In part 3 of my 3 part series on software cost consideration I will address the value-based pricing concept and explore why the value that the software provides is more important than the out-of-pocket direct costs, or for that matter, the overall Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
When considering what software solution to buy, the real measurement to take into account is the “value” that the organization or people within the organization receive from the implemented solution. Case in point, we find that many churches have had our competitors’ solutions in-house for several years, yet the solution is so underutilized (meaning that it is not being used for one or more reasons: too hard to learn, lack of availability, does not do what the users need, etc.) that no matter how cheap the system appears to be, the church is over-paying because it provides so little value.
The problem with the value concept for software justification is that it varies significantly from church to church because what individual churches value varies greatly. The components or line item categories are usually transferable across churches, but the level of value will differ. Some of this variance is attributed to what “value” the individual church places on certain capabilities.
Let me present some examples to help clarify:
- What “value” do a church and its congregation place on being able to “quickly” and safely check-in children for Sunday services?
- It affects the brand of the church – how people perceive the church and the Sunday experience. There is definite value to the brand; but if the church does not understand branding, the value is not perceived.
- It affects the convenience provided to the congregants. This also affects the Sunday experience; especially for first-timers. But if the church is not focused on seekers, then visitor first impressions are not valued.
- It affects the security that a parent “feels” when they drop their children off for the first time in an unknown church. Again, seeker sensitive churches value that first-time experience so much more than inward focused churches.
- What “value” does a church derive from being able to offer activity registrations from the church website?
- If the church does very few during-the-week or special activities, then the perceived value of this feature is smaller than for a church that conducts a lot of activities and is looking for a better way to administer them.
- We recently received an email from a customer that claimed that Fellowship One WebLink saved their church over 1,000 man-hours in administering one of their activities. Now that’s value!
- What “value” does a church assign to the accountability of being able to track whether congregation contact items are followed up quickly by the right people?
- Believe or not, some churches do not place value on this kind of accountability – so having such a feature in the system, although I would consider it part of the value proposition of why we cost what we do, is not considered when determining the cost-justification of a new church management system.
- To other churches, this is huge value because they believe that caring for their congregation needs in a timely matter one of their primary jobs. But if a church does not culturally appreciate a quick follow-up to information requests, then no matter how much we “preach” its importance, it is viewed as superfluous functionality.
- What “value” does a church associate with the church staff and volunteers being able to easily access its information from anywhere there is Internet access?
- If the church staff works from home a lot, or travels a lot, this can be of significant value.
- I was recently at a conference where one of the church staff was actually half listening to the conference and half doing F1 work via the wireless network. She was getting value.
I could go on with example after example of how a church management system can provide value to any church. But the value is particular to the church’s behavior, culture, focus and the implementation of the system’s capabilities. For any given church, if all of this value could be captured and documented, then the justification for a web-based church management system would be easy. But because it is particular to a given church, it is more difficult to provide a standard set of savings guidelines. And some of the savings are not savings at all, but actual “value creation” – value above and beyond what is currently done.
Take a look, what do you value? Is it the same thing that the congregation values? Can you increase your congregation’s experience by capturing some value that you are not even seeing at this time? Or are you walking over dollars to pick up dimes?
Grace to you as you go out and give value,
jhook