As a leader of a church I often wonder if we’re doing everything we can to make people welcome.  Lets face it, in almost any organisation its relationships (some may call it customer service) that are the glue that connect people to that organisation.  And its the lack of relationships that push people away, no matter how good the “product” or “service”.  I hesitate to use those terms in this context but the church has the best offer available in the world – Eternal life and a relationship with Jesus Christ, (and the hard work, read service, that goes with it), and yet we often struggle to hold on to people.

Over the last few months, Raewyn and I have been from the sublime to the ridiculous when it comes to our experiences of relationships with organisations we have had contact with.  Here’s what I mean:

The Sublime

Eric Mack and eProductivity

I recently purchased eProductivity for Lotus Notes from Eric and his team to assist me with properly implementing GTD (Getting Things Done) by David Allen.  Now I’m a one-off user on the other side of the world to Eric.  But his, and his teams contact with me once he became aware of my interest in eProductivity has been fantastic.  They have been available to answer queries through Twitter and been most generous.

Now here’s the thing.  Once I actually signed up I sort of expected the relationship element to ease off a bit.  After all, they had their sale and there must be many more prospects.  But in reality, their service since sale has only improved.  Remember that I’m in New Zealand (that’s just below Australia for any geographically challenged people out there), and they’re in the States.  Well, I got a phone call from them, (after they checked that it was OK to by twitter), simply to check that the installation had gone OK and did I have any questions.

Needless to say, even after a short time in relationship with them, I already trust them and would do everything in my power to maintain our relationship and help them spread the word about eProductivity.  (Hence I’m blogging about my experience as I go)

The Ridiculous

Chemwash Cleaning Porirua

We contracted with Chemwash to do a low pressure water clean of our house.  Their quotation states “Satisfaction guaranteed”.

We agreed a date for the clean and unknown to them we organised for waterblasting to be done around the property a day or two prior to the chemwash.  We obviously didn’t want the dirt being waterblasted to be sprayed onto a freshly chemwashed house.  It needed to happen in the right order.

We then went on holiday and came back to the chemwash having been done early!  They had called home and got my 17 year old son who told them he knew nothing about the chemwash at all (because he had been out of town at a flying school when it was organised and had got back a few days before us).  Nonetheless they came early and of course, after the later waterblasting the house was dirty again!

Additionally, the original chemwash had missed a number of areas that we would have thought would have been a bit cleaner.

We called them up to discuss.  It was really interesting because they felt they were doing us a favour by coming early.

Here’s the real issue though.  Let’s put aside whether they got it right or wrong, or whether the cleaning was up to standard.  The owner/manager of the business, who lives about 20 minutes away wouldn’t come to visit to actually have a look!  He simply said he wouldn’t charge for it but that he’d never deal with us again…

And Your Organisation?

I’ve noticed that when it comes to relationships, and therefore customer service, it all starts with the leader.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. How is my organisation perceived?
2. What do I model?
3. What do I need to do to change/improve the organisational culture?

I’d be interested in your experiences, whether any other questions should be asked and whether you agree or disagree.  Thanks and God bless.

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