Testing Newsletters Before you Send Them November 22, 2010

There are some excellent websites that allow you to create newsletters and more importantly manage a list of subscribers, but here is a good tip that you should follow starting out, and do regularly to maintain a professional look to your newsletter:

Test your newsletter with different email providers and in different browsers.

You can do a search for “popular email providers” to get a short list of email accounts to sign up for. I recommend testing your newsletter in 4-5 free email accounts, and Microsoft Outlook. The more you test in (and can compare side by side) the better.

If you do not have any personal accounts for any of the free email providers, then create new accounts for your church (I recommend using the same word or phrase before the @ symbol, example: churchname @ dotcom). You do not need to advertise or use them unless you want to. At this point they are just for testing purposes.

My method is to open all email accounts in one web browser like Internet Explorer, for example. Send a test email to all of them and then view them side by side to see how they look. Remember, there are many variables that determine how people see your newsletter. The web browser, email provider, screen size, and operating system all affect the look of your newsletter in varying degrees.

You can also search for “standard monitor size 2010″ (replace the year to stay current) to give you an idea. Knowing the average monitor size is helpful, but mostly for designing websites. However, have a broader understanding of the average user experience will keep you from falling into the trap of assuming that, “if it looks good on my computer it must be good.”

The most important way to test user experience is to download different web browsers for testing the look of your newsletter (also highly recommended for testing websites). Do a search for “web browsers market share 2010″ and you will see that Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Opera cover 98% of the Internet surfing world. You will want any newsletter or website to be functional in all of these.

Finally, you will want to test emails in Microsoft Outlook. Many people use Outlook, but Outlook formats email differently than other providers, negatively affecting how emails are displayed.

An example of how all this can benefit you:

I recently tested a new email campaign from MailChimp with a new template. Having already setup different email accounts I logged in to a few of them in Google Chrome and Internet Explorer. Things were looking great until I opened it in Microsoft Outlook.

I had uploaded two images and then shrunk them using MailChimp’s on-board newsletter builder. They were supposed be icon-sized links to YouTube and Google Calendar (I wanted to promote a recent video and the launch of a new public calendar). When I opened the email in Outlook the images were their original 450×450 pixel size instead of 16×16. They completely overcrowded the rest of the email. I corrected the problem by uploading pre-shrunk icons of the images I wanted to my MailChimp database and the problem did not repeat itself in Outlook again.

I hope that this information has been helpful. If you need any assistance setting up your next email campaign, please send an email to contact (at) rootedupdotcom.

The Impersonal Church November 20, 2010

I hate calling customer service! There is nothing worse than getting someone on the phone that I half suspect has never even used the device I am trying to troubleshoot. My aggravation stems from the agent’s lack of empathy for my situation, and their obstinate recitations of scripted verbiage intended to calm and reassure me, but which only fuel my belief that they are powerless to help me.

Is this how new members or visitors perceive your church?

Lessons from Customer Service

In the customer service industry any communication or tool that the customer interacts with is called a customer-facing function or service. Understanding your church’s ability to effectively communicate your message requires a broader understanding of what “functions” face the people who interact with your church.

I have worked in retail and call center customer service jobs since 2001. I do my best to relate to customers with empathy and build rapport with them. Oftentimes people find themselves in a situation caused by their own actions, not understanding the consequences that would occur. Unless the customer is out to shoot the messenger I can usually turn an irate customer into someone who at least appreciates me for being honest and understanding them. They may still be unhappy with my employer, but they are now willing to trust me when I tell them the truth.

The parallels between customer service representatives and Christ’s ambassadors are very similar. As long as we treat other people like human beings they will be attracted to Christ’s message. While the main “customer-facing function” in a church is one-to-one interaction in real life settings, it is important that other tools like Facebook and church websites reflect genuine love and empathy also.

The Computer Cannot Smile

If your church is using social media, are there people who read the wall posts and interact with visitors who comment there? Does your church have voicemail to catch calls after hours, or if the power goes out in a hurricane? […read more about voice-mail as a tool for your church’s emergency response plan] When people apply for jobs at your church, do you call each applicant and thank them for doing so even after you have filled the position?

As someone who works closely with customers on a daily basis, and follows the trends in social media on the Internet I am noticing a disturbing trend when it comes to customer-facing systems: they are becoming even more impersonal.

A personal example: I have put in many job applications in recent years, and one development that I have seen since the early 2000s is more of it going online. Churches don’t do this necessarily, but we should be aware of the human tendency to make things easier, and we should ask: “Easier for who?” Almost gone are the days when you see a person in the interview process. The long hours of completing online forms and tests to find a job can take a lot out of you, and you are not even guaranteed an email telling you that they position has been filled. No, the trend is moving towards silence when it comes to an employer rejecting your application. We need to be mindful of how customer-facing functions affect the emotions of the customer, especially negatively.

How Christ’s Church Should be Different

As Christians we need to make certain that as we try to keep up with changing technology we do not forget the human beings we must also build relationships with. Facebook and Twitter are great tools, but they must be part of the larger goal of loving people and attracting them to Christ’s love.

People want real human interaction, and respond better when you are empathetic to their needs. Automation and faceless, oftentimes response-less, customer-facing systems are demoralizing. When someone shows that they care, even a little, that is currency. When Christians are authentic we build trust.

Whether through our face-to-face daily living or technology-based communications we need to make sure we convey Christ’s love. To do this we must ask ourselves how “outsiders” perceive us in the ways we interact with them, especially when we adopt technologies to enhance ministry opportunity.

Communicating in Emergencies: Voice-mail November 18, 2010

The end of Hurricane Season is approaching for the Southeastern United States, and while it has been mostly uneventful this year I am reminded of when that was not the case just a few years ago. Hurricane Wilma ripped a path across Broward County at Category 3 strength in 2005. The power grid was severely damaged, many roofs were damaged or destroyed, and communication lines were down.

While small pockets of the county had power and phone service restored within hours, large swaths remained without power for weeks and months. Services were hard to come by, and venturing out on the roads was dangerous with so much debris and no working street lights. How a church plans for and responds to such a crisis depends on effective communication. While there are many things you can do to prepare, there is one simple tool that can be of enormous value.

When a disaster or a loss of power occurs, a simple and very effective tool is remote access voice-mail.

How to use Voice-mail for Emergency Preparedness and Response

1. First, if you do not have an emergency preparation and response plan that covers a broad range of man-made and natural situations… “git ‘er dun!”
2. Decide what parts of your plan need to understood by your congregation. Most of the time simply knowing that the church has a plan (and not necessarily all the details of it) is enough. Communication, or more accurately how the church plans to maintain communication after/during a disaster is the most important thing.
3. Make a concerted effort to inform the most needy members of your congregation and their family members about the church’s plans and how these plans can help them communicate during an emergency if normal lines of communication are disrupted. Think of your church’s physical location and communications systems as the central “place” to meet after a disaster.
4. Voice-mail can behave as a “place” especially if you use it right. Have a response team assemble a few times during the year to evaluate the plan. For the purposes of utilizing voice-mail after a disaster have two or more emergency radios that come with features like the ability to charge cell phones. You will need this to call in remotely to the church’s voice-mail account.
5. If it appears that a hurricane is indeed going to hit your area, for example, record a “greeting” message that informs people that they have reached the emergency information line (be sure not to call it a hotline so that people don’t assume you are staffing the line with operators). Provide concise, but not endless information.
6. Let callers know up front when the message was recorded, and close the message with an estimated time for when the next message will be recorded.
   • Example:
     “You have reached the emergency information line for First Church of the City. If you would like to leave a message please press (number, #, or * sign). This recorded message is dated for Monday, November 29, 2010 at 7:15 A.M. Our regular service times and office hours have been suspended in light of Hurricane Alpha. All announcements and changes to service times will be updated regularly on this phone line. This is not an emergency contact number and messages are being checked when possible. If you need immediate assistance please dial 9-1-1. Other useful numbers are the Broward County Emergency Management Division at 1-800-555-5555, the Florida State Watch Office at 1-800-555-5555, or tune your radio to WIOD 610 AM for news and information. [You will want to keep the first part general and relatively consistent, and follow it with a regularly updated message.] The following message was recorded on Monday, November 29, 2010 at 7:15 A.M. …[message]… The next scheduled update will be recorded Monday, November 29, 2010 at 8:00 P.M. Thank you for calling First Church of the City.
7. One of the better features about voice-mail as opposed to an answering machine (other than the fact that a machine would need a power source) is that such long messages can be bypassed by people who have already heard the latest announcement. All they need to do is press the right number to be taken to the prompt for leaving their message in one of the mailboxes you have setup.

Full Disclosure Notice

It is not my custom to promote a specific company’s product, and I would only do so if I had absolute confidence in the product or service being provided. If I am going to promote voice-mail as a highly effective communications tool in emergencies it is only because I believe AT&T can provide the level of effectiveness which I highly recommend you have in your communications tool box. In the interest of full disclosure I have been an AT&T employee, and have relatives who have been or are employed by AT&T. As of this writing, I am a contractor for AT&T in a non-sales related position, and I am not being asked or paid by AT&T to write this blog entry.

Benefits of voice-mail from AT&T

• Anyone with a cell phone and access code can retrieve messages and record “greetings” that give essential updates to members needing information. Utilize and inform your members that your voice-mail message will be updated regularly after a disaster with important information, including emergency services phone numbers and/or ways to help those in need and when and where volunteers can report.
• As long as you do not have a device that stores messages then voice-mail from AT&T will keep your messages for you at the central office. There are central offices located all over the country and serve as the routing stations or “home” for your phone number. Unless the computer server physically located in the central office is also impacted by the disaster your messages are safe.
• AT&T provides essential emergency resources to all their central offices, and places a very high priority on getting their systems back up and running quickly after a disaster.

If you use voice-mail from AT&T you can rest assured that it will work. If it isn’t working, then something has gone wrong with the physical hardware and AT&T is working hard to fix it. Without a functioning network emergency responders and medical facilities won’t have working phone service. It is therefore imperative that AT&T get its network up and running ASAP after a disaster – lives are at stake. I can personally testify that no other company has the commitment or resources to ensuring timely restoration of services in the aftermath of a natural disaster.