3 lessons for Guest Services I learned from our Airbnb hosts in Italy [Lessons from Italy, Pt. 1/3]
Most of you know I returned 6 days ago from a 6 week Sabbatical that included time with my wife Michelle in Italy, time alone at the beach, a friend’s wedding, a family funeral and a family camping/hiking trip in Big Sur and Yosemite. Every part of it filled my cup in different and incredible ways, but the uniqueness of our 16 day trip to Italy exposed me to the experience of being a guest in a foreign land, utterly dependent on the hospitality and service of others to feel at ease and connect well with my new surroundings.
If you haven’t caught the similarity to what you and I do as Sherpa leaders for guests at our churches, let me spell it out: I got to experience first-hand what a guest at your church feels like every weekend and boy did I learn some things.
Here is the first of several posts on the topic and this one will focus on 3 powerful things to do with your guests that I learned from our Airbnb hosts. These 3 things not only made the trip for us, but made us want to return to the same Airbnbs on our next trip (the same feeling we all want the guests at our church to feel when they visit for the first time).
Here are three things to do with guests at your church that I learned from my Airbnb hosts in Italy:
Check out how Reuben ended up in Next Steps on his first Sunday at my church.
➊ Give them a ride.
Gabriel is in his forties, plays on a local soccer team, and grew up in Assisi. He owns three beautiful apartments in this ancient hilltop village. If Assisi sounds familiar, it may be because this is the Roman town is where Saint Francis of Assisi is from, the current Pope’s namesake.
Unfortunately a train strike put us into town close to 10pm instead of 3pm as planned. Gabriel did a few things that surprised us:
He messaged us the whole way, assuring us that meeting him for a late check in would be fine, no matter what.
I had booked wine tasting in a family owned vineyard in the valley surrounding Assisi, along with a picnic lunch after a hike through the property. I asked Gabriel if Uber came up into the town for transportation to the valley. He said, “Don’t be ridiculous, I will take you!”. He took us there, and picked us up.
Gabriel personally drove us to every excursion we had planned, including the final ride to the train station when we left. When I offered him a sizable tip to cover all the gas and his time, he absolutely refused to take it. This was what he wanted to do to show us a good time.
All this made me think: How can we display this kind of hospitality and “give a ride” to guests at your church?
There are some obvious applications such as golf cart type transportation for older guests who need a ride to the opposite side of your church’s facility, but I have something potentially more impactful in mind that I have personally seen make a big impact on new people at my church.
“Giving a ride” can mean physically and spiritually helping someone new get from point A to point B at your church.
EXAMPLE: One Guest Service volunteer named Kim met a first time guest named Rueben recently at our church. Rueben had a question at the info counter and the best answer for him was to attend Next Steps (our “One Program” to connect new people to our church).
So she asked him to follow her to Next Steps so she could show her what she meant.
The result is shared by Reuben in the 2 minutes video above that you gotta watch. It’s a clinic on what young adults are looking for at your church.
Taking us where we wanted to go was Gabriel’s gift to us as our Airbnb host.
Taking Reuben where he wanted to go was Kim’s gift to Reuben as a Guest Services team member.
We can all learn from Kim and Gabriel on this one.
Here’s the next thing I learned from our Airbnb hosts in Italy…
➋ Make them a reservation.
Diana was our Airbnb host in Rome when my birthday took place. We were staying in an apartment she owned right up a cobblestone street from the Pantheon.
Since this was a milestone birthday, we asked for a recommendation for a restaurant, walkable for our location, not too expensive. She not only recommended one (Emma’s), but made the reservation for us, sending us the address.
Joy, coming up out of the water.
The meal was incredible, service great, and prices reasonable. We sat next to a young couple who we hit it off with for the evening, only to find out he was Ashton Agar, an internationally known cricket player for Australia. Such a fun win to top off my birthday celebration.
How can we make a reservation for a guest to feel that well-served?
Equip your info counter team with the ability to sign people up for things like a Next Step program, a small group, a retreat, or even to get baptized (see our reservation form here).
Offering that service makes a big difference. Take Joy as an example. Joy lives in Manhattan (NYC) and has been attending our Online campuses.
Through hearing our messages, she become convinced that God wanted her to be baptized but knew of no one in her life who could baptized her.
So what did she do? She reserved her spot to be baptized on Good Friday after a service on our Anaheim CA campus, flew out, and after I baptized her, she flew back home!
Unbelievable, but probably not possible if we did not offer a way for her to sign up in advance for a specific time to be baptized. It was so cool to have her as a first time guest to a physical campus after becoming part of our online campus for a season. Didn’t see that one coming!
Here’s the last thing to do for a guest that I took away from Italy:
➌ Write them a review.
Do you know that your church is being reviewed on Yelp and Google Maps? I didn’t until I looked for it. Most churches are and guests are giving a rating based on 5 stars as to what they experienced when they visited your church for the rest of the community.
At the time of this writing, our church has a rating of 4.3 stars out of 5 and the comments are very informative.
After checking out of an Airbnb, you are asked to fill out a review on your hosts. All 5 of mine were top notch and you know what? They also filled out a review of me as a guest! I currently have 17 reviews (thankfully all of them good) so that hosts know when we request to book their Airbnb that we are trustworthy guests for their property.
One way we let our guests know what we think of them is by sending them a handwritten postcard sharing how nice it was for us to meet them and mailing it to them on the Wednesday after their visit.
It is written by the person who greeted them and gave them their welcome gift after worship. It lets them know that we really enjoyed having them, would love to see them again, and gives them a coupon for a free coffee drink when they return.
Just last Sunday, I was talking with one of our Guest Central Team members and a woman came up to thank them for sending that note to them. It really meant a lot to this guests and they felt they had to personally let out team member know on their second visit.
I guess everybody loves a good review!
I can’t wait to share with you what else I learned from my time in Italy.
More coming to you on that soon. In the meantime, share this post with your team and use the questions below to discuss what you can all do together to raise the level of connection and hospitality you offer those God is drawing to your church each weekend.
Which of Greg’s moment in Italy stuck with you the most? Why?
Do you have an example of something similar when you’ve been traveling? How did it impact you?
Inspired by these Airbnb hosts, what new thing would you implement for your guests to make them feel as connected and welcome as Jesus would?
👀 Want to know what we’ve been working on recently?
Last week Tommy and I sent around a survey, and my favorite question brought in some fascinating results:
If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about your assimilation system, what would it be?
There was a wide array of answers about groups, attendance, buy-in, data, volunteer recruitment, and all the expected stuff to be sure — but one recurring theme really stuck out to me.
“Volunteers who were PASSIONATE about helping new people feel welcome, get involved”
“More people leading Next Steps so that they can see how powerful it can be”
“Strategy to unify all departments around assimilation in a very large church”
I’m guessing there are many times you feel like the only “above-and-beyond Airbnb host” your church has.
And I’m guessing you’re asking yourself…
when in the world is assimilation going to STOP being our church’s best-kept secret?
when is everyone going to get on board?
That’s the question we’re passionate about helping you finally answer in your church. We are doubling down on the ways we want to partner with you as you move toward connecting 1 out of 4 guests at your church.
And it all starts next week! We’re moving the CTA Video Course to a brand new platform to prepare for future offerings and experiences!
On the new platform, the Video Course will now include…
a ton of new, revamped downloadable resources for you to steal and use
discussion questions for you to digest with your team
lifetime access to all future updates
a free coaching session to use at any time during the course
3 months access to the brand new Sherpa Coaching Community! (more info coming soon)
It’s all happening next week, and the special offer that goes with it won’t last long — we want to help you take advantage of this summer planning season so your assimilation system is in a BRAND NEW place by this fall!
In the meantime, jump on the waitlist so you’re the first to know about it 👍
