Podcast

094 – How to Capture Guest Contact Info

Posted on April 1, 2021December 4, 2023 by Ryan Sparks

What’s in this Episode?

You ever wonder how some churches are able to actually get guest contact information? I mean, name, phone number, email? Well, we sure have. And in today’s church tips podcast, we’re going to talk to you specifically on how you go about getting that information.

Read the Transcript

Dick Hardy 0:00
You ever wonder how some churches are able to actually get guest contact information? I mean, name, phone number, email? Well, we sure have. And in today’s church tips podcast, we’re going to talk to you specifically on how you go about getting that information. So here we go.

Now I’m going to tell you a story of a church that I’ve been very familiar with for a lot of years. But it’s a story of a lot of churches, frankly. I remember this one Sunday. And I don’t know that it was an Easter, but it was a big Sunday. And they had a crowd. You’ve been there on days like that. And the pastor is all excited. He comes back. Did you see that crowd? Oh my goodness, the guests, the first timers all over the place? Where’s our guest cards and they get the guest cards. And there’s two guest cards. He goes, wait, wait, there had to be 25 guests. What happened here? That happens every Sunday of life, where you’ve got all these guests, and you want their contact information, but they don’t give it to you. And today in this episode, we’re going to talk with Nathan Teegarden. about that particular subject of how to get guests to give you their contact information. Nathan’s been a great friend for a lot of years, in fact I knew him when he was a snot-nosed college kid.

Nathan Teegarden 1:23
Still might be!

Dick Hardy 1:23
Still might be a little bit. But he serves as the… what’s your official title there?

Nathan Teegarden 1:28
So, I’m the north campus pastor and connections director.

Dick Hardy 1:31
North Campus Pastor and Connections Director at Summit Park Church, in Lees Summit Kansas City area, Missouri, and he’s doing a great job there. And so really, he eats, sleeps and breathes this issue of connections. And so we want to talk with Nathan about the things that he would do. And you do on a Sunday, Sunday after Sunday, helping get guest contact information. So I mean, in a world where privacy is a big deal, and the whole thing, where do you start with this?

Tip #1: Make it Simple

Nathan Teegarden 2:02
Yeah, yeah, absolutely well, one, it’s so important just from the story that you just shared, it’s so critical. And we’re always trying to think of how we can do this. And one of the things where I want to always start is I want to make it simple for guests to fill out their contact information. So, you know, they don’t want to use a lot of mental calories, because a lot of other things are on their mind. You know, they got kids, they’re thinking about that. Everything’s new to them, they’re processing the service, maybe for a lot of them, you know, they don’t want to be there. Maybe they got invited, okay, fine, I’ll come… But we, so we want to make it as simple for them as possible. Just make it really, really easy. So, we try to think through that whole process. Okay, how many steps are involved with filling out this this card? Whether physical or digital? You know, is it cumbersome? Is it, you know, difficult to understand what we’re asking them to do. We want that to be very streamlined. And super, super simple.

Want to know how to keep your church’s guests coming back week after week after week? Then download this Turn-Key Follow Up Process for Today’s Church PDF.

Tip #2: Make it Digital

Dick Hardy 2:55
Well, talk to us a little bit. You mentioned digital. So, when you’re actually up there on Sunday, I mean, I’ve been at Summit Park when you’ve done that. How do you weave in the digital piece? As opposed to the write it down? Do you still have to write it down?

Nathan Teegarden 3:09
We’ve gone all digital.

Dick Hardy 3:10
Okay so let’s talk about that.

Nathan Teegarden 3:10
So, we pretty much know that everybody’s gonna have a cell phone. And so we just use a service that allows them to text a word to our number. And so we have them text the word “new”. But we can set it as whatever, that’s our key word. So they’ll just text that word, NEW to the number that we put up on the screen, and then it feeds back to them and immediately responds with a link that they click on. And then that is the card that they fill out, the digital card.

Dick Hardy 3:14

Yeah, okay, good. Okay, so why should they do this?

Tip #3: Make it Compelling

Nathan Teegarden 3:38

Yeah, yeah. So I think you’ve got to motivate people, right? You know, as they as you know, like, this is really important that we want to have a conversation with you. I think that’s important as I frame up and, and begin to talk about why they should text that word new. I want to motivate them. So, there are several things that I’m doing.

Dick Hardy 3:59
So, it’s gotta be compelling.

Nathan Teegarden 4:01

Absolutely, yeah, that is a part of what you’re communicating. It’s got to be like, hey, we want to have a conversation with you. We want to meet you, we’re interested in you. And so that’s really important as a part of it. And also we do something to where we offer them a gift, we offer them something as a part of motivation to fill it out. So

Dick Hardy: 4:18

Yeah, that’s good. What’s the next thing you do?

Tip #4: Give Them An Opportunity More Than Once

Nathan Teegarden 4:21
Yeah, so we want to make it, we want to give them an opportunity more than once to fill it out. So, we have visitor hosts as part of a hospitality team. And their role in their job is to find those that are new that are guests as a part of the service. And one of their roles besides just making them feel like a million bucks and showing them around and answering questions they might have is to get their contact information. So, what we do is we equip our visitor host with that digital card, so they’re able to pull it up on their own phone and fill it out for the guests. Okay, so as they’re having conversation with them, they’re actually able to do it on their behalf and then we’ve got their contact information.

Dick Hardy 4:58
And the guest is good with that?

Nathan Teegarden 5:00
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you just think about, you know, my wife loves TJ Maxx. And they always ask for your information when you’re checking out. And it just seems natural in the conversation.

Dick Hardy 5:09
That’s the way the world is.

Nathan Teegarden 5:10
Yeah, absolutely. People are used to giving that contact information. And if there’s any hesitation, visitor hosts are trained to know, yeah, no problem at all. But we want to, we want to help you. We want to answer any questions. Also want to give you a free gift. So, you know, I’ve got your name. Alright. What’s your contact?

Ever wonder what to say when you contact guests after they’ve visited the church? Well, no longer! Download this Done-For-You Follow Up Scripts PDF and you’ll be well on your way to communicating with clarity through text, email, and phone.

Tip#5: Make it Part of the Church’s Culture

Dick Hardy 5:26
That’s good. Yeah, no, it feels like when I’m at Summit Park, it just feels like it’s part of the culture. Yeah. Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

Nathan Teegarden 5:33
Yeah, absolutely. So when we talk to our visitor hosts, obviously, our staff, all of our volunteers like this is, we want to move people down the connections track, like we want to help them get connected. And we see this contact information as the linchpin in all of this, this is like the thing that we’ve got to get, or else how we’re going to follow up with these people?

Dick Hardy 5:53
Yeah, exactly.

Nathan Teegarden 5:54
You know? And so we want as a part of our culture, like, hey, we need to move them to have you filled out an infocard? We call it an infocard. And like, have you done that? And if we can get their contact information, man, that opens the door for everything else and following up with them.

Dick Hardy 6:09
Yeah, that that is so good. Hey, I mean, this has really been helpful. Any parting shots that you want our viewers to tag into?

Nathan Teegarden 6:16
Yeah, yeah, I think if you just focus on making it, making it simple, making the process simple, and then getting your team on board, those two things like so really look at your system and process for what you’re asking the guests to do and make sure that it’s foolproof. Like, you just want to make sure it’s solid, and then getting everybody on board, and they’re familiar with the process. Those two things would really be the key to getting people’s contact information.

Dick Hardy 6:40
You know, another thing we talked about before we started shooting the video was, yeah, I’ve heard you guys say, you know, we have a no stalking policy. You know that you make them feel very, very safe in giving their information.

Nathan Teegarden 6:53
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because some people can be leery of that. They’re like, they’d get all the phone calls. And we’re like, okay, are you gonna call me or whatever. We just want to put people at ease. So, if they express hesitation, they don’t want to, no worries. Can we just get your email? You know, we can we can back it off a little bit. And that’s totally fine. But we do like to say to people, like, hey, we just want to send you a gift. And that’s true. We just want to send you this gift. This is something from us to you. And people are usually very cool with it.

Dick Hardy 7:21
Yeah. You know, I loved one of the… we didn’t talk about this ahead of time so I hope I don’t get trouble. But you know, one time Ryan Wakefield and I were talking about, you know, back in the day, when you first lay eyes on that potential girl, that’s going to be your wife, you mentioned you go off and chit-chat with her. Well, you know, if you walk away from that conversation, and don’t do one important thing, you’re toast, and that is, you’ve got to get her contact information. Why? Because you want a relationship. And that’s what the church wants. That’s what I appreciate about Summit Park, you want a relationship with these guests. And so it just makes all the sense of the world. Anyway, I kind of got going here.

Nathan Teegarden 7:56

Yeah! That’s really good.

Recap:

Dick Hardy 7:57
So, Nathan, thank you very much. Let me just go through the points here. Nathan talked about making it simple, make it digital, make it compelling, and make the opportunity more than once and make it part of the church’s culture. You know, we just really appreciated you being here with us today. Thank you, Nathan, for taking time out of your schedule to join us. You know, we’d certainly love to have you subscribe to the podcast, wherever you listen to them and rate and review the podcast. We have a review here from a person who said, “great content for pastors. I’m so impressed with the practical content this podcast offers. If you want your church to grow, I’d tag on with Church Tips.” So thank you very much for that kind endorsement, and we’re gonna look forward to serving you and other pastors on down the line through Church Tips. Thanks for hanging out with us today. Make it a great one, and be blessed.

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Podcast

094 – How to Capture Guest Contact Info

What’s in this Episode?