Responsiveness
Michael Hyatt, President and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, wrote yesterday about responsiveness being a secret to career success. I want to challenge you to read his post from the perspective of someone trying to connect with your church. Responsiveness is not just about individual success–it’s also a key ingredient to your success as a ministry organization. If your church (meaning staff and volunteers) doesn’t respond to phone calls, email messages and Web inquiries, people assume you don’t care or your church is too big. Responsiveness matters and it really matters in the church. As Michael explained, “The truth is, you are building your reputation—your brand—one response at a time. People are shaping their view of you by how you respond to them.”
Preach it!! You only get one chance to make a first impression. Oh, sorry, that’s Mark’s line isn’t it?
Really good points. It always shocks me how “unresponsive” people are not only in the business world but also in their personal lives, and especially in churches.
When we don’t acknowledge e-mails or give periodic updates, or follow through with people, the message we send is that we don’t care or that the other person is not that important to us.
This is a particularly terrible thing for Christians who aspire to “love one another,” and/or who have seekers coming through the doors of their churches each week.
Tony,
This is so true. In selling to the church community for the first time in my career, I am disappointed not only in the lack of responsiveness tied to the lack of processes, but also the lack of responsiveness tied to a lackadaisical attitude about the real needs of people. Even more disconcerting is the lack of accountability amongst the church staff concerning this lack of responsiveness when it comes to information requests into the church, volunteer opportunity responsiveness, prayer requests, activity registrations and others. I contend that more and better accountability across the board will have a positive impact in the long term viability of ministries.
If it is work load that is the issue, then allowing as much self-service through the church web site can free up the cycles for church staff to deal with the one-on-one interaction that only a person can do.
Tony, keep up the good work. Granger is a great inspiration for many churches.
Grace to you,
jhook