Did you know that Mary Smith was in the hospital? I found out because her best friend is my
cousin's wife. My cousin also told me
that his wife's sister works with Brad Johnson who is married to Barbara
Johnson who is my small group leader.
Small world isn't it? If you
could see the connections between each person you speak with on a regular basis
(or you are just good at knowing these things) you would be amazed how inter
connected we are. Isn't that why we want
notes in Fellowship One? Doesn't that
play into how we can become more effective at reaching out to first time
guests?
The contact management system in Fellowship One is very
flexible and adept at gathering information that is collected by multiple
ministries at various stages in the assimilation process. Wouldn't you like to know that Mary Smith was
in the hospital before calling her to ask her to volunteer? It doesn't happen by magic. It takes time and effort from each ministry to
document connections made on a regular basis.
I bet you're saying: "But you
don't know my staff, I can't get some of them to use email, much less log into Fellowship
One and get them to input notes." Fear not, saith Fellowship One. We have a plan, even for you.
The Delivery team has spent months putting together the
suite of documents that can be downloaded from this blog or found on the Best
Practice tab located at the Experience site.
Below, are some examples of different approaches to using Fellowship
One's Contact Management System. Clicking on the name will begin the download sequence.
This is where you want to get started. This document was created to help you transition from paper contact cards into a fully functioning electronic contact management system.
Once the congregants have turned in the cards and after the form was setup in Fellowship One this document walks you through best practice approaches to Data Entry.
This document was written to guide you into the next phase of contact management. Actually working the contacts. There are several approaches listed below that were created as separate documents because each contact method is unique.
Contacts 3.2 - Work Using Paper
- Does Aunt Bee work on your staff?
- Does the Care Pastor care less about computers?
- Is the Seniors Pastor convinced that his computer came from
Hell and not Dell?
- Are you using volunteers such as deacons to work contacts?
Then Contacts - Work Using Paper might be
the document for you.
Contacts 3.3 - Work by Triage & Transfer
- Does it take a team to get the work done?
- Does the contact routing have more variables than any
computer can comprehend?
- Do you use Mary the Super Receptionist to figure out who
should call whom?
- Admit it! You're a control freak, right?
Then Contacts - Work by Triage & Transfer
might be the document for you.
Contacts 3.4 - Work by Multi Close
- Do you send 200 emails a week?
- Do you know what a mail merge is?
- Are you all about hunting with a shotgun?
- Do you shop at Sam's Club or Costco?
Then Contacts - Work by Multi Close might
be the document for you.
Contacts 3.5 - Work Using Group Manager
- Do you use volunteers or teams of volunteers to follow up
with contacts?
- Do you want to have small group leaders contact prospects?
- Do you not know what I am talking about?
Then Contacts - Work Using Group Manager
might be the document for you.
Contacts 3.1 - Work Using the Portal
- Do you have people on staff?
- Do you have more than one user setup in Fellowship One?
- Have you ever wanted to actually start using the Contact
Management system?
Then Contacts - Work Using the Portal is
definitely the document for you. I put this one last on purpose because this is the one you probably already knew.
If you are not using the Contact Management system in
Fellowship One now is the time for change. Be the change. And know that you are missing out on a great piece of technology developed
specifically for how you do church. It's time to start downloading and implementing
some of these amazing processes that will help you really connect to the people
you should know by now.
Brought to you by,
Matthew, Mark², (No Luke), Joseph, Chris, Will & Jeff
Delivery Manager's (and close personal friends, of a friend,
of a friend, of a friend, of a friend, of yours)