Terrible Customer Service: A Tale of Woe from Vacation Bible School

Took my 5 year old Matthew to Vacation Bible School this morning at a church here in Oklahoma City.

This was his second VBS at the church. Last year we had a little hiccup since his pre-registration had somehow been lost. No biggie. Just re-registered him, and all was well.

When we walked in, I searched the classes for his name and found zero matches. Hmm . . . Maybe the babysitter had not pre-registered him . . . Ran into her in the hall a minute later. Nope. She pre-registered him along with her two kids, but somehow the pre-registration had been lost again.

Hey, no big deal. I'll wade through all the people, fill out another card, and the world will be right.

However . . .

When I turned in Matthew's card, the lady at the registration desk told me there was no room for him. His age group was full and there was nothing she could do.

End of story.

Go home.

See you next year.

Really?? Just . . . sorry? Can't do anything for you? Next please? Really????

Now, the good news is that Matthew was fine. No big deal to him. He had been to two VBSs the last two weeks; so he was probably already at his limit.

But this experience REALLY got me thinking about 'customer service' in the church.

A few observations:

The Good News . . .

1. The lady that 'helped' me was really friendly. Like genuinely friendly. Not fake friendly. I'm sure she's a wonderful person. She was a good pick to be at the registration table at least from an attitude standpoint.

2. Can't think of anything else, but (1) really was very true.

The Bad News . . .

1. The church was unprepared for walk-up registrations. This is going to happen from time to time. You can't bat 1.000. Not even close. Getting overwhelmed will (hopefully!) happen at times. That's excusable and should probably be celebrated even.

But not having a backup plan? That's a bad thing.

2. She offered no alternative other than an apology. No room at the inn? No possible way to accommodate us? Then keep the registration card and mail Matthew a gift certificate to Toys'R'Us or Chic-Fil-A as a concrete way of saying 'We goofed!'

3. She viewed the situation through her eyes, not mine. She explained that there was no room 'because of the construction.' 'THE construction.' What construction? I don't know anything about any construction. I'm a visitor. I've been in your church once before today.

If I can be a bit picky . . . She said this in a way that said, 'The construction thing gets me off the hook. It's not my fault.'

But here's the thing . . . I don't care about construction. I care that my 5 year old was looking forward to going to your VBS, and now he's not being allowed to. I'm sure this an inconvenience to you to have to tell people this bad news, but I can assure you it's more of an inconvenience to us.

What I wish she had said is something like, 'I know this is probably a disappointment and it's definitely an inconvenience. We simply didn't plan well. This is totally our fault. But here's the deal: We're going to make Matthew glad this happened.'

I don't really care what that solution looks like. Doesn't even have to cost the church money. But help us understand that YOU understand that problems arose that you care about fixing.

To her defense, it's a very special person who can disregard the pain that's being experienced personally over a snafu and pay attention to the person on the other side of the table, but that's precisely the kind of person the church should have sitting in that chair.

4. VBS tends to be a high visitor, high unchurched participation event. Turns out I was in fact a visitor. Given that I was wearing a U2 concert tshirt, jeans, and flip flops, I probably didn't look like the most churched human being in the world. So the likelihood that you're potentially hacking off a visitor and/or an unchurched person is really, really high.

Word of advice: Handle with care. Lots of it. She didn't. She wasn't rude. She was very friendly. She just wasn't interested in making my problem her problem. But that's precisely what good customer service does.

So what might they have done differently?

Couple of thoughts:

1. Have a staff person at the registration table--or at least have someone who can and will fix problems when problems arise. It would have thrilled my soul if someone had stepped in to say, 'I'm Winston Wolfe. I solve problems.'

2. Remind EVERYONE that VBS is a high-visitor, high-unchurched kind of event. Then assume that everyone you don't recognize is both.

3. Make sure there is a reporting system for problems so that if Winston Wolfe isn't within 30 minutes away (he'll be there in 10), there's a way to fix the problem later.

I'm not upset by the situation. Believe me, I've been personally and solely responsible for much, much worse. But a little bit of planning and foresight would have made this a complete non-issue. I wish that had been the case! :)

Comments

[jen]

yes i am learning very quickly that even the staff in the church doesn't understand (or god forbid...care) about the perceptions of those they interact with while being in the position of 'staff'...one thing i have learned in my line of work is that it does not matter what was done to rectify a situation...the perception of the visitor/customer/outsider is the ONLY thing that matters..

...of all things...this should not be something at which the church fails...

[Margaret]

I am the director of our Vacation Bible School at our church in Ohio and I totally
understand his point of view. We have a
"deadline" for registration that is about
two weeks before the event. I will say that
if someone came and told me they did sign up,
I would believe them and make an exception.
The thing to understand though is (much like
planning a wedding, etc.) unless you have
actually been invloved on that side of it,
you have no idea what goes into it! For
example, all the people are volunteers and
have given up many many hours of their
summer; we can only allow as many children
as we have volunteers to safely (and legally)
tend to them, and that can be hard to do!
I lose many nights sleep each summer trying
to staff my volunteers! Also, food, crafts,
materials, etc. need to be purchased in
advance and we do "over buy", but only so
much as we are not a rich church. So
please don't fault the church for being
"unprepared for walk in registrations".
Basically, my response is this: I am
prepared for a small number of extras
(which your son would have fallen into -
I would have included him) but as for
generally being prepared for walk-ins
when the event was posted with a dead line,
I feel people should respect that we need
a deadline to prepare and plan and should
not expect to be accomodated at the door
that morning. I wish he could have come
to ours! Thank you.

[Jay Kelly]

Thanks for your thoughts, Margaret. And thanks for your service!

You may want to go back and re-read my post. Some of your comments make me think you may have been unclear on what I was saying on a few things.

Just to clarify:

1. You said, 'unless you have actually been invloved on that side of it, you have no idea what goes into it!'

I do. I won't regale you with stories, but suffice it to say, I'm very well aware.

2. You said, 'please don't fault the church for being "unprepared for walk in registrations".'

Actually, that's not exactly what I said--or at least it takes that phrase out of context. Take a look at (1) under 'The Bad News' again. I actually said getting overwhelmed should at times be celebrated.

The mistake wasn't simply that they were not unprepared for demand. The problem was that they didn't have a backup plan in the event that they were overwhelmed.

3. You said, 'as for generally being prepared for walk-ins when the event was posted with a dead line, I feel people should respect that we need a deadline to prepare and plan and should not expect to be accomodated at the door that morning.'

Totally get that in many respects. Managing large, free events is a weird bird, and if you could get everyone to cooperate with deadlines, that would be glorious.

As you well know, that's not reality! :)

That particularly true when you consider (4) under The Bad News. Announcing a deadline for visitors who aren't there to hear it doesn't do much good; so as you well know, you have to estimate the best you can and hope you get it right.

And again, my overriding point--when you DON'T get it right, having a backup plan is a critically important deal.

[Scott Nelson]

Shame on you. How dare you actually get your nose bent out of shape because you were not able to freeload of this church.

You stated you are not a member of the church. So tell me, what contribution did you give the church to participate in this function?

In my community VBS is free to all comers. Donations are accepted but not solicted. I am confident this is the case in your community as well.

Since you state you are not a member of the church, and do not mention any exchange of funds, one can deduce you are not out any money on the deal.

This being the case, you had no right to even consider requesting the church compensate you. The bible says the meek shall inherit the earth, not the greedy.

You should be ashamed of yourself. Even worse is the fact you set this as an example for your son.

[Jay Kelly]

Scott,

Well, I have to give you props for coming out guns blazing. ‘Shame on you,’ ‘How dare you,’ ‘You’re a freeloader [by implication],’ ‘You should be ashamed of yourself,’ ‘You’re greedy [by implication],’ and ‘You set a bad example for your son [by implication]’ are DEFINITELY not words spoken in my direction very often. Well, ever now that I think about. Wow! That’s actually true! None of those things has EVER been said to me. Congratulations! You have definitely made your place in my personal history! :)

Here are my three rules on criticism:

1) Feel free. I will gladly take it because there is nearly always truth in it somewhere.

2) When you criticize, be prepared for your criticism to be evaluated. If I’m going to go to the trouble of finding truth in it for myself, I appreciate the sender’s willingness to do the same.

3) If you can’t vibe with (2) and your criticism is for all to see, I’ll still respond since it may give others a chance to learn, laugh, or otherwise enjoy.

That said, below is your argument as best I can figure. Please push back if I’ve not read through the vitriol clearly.

Note that this is an inductive argument, not a deductive one. You’re making claims that taken together lead to the probability of your conclusion being true. It’s not the case that you’ve structured your argument such that if all the premises are true, the conclusion must be true as in the case of a deductive argument. Going in, that’s in your favor for sure. If I show one or more of your premises to be doubtful or even false, that doesn’t necessarily derail your argument. It just makes your conclusion less probable.

1. You did not contribute anything financially to the church; so you are not justified in requesting compensation for being inconvenienced.

2. Your reaction sets a bad example for your son.

3. Attending VBS at a church is freeloading if you are not a member of that church.

4. You are not acting consistently with Jesus’ instruction to be meek.

5. You are acting in a greedy manner.

Conclusion: You should be ashamed of yourself.

Now before I evaluate what I take to be your argument, let me say this: I should not have even implied that the church compensate my son for his inconvenience. I explicitly said that in the 5th paragraph of (3) in ‘The Bad News’ section, but I was not explicit in (2). I shouldn’t have assumed that people would read the whole thing in its entirety, and so waiting to clarify until several paragraphs later was very bad form on my part. I didn’t intend to send the message that I was implying he be compensated monetarily, and given the length of the post, I can definitely see where that message could be perceived. Not cool on my part at all. I wasn’t trying to be misleading, but I can easily see where I could have been taken that way. Not good.

One thing you didn’t bring up was that I think I should have been more intentional about pointing out good things about the way the situation was handled. I only pointed out that the lady was very friendly. And she was. But I should have worked harder to think of other points at which they got things right. That’s also very bad form on my part. So to that end . . . Best I could tell, everyone at the registration table was quite friendly. They did a good job of picking friendly people to be a primary interface. They had a separate area for filling out walk-up registration. Smart move since it helped with traffic flow in a very crowded situation. Don’t know that I would have thought of that. Probably wouldn’t have. Someone was thinking! Also, the place was super crowded. That’s a good sign since it indicates they’re doing something right. It’s a safe bet to assume the kids love it. So they get a huge thumbs up for putting something together that is very popular.

Also, I had zero feedback from any of my friends who read this that I was off base or inappropriate. Given your extremely strong reaction, I should ask myself if my closest friends really have the freedom to criticize me. Given the ‘behind closed doors’ criticism I receive from my closest friends on a regular basis, I’d like to think that’s the case, but maybe it’s not. I’ll ask! So thank you causing me to ask a tough question of the truth-tellers in my life.

Okay, now on to evaluation of your argument. I’ll go premise by premise.

1) Several things on this.

A) I didn’t actually ‘request compensation.’ I definitely didn’t request compensation for myself, as you say. I said I wished the lady helping us would have said something to the effect of ‘we’ll fix it’ and that I didn’t care what ‘fixing it’ looked like. So your first premise won’t work because the consequent (the part after ‘so’) doesn’t apply in this case.

B) But suppose you make a more moderate claim: ‘You didn’t pay for the service you didn’t receive; so you are not justified in being upset that the service wasn’t delivered.’ Let’s go with that. That’s a much more defensible claim anyway since there are LOTS of scenarios in which someone COULD justifiably request compensation from a church for being inconvenienced even if they had not paid the church any money. (For instance, inconsiderate church members who park in your driveway on Sunday morning and block you in so you can’t leave until they do.)

Having a sign in front of a church that says something like ‘Come Join Us for VBS’ makes an implied promise of service. So showing up and being told the service isn’t available would naturally be a disappointment. Note: This is NOT to say that one can be justifiably upset, only justifiably disappointed. So I think this claim works UNTIL you consider the other assumption I had in the situation which was ‘a church is going to work to fix problems that are to some degree their fault.’

So I would modify the claim further and say something like: ‘Given that churches generally work to fix problems they have responsibility in and given that an implied promise of the availability of space was made, one would be justified in being upset that there was no attempt to fix the problem.’ Note that I wasn’t upset that there wasn’t space (see (1) under ‘The Bad News.’). My angst was over not having a way to fix the problem.

The way to argue against this second modification (which is more moderate still) is to say that my first assumption (that churches generally work to fix problems they have responsibility in) is an unwarranted assumption. And that may or may not be true, but that’s your best bet.

But at this point, we are quite far away from your original claim, and even with a claim that is FAR more moderate than yours, it’s still problematic. So I can’t feel good about giving you points on this one.

C) One more minor thing: You ‘deduced’ that I was not out any money because I had not paid anything to the church for my son to go to VBS. The antecedent is true—I didn’t pay any money. But the consequent doesn’t follow from that. There are most definitely cases where money could be lost even though I didn’t pay anything. Here’s how: I took time away from work to take him. While I’m not an hourly employee, that is still ‘work time’ when I wasn’t working. So I cost my company some amount of money to be away (which I was happy to do as the company owner. No complaining.). I was risking my employees running into problems that required my assistance to fix while I was away, thus lowering their productivity and costing the company more money (a risk I was happy to take. No complaining.). Ironically, there was such a case while I was gone. I point this out not because I was in any way upset by this, but only to say that it’s false to claim that there is no cost (‘I wasn’t out any money’) because no money changed hands.

2) He was actually quite oblivious to the whole thing. I checked w/ him several times to make sure his feelings weren’t hurt by the deal, and he was totally copasetic. I’m not sure what led you to make the claim that I set a bad example for him. The conversation at the registration table was quite calm and necessarily very quick given the crowd. And I’m guessing he’s not a regular reader of my blog. So I can’t see how (2) can be true.

3) If I could bail you out of making this claim, I would. But I’ve re-read your comment several times, and I don’t think there’s any way around the fact that you’re making this claim. You may not MEAN what you’re saying, but you’re definitely saying it. I don’t know what to say to this one other than it’s pretty apparently false.

4) This one’s interesting for two interpretive reasons. A) It’s not clear what Jesus means by ‘meek.’ Lots of disagreement over that. The general view is that it means something like ‘power under control.’ If that’s the case, best I can tell, I acted consistently with being ‘meek’ in that situation. Didn’t argue. Didn’t blast anyone. Just said thanks and left.

However, I disagree with an interpretation of the Beatitudes that makes them proscriptive. I won’t give my argument for that here, but I’d be happy to email it to you. Long and short is that what I think Jesus was saying in the Beatitudes, of which this is one, is that you can be blessed IN SPITE OF THE FACT that you’re this way, not BECAUSE you’re this way. So Jesus isn’t saying ‘you should be meek.’ He’s saying, ‘You can be a part of the Kingdom EVEN IF you’re this way.’

So even if we accept the general definition of ‘meek,’ I passed the test best I can tell, but an even bigger issue is that I don’t think the reference works because Jesus wasn’t issuing a command. He was offering relief to people who believed they were ‘unblessable.’ So no points for premise (4).

5) Hopefully my paragraph right below what I take to be your conclusion clears this up. I explicitly said in (3.5) that the issue wasn’t any sort of financial compensation. That, of course, would be ridiculous. What I was shooting for is that the church would have handled the situation in a great way if they had fixed the problem—regardless of whether or not that involved gift certificates to Chick-Fil-A. I can understand this claim being legitimate if you take only what I said in (2), but (3.5) makes this one dubious at best. So no points coming (5)’s way either.

So if I’ve understood your argument correctly, none of these premises work to generate the conclusion that I should be ashamed of myself.

But take heart. That doesn’t mean the conclusion is false. It’s still possible that I should be ashamed of myself. It’s just that the conclusion can’t be generated from the premises you’ve given.

I’ll close with two suggestions. You can take ‘em or leave ‘em and given the fact that you leveled some pretty intense charges at me, I’m guessing you’ll leave ‘em! :) But I’ll throw them out anyway.

1) If you’re inclined to take another stab at arguing that I should be ashamed of myself, don’t go down the road of arguing that I should be ashamed of myself for calling this church out in the first place because that’s not a very Christ-like thing to do. I do think that’s a better approach to take, but it still won’t get you that conclusion unless I’m missing something in how that argument would go.

2) You may want to rethink your strategy of correction in general. I’m not sure if making the claims you made of me is a regular M.O. for you, but as a general rule, that’s not an effective route to take. Of course, that all depends on what ‘effective’ means. If ‘effective’ means something like ‘I’ll feel better about myself for calling this guy a greedy, freeloading, bad parent,’ then it’s probably entirely effective. But assuming you weren’t shooting for an endorphin hit from being self-righteous and that you were trying for ‘effective’ in the sense of ‘getting the guy to change his ways or apologize for come to see things my way’ or something like that—assuming you were truly trying to be redemptive—this probably wasn’t the best approach. Name-calling and belittling as a general rule is a great way to intimidate or make someone defensive or make someone ‘hit back’ or control someone or shut someone up, but it’s rarely a good approach if you’re really trying to be redemptive.

Peace,

Jay

[moto77]

The church definitely needs to be in the business of making good impressions on the people and community around them. How else are souls going to be brought in? It is so hard to balance the personal pressure on individuals of an even like VBS with the desire of the whole to bring people to Christ. Bravo, Jay! I am purusing your blog for the first time through links with people we know. I have enjoyed your insights and reasoning immensely.

[Jay Kelly]

Thanks for the feedback! That's a welcome change from being told I should be ashamed of myself! :)

For what it's worth, Scott (from above) and I have continued our exchange via email. It's been . . . enlightening.

[moto7748]

Excellent.
May I ask what church group you and wiredparish are associated with? I grew up baptist and now attend a church of christ church and am just interested. :)

[Jay Kelly]

We're actually not affiliated with any particular denomination. There are probably 10 or 12 denominations represented by our hosts. Southern Baptist. Presbyterian. Nazarene. Assembly of God. Mennonite. Broad cross-section of backgrounds.