Complaints reveal opportunities
When we were planting Crosspointe, the Church at Tartesso, now CrossPointe Church, in Buckeye, Arizona, we hosted a lot of volunteer teams. I mean a lot of them. With only a few exceptions, we had great experiences with those teams. They enabled us to accomplish more and to serve our community in more tangible ways than we could have on our own in those earliest days.?
Operating off the hard-earned wisdom of other church planting friends, I provided every volunteer team with an orientation soon after they landed in Phoenix. The purpose of “The Talk,” I sometimes called it, was to introduce volunteers to our community, our work, and our strategy. It allowed me to caution people unfamiliar with life in the desert about the early signs of dehydration. It also allowed me to draw clear, bold boundaries for our volunteers.?
My intention with one of those boundaries was to ward off unnecessary complaints. “I never want you to put your life or health at risk,” I’d assure them. “If you sense some real danger, speak up. However, I don’t want to hear you whining. Don’t tell me, ‘It’s hot,’ (spoken with an overdone whiny voice). I know it’s hot. I live here. I don’t need to hear that you’re tired. You’re going to be tired by the end of the week. I will be, too.” ?
When we hosted our largest group of volunteers - 91 people from eight different churches - in October of 2009, I mentioned that I had planned to get each group of volunteers a pacifier that they could clip on any whiner in their group. That whiner would have to wear it until someone else in the group started whining.?
While some folks were a bit startled and even annoyed by my candor, most received it in the way I had intended. One of those groups in 2009 even gave me a sign as we wrapped up the activities with a debrief that read, “There will be a $5 charge for whining.” It was both amusing and affirming of my approach. I still have it.?
Setting those boundaries served us well in our work. And many of the volunteers who worked with us once returned to do so again.?
An article I read recently about a successful entrepreneur, however, challenged my convictions about discouraging whining.?
In the Inc.com article about Stax founder Suneera Madhani, linked below, I was intrigued by the source of her inspiration.?
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As Gabrielle Bienasz writes in the piece, Madhani was selling payment terminals to process credit and debit card payments when she noticed some recurring customer complaints.?
The business owners who were buying and using these payment terminals didn’t like the myriad of fees they were paying to the banks that handle those transactions. They were giving away some of their profits because they needed to be able to receive card payments. And they were doing it through a complicated fee structure they didn’t understand.?
After hearing so many customers share this common complaint, Madhani pitched an idea for a subscription service for these transactions to her employer. She was told there was no way it would work. Her employer was not eager to give up the profits they gleaned from these convoluted formulas, either.
So Madhani started her own company to offer merchants services for a monthly subscription. The cost structure and services were clear. Small business owners loved it. And they still do. Stax continues to grow and accumulate accolades in a sector where few customers have good things to say about their providers. And all of it started with Madhani taking the time to hear the complaints of her customers. ?
What about you? What are some common complaints you have heard? What is the opportunity that may be buried in those concerns? What action can you take to respond to them? How can you lead your team, small business, professional practice, church, or non-profit to greater effectiveness by responding to those concerns??
Enjoy your weekend.?
The views and opinions expressed in my Thursday Thoughts on Leadership are my own. They do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or policies of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina or any affiliated churches.?