Identity & Communication Event held on 3-20-2004 "Tell 'em Who You Are!" | |
Telephones
Park
Ridge uses answering machine to share the Good News
Telephone tips for churches:
A telephone answering machine
in the church office can be a tool for "Telling 'Em Who You
Are!" Rather than using a plain vanilla -- "at the
tone..." -- type of
announcement, you can be welcoming and informative, and make a positive
impression on callers.
First of
all, choose someone with a pleasant voice and good speaking skills to record
the outgoing message.
Have a script printed out for that person in order to avoid any stumbling or miscues. Begin with a greeting and identify the full name of the church. You may want to mention regular office hours (when they can speak to a live person) and then time(s) of Sunday services and church school.
At this
point it might be good to say something like, "Visitors are warmly
welcomed." If applicable, you might add, for example, "The
sanctuary is wheelchair accessible" or "We are an open and affirming
church."
At various
times during the church year you can include information on particular
programs, concerts, and special worship services. BUT, if so, you will
want to omit some other parts of the message to keep it from running too
long. About 20 seconds is
probably the outside limit before a caller begins to lose patience.
So use the answering machine as part of your “extravagant welcome”! Think of what you need to say and TELL 'EM WHO YOU ARE!
--Ray Kostulias
Study
shows that most churches just didn’t answer the phone
Ventura, CA—Many churches gear up for outreach-oriented
ministry during the holiday season. Thousands of churches offer seasonal
musical or theatrical events, most churches have special holiday services, and
a concerted effort is made to attract and welcome visitors.
But a new research study indicates that most Protestant
churches have overlooked one important matter: nobody is covering the phones!
Based on attempted telephone contact with 3400 Protestant
churches randomly selected from across the nation during December, the study by
the Barna Research Group, of Ventura, California, reveals that a human being
could not be reached at 55% of the nation’s churches.
Overall, one out of every five Protestant churches (19%)
had neither a person nor an answering machine responding to calls; the phone
simply rang without any response in each of the five separate attempts. One out
of every six churches (16%) had an answering machine responding to all five
attempts. One out of every five churches (20%) had either an answering machine
or no answer at all during the initial five attempts. (In the study, every
church sampled was called a minimum of five times during business hours, with
one call made each day at different times of the day over the course of a
two-week period.)
Distinctions by Denomination
Some types of churches were more responsive to incoming
calls than were others. The most responsive groups among those measured were
United Methodist (64% provided a human response), National Baptist (62%) and
Southern Baptist churches (61%).
Mainline churches, as a group, were also highly
responsive: 63% had a person answering the phones during the initial five call
attempts. (Mainline churches include American Baptist, United Church of Christ, Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran, United
Methodist and Presbyterian Church U.S.A. congregations.)
The churches that were least likely to provide human
contact were Baptist churches other than Southern Baptist or National Baptist
(no person ever answered the phone after five attempts at 65% of those
churches), Holiness churches (62% non-human response), Church of God in Christ
(56%), and the Christian/Church of Christ congregations (56% non-response).
(The Holiness group of churches includes those associated with the Nazarene,
Christian & Missionary Alliance, Church of God – Anderson, Wesleyan, and
Free Methodist denominations.)
Churches most likely to have neither a human response nor
an answering machine were the Holiness group (30%), COGIC congregations (27%)
and Baptist churches other than Southern and National Baptist (24%).
Regional Differences
Surprisingly, the research also indicated that there were
huge differences in church accessibility by geographic region. The most
reachable churches were those in the Mountain and western states; two-thirds of
the Protestant churches in that area (65%) provided a response by a human being
within the first five call attempts.
The toughest area in which to make personal contact was
the South. Only one-third of the churches in the southern states (36%) had a
personal response to a call within the first five contact attempts. About half
of the churches in the Midwest (49%) and in the Northeast (52%) offered a live
response to incoming calls.
Reflections on the Data
These statistics suggest that much of the hard work that
churches put into reaching people during the holiday season may be negated by
people’s inability to establish contact with someone at the church within a
reasonable time frame. George Barna, who directed the study, encouraged people
to capture the big picture provided these data rather than to focus on the
denominational or regional differences.
“Instant communication has become second-nature in our
world,” noted Barna. “With cell phones, instant messaging, and other high tech
means of facilitating immediate contact with others, organizations that
seemingly defy people to penetrate their fortress quickly become an
after-thought in people’s lives.
Busy schedules, competitiveness and questions about the
user-friendly quotient of churches make it increasingly unlikely that consumers
– especially those who are not connected or only marginally associated with a
church – will endure the frustration of difficult communication to pursue a
church.
If ministry is based on relationships and interaction,
then many churches might find it easier to penetrate the community if they were
more accessible to the people who are showing an interest in the church.”
Research Methodology
The data described above are from telephone interviews
with a nationwide random sample of 3400 Protestant churches conducted in
December 2003. The maximum margin of sampling error associated with the
aggregate sample is ±2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The
sampling error for the denominational and regional subgroups varies from +2.4
percentage points to +9.7 points at the 95% significance interval. All of the
interviews were conducted from the Barna Research Group telephone interviewing
facility in Ventura, CA.
Protestant churches in the 48 continental states were
eligible to be interviewed and the distribution of sampled churches coincided
with the distribution of churches by denominational affiliation and by
geographic location throughout the U.S. Multiple callbacks were used to
increase the probability of connecting with a church chosen for the sample. Up
to five calls were made to each church, each on a different day and at
different times within normal business hours.
The Barna Research Group, Ltd. is an independent marketing research company located in southern California. Since 1984, it has been studying cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. If you would like to receive regular e-mailings of a brief overview of each new bi-weekly update on the latest research findings from the Barna Research Group, you may subscribe to this free service at the Barna Research web site (www.barna.org).
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