7 Guest Followup Secrets

Guest Services

Are you interested in guest followup? Guests represent 100% of our church’s growth potential, and their chances of staying connected doubles with each visit. But whether or not those guests return for another visit is largely dependent upon how they’re cared for during their experience with your church, and after they’ve left.

While guest care is a multifaceted ministry there are a few things that, if done consistently, can result in a greater percentage of return guests.

In short, a good guest followup system will be:

  1. Prompt
  2. Authentic
  3. Personal
  4. Relational
  5. Shared
  6. Accurate
  7. Consistent

1. Prompt

Don’t let your guest followup sit too long. It’s a good idea to send a text or email as soon as you can after service is over. The longer you wait, the less relevant their experience is to your followup. The sooner you follow up, the more likely they are to return.

2. Authentic

As leaders, we’re often looking for ways to save time and automate our workload. In fact, automation is one of the tools I teach about and highly encourage in my consulting. However, we must take care that our messages don’t become canned and templated.

Be “live” as much as possible, and if you do automate your SMS and emails, be sure your language doesn’t come off canned. Your guests can tell.

3. Personal

While I recommend using various forms of follow-up for a guest (SMS, email, cards, etc.), be sure not to leave out the most basic and personal forms of communication. There’s still nothing like going to the mailbox and getting a handwritten note that someone took the time to write, stuff, stamp and send to you. Personal always trumps technical.

4. Relational

Guests aren’t just prospects, they’re future disciples. If they remain behind a firewall of smartphones, screens, and paper, they’ll never truly feel connected. Get in their space. Offer to meet your guest for coffee during the week, or a quick meal for lunch or dinner. This reinforces their importance to you and gives ample time for them to share.

5. Shared

Speaking of sharing, leaving the tasks of guest followup to just one person is a recipe for ministry overload, it’s not scalable, and it doesn’t engage people in your church. Let different people respond to guests in different ways, and it’ll both grow your leaders and strengthen connections with your guests.

6. Accurate

You’re sending an email to whom? An SMS to what phone number? A handwritten card where? An email campaign to what address? If you don’t collect this information when your guests visit or don’t get it in a clear and accurate format, your system will break down and your guests will go untouched.

Get the information! We use an app I developed called FaithMetrics to collect info from our guests with some cheap iPads. Works great, and we don’t have to decipher their handwriting!

7. Consistent

One contact is good, but really not very helpful or nearly enough. Think brief touchpoints that consistently touch your guest throughout the week, ultimately inviting them back to your next worship experience.

  • Start with an SMS on Sunday thanking them for coming and asking how they felt about service.
  • Monday mail a handwritten card that will arrive around Wednesday.
  • Tuesday send an email informing them about relevant ministries in your church and (if appropriate) inviting them to coffee.
  • Saturday send another SMS asking if you can save them a seat in the morning.

These are just some helpful tips that can begin supercharging your guest follow-up experience. Do you have any others to add? Leave a comment below!

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