• Customer Service Matters

    When it comes to customer service, it matters. It is one of those things that I have always been quick to notice… and lately I’ve come across some amazing examples of it.

    In the past 30 days I’ve received remarkable, incredible, stellar…. unbelievable service from several companies I have new relationships with. Stunning!

    Observation: Start-ups have better customer service because they have to. They see the connection between a happy customer and their bottom line. They know that a happy customer will tell their friends about a fantastic experience. Conversely, they know that a bad customer experience will spread like wildfire. Incredible customer service is a cheap marketing strategy!

    But start-ups aren’t the only ones with great customer service. That’s what makes AT&T and Apple such a crazy combination for the iPhone! AT&T has has had horrible customer service for decades and they are so big they don’t care one ounce. They know for every 10 customers they lose to bad customer service there are 10 more who will create a new account. And Apple has created a culture of stellar customer service to the point where people will spend an extra 1000 for a laptop just because they know if they ever have a problem they can take it back to the store.

    Southwest Airlines is another long-standing company with stellar customer service. I’ve purchased tickets with them before, not read the rules, and had to call to ask a refund… even though I didn’t deserve one. Not only have they given it to me, they’ve always done it happily even though it was my mistake!

    Why does stellar customer service matter? In today’s marketplace a purchase is all about the experience. If you go the extra mile your customers will love you forever. They will wear your t-shirts and brag to their friends that they are your client.

    Customer experience is the next great wave of marketing.

  • What’s Good About the Recession?

    Our culture is inundated with the negative news of the recession. News outlets struggle to find fresh ways to accurately describe the words “the economy sucks” each hour of the day.

    The church has followed right along with the negative news. A lot of blogs have cited a report that church participation is on a steep decline. Of course, people won’t admit that there is a tie between the recession and people leaving the church. Perhaps churches should have responded to help sooner? That’s another rant for another day.

    Here are three good things the recession has done for my family:

    – A huge emphasis to live in the black. As I’ve documented before, we are working hard to get out of debt and build a little savings.

    – A huge emphasis on what is important. Tough times lead people back to their roots and we are no different. A major focus for us has been on “cheap family fun.” We’ve kept the value of family time but re-tooled it to focus on the time and not the activity. There are lots of other areas where we are making values-based decisions as opposed to having little rhyme or reason as to why we do things.

    – A huge emphasis on sustainability. Scaling things back and focusing just a tad more on thrift allows us to live within a sustainable budget. While we can’t predict the future (no one can) we can manage our house in a way that would allow us to sustain in thin times and thrive in good times.

    I think these three things… live in the black, focus on your values, and practice sustainability are three things that every family, church, business, and institution should be learning during this recession. Without a doubt, these are tough times. But there is great good to come from it if we’ll learn hard lessons and apply them in the future!

    Those who are hit hardest by this economy should resolve a “never again” attitude. We all made fun of our grandparents for saving everything and compulsive frugality. Who is laughing now?

  • Best Shepherding Skillz EVAR

  • Spam Crackdown!

    If you’ve ever opened that scary place on your inbox called the “spam” folder, you will appreciate this video. (Couple naughty words, in context of spam. Sorry about that.)

  • San Diego Zoo Pics

  • Confession: My Blog Pays the Bills

    Here’s a Google Adsense screenshot from this morning.

    adsense_screenshot

    Of course, here’s where I got my screenshot.

  • Saturday Tunes

    Saturday TunesAnother weekend, already? If it has to be Saturday I will take it. Yet, it hardly seems like a week since my last installment.

    Last night we had some friends over for dinner. Chris and Anastasia are very cool and I’m thankful to have them on staff at Harbor dreaming of ways to reach people and bring justice to City Heights. Kristen absolutely went off and delivered one of the most incredible collections of food ever. With a mediteranian theme she made everything from scratch. Homus, pita bread, chicken skewers, salad, and even frozen yogurt. Give that woman a kitchen and some ingredients and she comes to life. All of those years of girl porn have really paid off.

    Today we are taking the kids to the zoo for a while. I’ve never been and they have each been a few times. So that will be fun. Have we gotten used to Southern California to the point where we are laid back about going to the San Diego Zoo? I mean, that place is a wonderland of zoology. I’m sure it’ll be fun.

    As usual, Saturday kicks off with some quiet time. Everyone is sleeping in and I am quietly listening to some tunes. Here are the next 10 tunes randomly selected on my iPod… er, I mean iPhone.

    #1 Sweet Home Alabama by Lynard Skynyrd *****

    #2 Loose Lips by Kimya Dawson ****

    #3 Baba O’Riley by The Who *****

    #4 Footloose by Kenny Loggins *****

    #5 Here is Our King by David Crowder Band ****

    #6 More than Life by Hillsong United ****

    #7 Can’t Find the Words by Karina ***

    #8 Mysterious Ways by U2 *****

    #9 All the Young Dude by Mott the Hopple ****

    #10 Late Night, Early Town by Lloyd Cole

  • How do we get to Youth Ministry 3.0?

    t_9780310668664I’ve been wrestling with the concepts of Marko’s book, Youth Ministry 3.0 for a long time. Actually, before I worked a YS I had been going through a prolonged set of discussions at Romeo saying in a thousand different ways… What I’m doing isn’t working anymore.

    The problem was simple. I was trained and experienced at how to do youth ministry a certain way. The entire ministry was built around a youth group night of games, worship, small groups, and a talk. I had seen it work and do incredible things! Even in Romeo we had seen this ministry model draw 40+ students to a church of 120. Lives were changed, kids were discipled, volunteers loved it, on and on. We ran that thing and worked that model like a well-oiled machine. I was well-versed in all the terminology of all the other well-oiled youth ministry systems and had written tons comparing and contrasting the strength of one model over the other. But in the last few years the model tanked. Kids stopped coming. The whole thing became kind of toxic. Instead of re-arranging their schedule to make in on Wednesday night all of a sudden kids were trying to find things to do on  Wednesday night so they could politely bow out. Frustration mounted and I kept saying, “What I’m doing isn’t working anymore.”

    The crazy thing was my reaction to a YM 2.0 model. My response was always, even to the last day, “I know this works, something is just missing, that’s all.” I would tweak things here, re-emphasize this or that. It was never that the concept was broken. The problem was always either the kids not getting the vision of the model or my model not having the funding/support it needed to succeed. It never really dawned on me that my solution to fixing things was to kill the model and search for a better way to minister to students. My reaction was always to just work harder and to keep trying.

    Pray more, blame the parents. Pray more, blame the money. Pray more, blame myself. Pray more, blame the kids busyness. In the end I was royally frustrated and a little angry at God that He had me in a place where I couldn’t fix things.

    But as Marko’s book shows, there is a massive shift from what he calls “Youth Ministry 2.0” built around programs and models, towards “Youth Ministry 3.0” where the programmatic approach is, probably though not necessarily, foregone for a draw towards ministries built around affinity. (A super over-simplified analysis, right there!)

    My wrestling point right now is pretty simple… how do I help ministries kill what has worked for a generation and open their eyes to a way to reach this generation. My experience in YM 2.0 environments is that they’d be happy running an un-attended YM 2.0 model if that means they don’t have to change things. Youth workers may not like the sacred cows of big church but they have certainly built some sacred cows themselves. (Remember the fury over my articles, “I Kissed Retreats Goodbye?“)

    From a national perspective I’m seeing one trend that is scaring me and I don’t want it to be the solution: Killing youth ministry budgets, staffs, and programs. Please tell me that we’re not going to throw the baby out with the bath water? Simply because a model isn’t working doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t minister to adolescents!

    What is a more productive outcome than that?

  • Why High School Basketball is Awesome

  • The move is done!

    Today was the last day of our lease at the old place. We really only had two items left that had to be retrieved. We had the base of our yard swing. Kristen loves this thing so I knew we had to get it taken care of right away. And we had our old car. Yeah, the one with the blown engine.

    Tonight we went over there to get both. The swing seemed like the easy thing, so we loaded that into the back of the truck, no problem. Next, we charged the battery on the Camry for a while and after about 30 minutes of trying I got it started.

    That’s when the race was on. Rather then pay $50 to tow the car I decided to drive it! Now, you need to know two things to appreciate this lunacy. First, we moved from the top of one hill to the top of another. So it was down 400 feet of elevation and back up the other side. (About a mile total) Second, the engine was running on two cylinders. That means there were two other cylinders busted and making huge bangs while the other two chugged along like a lawn mower.

    So, down the hill and off we go. The brakes are super soft since I hadn’t driven the car since October. Yeah, big hill and bad brakes. Smart move.

    Then, pulling onto University, I hear a nasty sound. As if a busted engine isn’t bad enough, the swing had fallen out of the back of the truck and was being dragged. I kept driving my car go-kart towards the house while Kristen figured out the swing. It was a freaky moment as we go separated. Not good.

    I pulled into the bottom part of our neighborhood so I could check on Kristen. She was fine, just getting everything secure. So I started driving up through the streets with my loud banging engine. Driving up a steep hill with full knowledge that your car could stop at any moment is kind of fun. Not only was I trying to snake through my neighborhood, I was keeping an eye out for places to ditch in case I had pull over and call for a tow.

    A few minutes later I pulled into our driveway and turned off the engine. A couple minutes after than Kristen arrived.

    Kristen and I were giddy in completing our task. We knew we did something dangerous and it came out OK. The kids were nervous about the whole thing but after a few minutes were willing to celebrate with us. I told Paul, “Sometimes to do things adventurous you do it not knowing it’s going to be fine. That makes the adventure more fun.” He told me “OK” but I don’t think he was convinced.

    Craziness over? Of course not! I needed to move the car a few feet to the right so we could park next to it in the driveway. Of course, the car wouldn’t start so we had to push it. Yeah, good times right there.

    This was one of those nights where we shared a lot of laughs. Most importantly, our move is now officially over.