A few weeks ago one of our clients was having an issue with a company that was purchased a couple of years ago by a private equity firm. He contacted me to see if we might have an idea about what was going on. When I emailed the company to learn more, I discovered that they were training new frontline support staff. They had hired young people with a great heart who did not yet have the experience our client expected and needed.
Because I really want to see this company prevail for sake of the kingdom, I shared a couple of my core values about support, hoping it might be helpful. Here are those values with a bit more explanation.
Help your team know the big picture about what they are doing and why it matters. At the end of the day, for us, this is about helping churches make disciples and build teams through innovative software solutions. That means, we are not about efficiently handling as many support calls as we can, nor are we about maximizing profit. Support is ministry and ministry is about people. Our support team are shepherds called by Christ to equip staff to do and equip others to do the work of ministry. (Ephesians 4:11,12) A mentor of mine taught me that money follows ministry. You do ministry with excellence and the funding will follow.
Help your support team live out the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do to you. (Matthew 7:12) We all know this principle. Pretty much every day for all these years, I have done support for clients. I get direct emails from people as well as jump in to help with voice messages or support requests whenever needed. I love doing this for a number of reasons. But one of them is because every call and every ticket reminds me of the almost two decades I spent on church staff. That experience makes it really easy for me to live out the Golden Rule. I know what they are struggling with and it's easy to figure out what I would want if I were in their shoes. This has led me to the conclusion that for support, we need to always hire experienced church staff who used the software while on staff. It may cost us more, but it makes a difference when you call us or send us an email.
When a company does support with excellence there are many more benefits both to clients and the company. Here are a few more that come quickly to mind. What would you add to this list?
- Happy clients.
- Fulfilled staff.
- Referrals.
- Retention.
- Reputation.
- Research.
- Innovation.
- Friendships.
But, most of all, I think God is pleased, and that's worth far more to me than market share and profit.
