How much conflict does a Church Business Directory really cause and what is involved in mediating that conflict? Our eight years of experience with mediating Church Business Directory conflict gives us an authoritative perspective on this subject.
The most important thing a church that retains us to produce a Church Business Directory needs to know is that we handle 100% of the minimal conflicts professionally and swiftly.
Church Business Directory Conflict Overview
Since 2008, Missional Marketing by Gdirect has produced Church Business Directories for many mega churches, large churches, and small churches. To date we have registered about 25,000 Christian business owners from churches around the United States.
Here is what we have seen. In most churches about 5% of the congregation registers to be in the Church Business Directory. Building from this number we have developed statistics on customer service related to a Church Business Directory.
Types of Church Business Directory Customer Service Issues
Conflicts and complaints are broken into three categories:
- Routine Customer Service Issues
- Minor Mediation Customer Service Issues
- Serious Mediation Customer Service Issues
Routine Customer Service Issues
We have three full-time staff members who handle Customer Service Issues promptly and thoroughly, so you can rest assured you are in good hands. Typical customer service issues include an advertiser asking for clarification on their billing, or a congregation member informing us that an advertiser didn’t return their call.
Minor Mediation Customer Service Issues
We handle all Minor Mediation for the Church Business Directory. A typical Minor Mediation goes like this. An unhappy customer makes it known that an advertiser from the church business directory failed to meet their expectations. They do this by either calling the church, calling us, giving the business a bad review in the Online Church Business Directory or posting a negative comment about the business on Facebook.
When this happens, our experienced mediators contact the business and guide them through the steps they need to take to protect their businesses reputation. We handle the whole process and it is usually resolved with a few phone calls and emails.
Serious Mediation Customer Service Issues
Serious Mediation is very rare. When it does happen it is handled by one of our founding partners. In our eight year history we have only had 2 of these and have also successfully handled both of them.
Customer Service Statistics
- There is about 1 Routine Customer Service Issue per 100 registrants; there is about 1 Minor Mediation per 250 registrations; and there is about 1 Serious Mediation per 12,500 registrations.
- This means most churches never see a Minor Mediation or a Serious Mediation because there are not enough registrations for that to happen.
- It is important to note that these statistics are not per year, and they happen once per batch of registrants. Therefore, they are front loaded toward the launch of the Church Business Directory and all forms of Customer Service fall to almost nothing after the initial launch.
The table below shows how this shakes out by church size.
| Type of Customer Service Issue | How We Handle It |
|---|---|
| Congregation member says a business owner didn't call them back. | We contact the business owner and prompt them to call the customer back. |
| Advertiser say Business Directory billed me for the wrong amount. | We fix any mistake we might have made. |
| Advertiser says they didn't get any leads from the Church Business Directory. | We show them exactly how many leads they did get from our click-through analytics. |
| A business owner sends an email blast to the advertisers. | We contact the business owner who sent the email and remind them that this is a breach of our terms of agreement. |
| A prospective advertiser says the church didn't show me as eligible even though they should have. | We do the research and guide the business owner through the steps. |
| An advertiser wants the church to promote the business directory harder. | We show the business owner the things the church is doing. |
| An advertiser allegedly botched the job they were hired for. | We contact both parties and mediate the conflict while keeping the church out of it. |
Types of Customer Service Issues And How We Handle Them
The table below shows types of customer service issues we’ve seen in order from least serious to most serious, and also shows how we handle each type of issue on behalf of the church.
| Red Flag Category | Considerations |
|---|---|
| Counseling and Personal Coaches | Most churches allow Counselors and Personal Coaches. However some churches disallow Counselors because they want to direct people to their staff counseling services or require the advertiser to be on a church referral list. Some disallow Counselors and Personal Coaches whose approach is not Biblical or aligned with the church's beliefs. |
| Wealth Management | Some churches require a disclaimer on each Wealth Management search result that says that the church does not endorse any Wealth Advisor and that anyone contemplating using a Wealth Advisor should perform appropriate due diligence. |
| Massage Therapists | If a church allows Massage Therapists (and most churches do), then our customer service team stays alert for anything that appears inappropriate and takes action if anything comes to their attention. The church may opt to disallow this category altogether. |
| Divorce Attorneys | Most churches do not allow Attorneys to use the word 'divorce', in their advertisement but do allow words such as 'Family Law'. |
| Alcohol, Tobacco, Gambling, and Firearms | Some churches allow restaurants that serve alcohol to advertise if alcohol sales aren't the largest percentage of their income. All churches disallow Tobacco and Gambling advertisements. Some churches allow gun sales and some don't; it is completely up to the church. |
Biblical Conflict Resolution
We really like what gotquestions.org has to say about Christian conflict resolution. Here is a quote that we think is at the heart of the matter.
Those who do conflict resolution best are often those who would prefer not to confront others about their sin, but still do so out of obedience to God.
We also like this list of 20 Bible Verses about Conflict Resolution found on Knowing Jesus.
In our role as Church Business Directory producers, we are committed to be obedient to God with respect to our handling of conflict.
For More Information
Missional Marketing is a dedicated Christian communications firm working with Christian Churches and Organizations across the country, and we are also a Top 5% Certified Google Partner. So get in touch today, and we can get started.