Ever had such bad service right at the start that they had lost you from that moment on? Or perhaps it wasn’t bad service, perhaps it was bad planning?
Experience planning isn’t a simple task, because if it was, everyone would be getting it right. I think it actually takes a lot of thought to not loose someone at hello.
Lets take my church, for instance. When a visitor arrives they are subconsciously asking themselves the question ‘who here is like me’, all the time wanting to feel safe and secure, and not having to be noticed or attract attention to themselves.
As you can imagine, it doesn’t take much to knock one of those.
The trick to keeping someone at hello, I think, is to get into someone else’s shoes and really into their mind and understand what it is like to approach you for the first time.
Your Leading Thoughts
- How have you learnt to keep someone at hello? What are your tactics?
I still find that one of the most stressful experiences I know is to walk into a room where I don't know anyone. I belong to a networking group where we have 'angels', people who are assigned specific new members, to greet them, find out who they would like to meet, and then arrange an introduction.
“How have you learnt to keep someone at hello? What are your tactics?”My approach is not a 'keep' strategy as such, but more of a 'receive' strategy.Receive them – as in see, hear and emotional feel them;Receive them – as in fully experience their presence with minimal judgment/labelling;Receive them – as in fully absorb and comprehend them as they are – the real person.Once you fully receive a person, you become exquisitely tuned into their needs and the deeper longings behind those needs. This is real engagement. It takes time, empathy, flexibility, patience and a complete commitment to being brave enough to resist the urge to prematurely evaluate a human in-lieu of using them to satiate our own needs.Best, Robin
Robin – as always, excellent words.Perhaps you can make this a touch more quantifiable and pragmatic?Receive them – as in see, hear and emotionally feel them – how?Also, how can this be done quickly?
Nice to have you back BTW
It is very stressful – hence I really dislike going to networking events.What I find is people are generally poor at facilitating – so what we do at church, for instance, is facilitate people talking
Quantifiable and pragmatic. That's easy. Only in our busy, self-driven culture do we need to explain these things.Take 'see them' for example…See them: actually look at them. Many people edit with their eyes – see and judge the bits they want to see. Observation skills are critical here. The temptation is to point your head towards someone and be mentally rehearsing what you are going to say rather than paying full attention to *them*. We've all experienced the superficiality of the person who looks towards us but doesn't actually *see* us. (Time taken: nano seconds – but it does take an attitudinal shift and skills training/practice).PS: the fact that this approach is perceived to 'take time' and 'needs to be explained' is a source of huge competitive advantage. You develop the eyes to see what is obvious but others so easily miss or are blind to in their mania for 'results'. This is especially useful if your intention is to build relationships based on mutual value.
Thanks!
Smile!!!!!Smile smile smile, and smile like you mean it.Don't smile in a way that it looks like you want to eat them (a-la Gordon Brown) but smile like you genuinely care and look them in the eye as you smile.It helps if you can actually make sure that you do genuinely care, then you don't have to fake it.A lot of my work as an Osteopath is heavily influenced by first impressions and smiling and looking people in the eye as I first greet them is often the deal-breaker, I once got a recommendation that went like this: “Alex is an excellent practioner. He's extremely down to earth, has a keen and very dry sense of humour, as well as a fantastic ability to put you at your ease.”That last bit is down to genuinely caring, and smiling at people when I first (and subsequently) greet them.:D
*Genuine* – thats the key word I read. Something I learnt from Chris Brogan actually, which I'll prob blog this week.
Good words Robin, as always. I'm mindful that many people just don't know practically how to do it!So: SEE THEM. Yes – look them in the eyes and give your full attention to the person in front of you.I love what you say – it doesn't take TIME, it just takes attention.
I came across this on facebook and it caught my eye! I don't think in churches we think about this enough. That so much of what we do is/can appear alien to people, even from how we say hello! We are passionate about making church approchable and relevant to people which is why i was interested in this discussion!I have had to deal with bad hellos; when I first joined the leadership team here the existing welcome team went with the approach of 'greeting people with a holy kiss'…just such a big no no haha!! It is being aware that people are all different; some people actually just want to slip in, hide fairly inconspiculously at the back, just take it all in….then over time they become more open. Some people however want to chat with people; maybe they are single mums or elderly people or whatever, but they are lonely and are seeking connection with others. So we very much try to understand the individual. Then not being forceful. I've been in churches myself where I have felt interrogated the first time I walk through the door! People respond to a friendly hello, they respond to a smile, but if they are giving off signals that that is it for them for now, then i think we should respect it. We try to make the environment they are coming into as unthreatning as possible as well, so we have started to run 'cafe' services. Our building is set up as a community centre anyway with a cool cafe bar etc, but we put tables out with newspapers on, not rows of seats, have the coffee machine going, some light background music- it is an environment that people recognise more and they are more comfortable in. You can't beat though building relationships with people from the ground up; getting out in the community, making friends, helping people through community action, putting on fun days etc, so that they get to know you first as a friend. It can of course be more time consuming this way but we have found it the most effective and our church is growing through this. That's my thoughts anyway!
Hi ClaireSo great to have you comment here!I love what you say here – “It is being aware that people are all different”. We have completely created our services on this, understanding that there are all types of fish that come our way.If some fish want to be more or less involved, then that's cool – we have room for both!What have been some of your best practical steps that you've taken to build this?Scott
Hi ScottThanks
I am loving reading your stuff! Sounds really great that you create your services aware that some people want to get really stuck in, and some people will be more cautious about things. Think that can be seriously underated.i guess a really key practical step for us is actually something which is part of our discipleship programme here; we do a session on service and finding your shape. This enables people to find out and get enthused about where they can serve best, where they can use their gifts in a really low pressure environment.We also have a list of opportunities where people can serve in, so they can commit to as much or as little as they want. Also in the way we lay the room out in our services….might sound odd, but we create plenty of areas where people can hide inconspicuously hehe! Also it is all about building friendships- i think once people feel loved and accepted and come to understand Jesus loves and accepts them they naturally want to get more involved! I guess it is always trying to understand peoples heart, peoples vision, allowing them try things out if they want, making them aware that it is ok if they fail, but also allowing people to just come along and attend for however long they need to. It is just so much a part of our culture here that it is hard to put into practical terms in some ways how we do it! Keep blogging! Claire 
ClaireI like this a lot. We do pretty much the same thing.So here's a deeper, more searching question: how deeply do you think about the people who are visitors? How do you ensure that they get met at their level, and that you connect with them?Also, when did you start creating spaces for people to hide? It's only something we've realised over the last few years.Keen to learn and share experiences!Scott
Thanks
i like it as well. It is great to hear about and get encouragement from others 
We used to think very deeply about it. We geared everything in the early days towards visitors (to give you some context, the church was on its way out, so needed to grow!). We did community profiling, researced stats etc to find out what the needs were in the community. In team meetings we were constantly talking about fresh ideas to connect with visitors. Now, 4 years on, it is a slightly different emphasis i guess, but the culture of making it visitor friendly is so ingrained in us and in our congregation (mostly new growth) that it is very natural now. We used to meet in a school, they had an amazing auditorium, and it was hear we noticed the hiding thing…..there people could go and sit right up at the back, high up, in the corner…that must have ben 2 years ago now i guess! Yes definately i am keen to learn and share experiences as well! So important in life! Claire
Good stuff – thanks for this Claire.It's really good to hear about what you're doing and learn from it!Scott