“OUR JOB”
Having been in business for a long time, I realized you lose 81% of our customers within ten years unless you change the way you treat people, 1% will die – 3% will move away – 5% will give their business to a friend – 9% will be lost to competitors – 14% will be lost due to dissatisfaction with the product and 68% will quit because of an attitude of indifference of an employee.
So how does this affect the Lord’s business? The Lord’s business also loses customers, so to speak, for all of the following reasons: 1) Death is steadily calling men and woman into eternity. 2) In our mobile society, the local church is constantly affected by “moving members.” 3) Those with no real conviction concerning the importance of doctrinal purity and of “making all things according to the pattern”, are being led into denominationalism and liberalism. 4) Others, finding that following Christ requires daily sacrificial, self-denying, crossbearing, and will become “dissatisfied with the product” and will not see the value and hard work and will drop out of the race.
Interestingly, the great loss to a business comes at the point of “employee indifference.” Have you ever walked into a store and felt that the salesman or manager would rather not be bothered? Right here is where the bulk of customer casualties lie. Christians are the Lord’s “salesman.” We would do well to look into the matter of how we treat our visitors. Do we just let the announcer or the preacher do all of the greeting, or do we personally and warmly
seek out our visitors? We represent the church and the Lord at every assembly and every member should seek out every visitor with kindness and make them feel welcome, but sometimes, it’s a race to get out and go eat. Often others are so busy talking to their friends, they let visitors walk right by and never say a word. Indifference simply means “I don’t care.”
To keep customers/ perspective members it takes a loving and friendly congregation showing that we care and we love our jobs as an employee in our Lord’s army. Think about what our Lord said when He was young, “Should I not be about my Father’s business?”
Submitted by Gary Culbreath