
A local church recently bought billboards declaring, “We hate church… as usual.” The controversy it stirred up made the OKC news, and one of the blogs I follow, Church Marketing Sucks, took note. In particular, his criticism is that the advertisement is simply pointing out the perceived faults of other churches, turning churches into competitors instead of partners.
One commenter asked if it makes any sense to non-Christians when a church declares they are a church for people who hate church. And that got me thinking about all the times I’ve heard well-meaning Christians declare that they aren’t religious.
Does it make any sense to people who aren’t Christians when we say we aren’t religious? Communicate that Christianity is about a relationship with a loving God who causes us to love people, but quit denying the truth. You’re religious. And it’s not a bad thing.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. – James 1:27
Integrity Matters
Over on the Church Marketing Sucks blog, author Anne Jackson responds to a question about how churches can ensure they have effective marketing and communications without burning staff out. In her response, Anne writes about the importance of integrity in church communications. She tells the story of a time she refused to design a mailer for a church because they insisted on projecting an image of their church that wasn’t true. She lost the job as a result, but she kept her integrity.
This topic resonates with me because of Christians who have recently accused me of slapping photos of children on promotional materials to raise funds for missions the easy way. Our missions department does have a humanitarian ministry that meets the physical needs of many children, but we are careful to not convey a message that isn’t true. If an offering isn’t going to meet physical needs, we don’t use images or language that would convey a lie. To do so, as she writes, would be a sacrifice of integrity incongruent with a holy life.
In addition to the overwhelming spiritual reasons to not mislead people about your ministry, such a strategy is also likely to backfire. Misleading your audience will confuse them. They may not recognize that the materials are for your ministry, or they may begin to associate your ministry with something else. Moreover, as your audience begins to discover that you have misled them, you will lose their trust. Once you have lost trust, good luck raising funds or recruiting volunteers.
Yes, a dishonest approach to fund raising may temporarily meet your needs. But it’s not worth the long term consequences – to your ministry’s credibility or your personal integrity. I find it interesting, too, that Anne suggests that dishonesty in church communications is one way to lead to staff burnout. If you don’t want to burn out, don’t lie.
Are goals just great ideas, while budgets are financial needs?
In my organization, we set an annual fundraising goal for our general missions offering. The goal is promoted throughout the denomination, with the hope people will be motivated to reach the goal. Regional groups of churches set a goal as well, and local churches and individuals are encouraged to set goals, too. We’ve even used the goals concept in a lot of our past promotional materials. An annual theme once challenged people to “press toward the goal” (Phillipians 3:14), and a video another year used soccer to generate some excitement about making goals.
We set a goal for the offering because that’s the way we have always done it. But as Seth Godwin points out, we also set goals because they challenges us and provide a way to measure success. It is also reasonable effective, as we usually reach the goal.
Yet, we didn’t meet the goal in 2008. It’s easy to blame the economy, but I know of at least one ministry that raised its full budget. The Christian radio station Air1 initially fell short during their fall pledge drive. They did an additional end-of-the-year appeal, asking people to donate $100 so they could be “fully funded” in 2009. The DJs continually refered to the amount they needed to raise as their budget, but once, he slipped and called it a goal.
Almost immediately, he corrected himself, explaining: “It’s not just a goal that would be nice to meet. It’s a real financial need. It’s our budget for 2009, and we need to be fully funded. Otherwise, we won’t be able to do the ministry we have planned.” By the end of the campaign, they had raised their full budget, and yet people still continued to call and donate.
His comment has stayed with me and caused to rethink our reliance on the word goals. I shared the idea with the ministry directors of our organization, but I’m curious what you think as well. Are fundraising goals just amounts that it would be nice to have, while budgets are the money a group needs?
The fun way to solve plumbing problems
We’ve had some minor plumbing problems recently at home, and being the ingenious MacGyver-type, fixing that stuff somehow always falls to me. Last week, it was the flushing mechanism on the toilet. The problem of today is the slow-draining bathtub.
I don’t know how to fix a slow-draining bathtub, but I know how to use Google to do anything. I googled “bathtub drano”, hoping to find out if it was safe to use Drano in a bathtub and what kind would be appropriate for my situation. Drano has put some effort into their online marketing, so the first search result was their website.
You’ve got to check our their Solution Finder. After choosing between Bathroom, Kitchen, or Garage\Laundry, you’ll be presented with a video of a person getting ready, looking for food, or doing laundry. Hotspots on the video allow you to click on the tub, toliet, sink, or other plumbing fixture that you are having problems with.
What’s so fun about it? There are sound effects, animations, and human dialogue. Click on the toilet, and the lid flips open and the lady says, “Oh, no!”
Not only did I find out the kind of Drano I need, I had fun doing it. That’s good marketing.
