Thank you Ma'am

Ok so here's a perfect example of how NOT to perform customer service. I had a Leadership meeting for Westview today at 11:30. We meet at Caribou Coffee near downtown on Ingersoll. It's a great location, nice and large and they have a great meeting room you can reserve, which we do, so it works as a nice meeting place for our leadership team which comes from all parts of the metro. Anyway, because I'm pulling the Mr. Mom role as well and have my two kids with me, I thought I would go early and hit a nearby Subway and grab some sandwiches for me and the kids so they could eat lunch while I had my meeting. It was actually pretty funny, when I entered a completely empty Subway, due to the tremendous amounts of road construction that's taking place right in front of the main parking lot entrance. I wasn't even sure if they were open, because I needed to actually drive right through the construction to get to the parking lot. Anyway there's no one in the store except me and this young girl, mid twenties, who is there to fix my custom made sandwiches. Its here my conversation went something like this:

Me - (Walking into the store) Wow, that construction has really shut you guys down hasn't it?
Female- (No response)
Me - Oookay? Could I get three six inch subs, all on white bread. I need a tuna, a salami and a cold cut trio.
Female - You want three sandwiches?
Me - Yes, three six inch sandwiches on white. Tuna, Salami and a cold cut trio.
Female- She then proceeds to grab a foot long roll of white bread to make the first sandwich. I stop her and she is starting to put tuna on a foot long.
Me- No, no! That was three six inch subs.
Female - Oh, ok. (she then cuts the foot long into two six inch.) What did you want for the first one?
Me - Tuna. I need three six inch subs. Tuna, Salami, and cold cut trio.
Female - Any cheese?
Me- No cheese on the tuna.
Female - Would you like it toasted?
Me- No. None of these will be toasted.
Female - (Now starting to make the second sadwich) What did you want for the second.
Me - Salami and then I need a six inch cold cut trio on white.
Female - What type of bread would you like?
Me - White. All of these are on white.
Female - What type of cheese?
Me - American
Female - Would you like it toasted?
Me - No. None of these will be toasted.
Female - And what would you like for the next sandwich.
Me - Cold cut trio, six inch on white.
Female - Would you like cheese?
Me - Yes. Could you put some provolone on there.
Female - Would you like it toasted.
Me - No....none of these will be toasted.

It's at this time that one of her co-workers came in and saved my by building my sandwiches. The young female then moved to the cash register to ring up my sale.

Me - I'd just like the sandwiches and these three bags of chips.
Female - Did you want drinks?
Me - No, I just need the sandwiches and chips.
Female - ..and three drinks?
Me - No. Just the sandwiches and chips.
Female - As she swipes my card and rips off my receipt she then says, "Thank you ma'am."

If your customers are talking, I hope you are listening better that this!

Tim (also known as Ma'am)

Busy day, but I like it!

Today started off with a 7:30 AM marketing meeting for our new fall series at Westview Church. We actually have two large series coming up and it should be a great time for our church. First beginning in August we are launching "Missing In America," a series on evangelism and how to reach your community. We have the privilege of actually having the author of the book of the same title, Tom Clegg (who lives here in Des Moines) will actually be speaking two of the four week series. One thing we juggled around as well is that we might be able to have Grant Norsworthy, former bass player from SonicFlood now guest artist and speaker, come and do an entire service, so if that would be the case we might need to shuffle the schedule some. We'll find out about that tomorrow. We are also doing some fun stuff during Missing In America to help people reach out to their neighborhoods, such as a "Party In A Bag." (No not that kind of bag, it's just cheaper than a box.) This will be everything that they will need to successfully host a party in their neighborhood. So after this great 4 week series on evangelism we thought it would be strategic to provide a series that would be targeted towards our next door neighbors. So we could have something to invite them to.
So launching September 7th (my birthday btw) we will be launching a new series titled, "Live Healthy; God, Self, Others" and this was the reason for our 7:30 AM meeting. To discuss how we are going to market this series to our surrounding communities. Not only will our Sr. Pastor, Jay Brabend, and our newly ordained Associate Pastor, Susan Watson, be teaching but we also have a host of guest speakers joining us as well. Such as Dale J. Andringa, M.D. who is Vice President & Chief Medical Officer of Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, Jerry Foster will be with us for Healthy Future, Dave Watson from LWBJ will be speaking on finances, and speaking on Marriage will be Dr. Gary and Barb Rosberg. So we really want to do all we can to get the word out, so to date this is the plan:
All of the designs will be done by Lance Thompson at Big Blue Sky Marketing. I'm looking forward to working with Lance again, as he was the lead web designer for MinistryHub.com. He does great work and I know it will be appealing to our target audience as well.
Lance will be designing the following marketing pieces.
A Door Hanger - This will basically be a calendar type piece with a ton of information on it.
3 Sets Of Postcards - We will be running 3 sets of postcards, 12,000 each, that will be going out the 4th Thursday of each month as an insert in the Waukee Today paper.
Posters - We will be asking business owners within the church to display these posters.
Web Support- You will be able to go to www.westview.org/livehealthy and get the latest information. I will also be shooting some video testimonies of Westview members and capture testimonies of how God has impacted them through Westview Church.
email blast- we will be doing a weekly email blast with the latest information about what's coming ahead. (This will be something you can email your friends.)
e-card - you will be able to go to www.westview.org and invite your friends to the series with an e-card.
Business Cards - This will have the artwork for the series and the web information
And last Banners for the Marque out front.
So as you can see we will be doing whatever we can print/web wise to get the word out.

We also are looking to do events and activities as a church to support the series as well, such as flu shots, green day, church bike event, and anything else we can come up with. We're always looking for more ideas.

After that I went to our staff meeting at Westview and I actually have to say I now enjoy staff meetings. One thing I can say about our staff is that they are "real" people. There are no fronts being put on in the room and it's very refreshing.

I then went home to continue working on my goal of getting 1,000 churches using MinistryHub.com. We have been doing some aggressive email campaigns and we are closing in on the 400 church mark. I'll keep you updated as we go. Its just very exciting for me to log in and find people/pastors using the site that we have developed for them.

Well that's it for now, I'll keep you updated as we progress.

Tim