Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

While my wife browsed TJ Maxx for summer trousers, I sat on a curb outside and observed people going in and out of TJ Maxx. Here is what I observed:

Perhaps 95% of those entering TJ Maxx were female. The majority of them were middle-aged white women. Of the women under age 40, the majority were Asian. Those entering with babies were almost all Asian.

I didn't see a single African-American customer, or Hispanic customer, and only one South Asian.

More than half of those who went in came out empty-handed, having browsed but not purchased.

This wasn't a text-while-walking crowd. Most came in alone. These were "lumpy" people, looking (I speculated) for affordable fashion to make them feel less lumpy.

None of these observations has any value component. They are simply a profile of those entering this one store. But imagine how helpless you would be as manager of this TJ Maxx branch if you didn't know who your customers were. If the manager is smart, he is measuring everything I observed and far more. How long each customer stays inside, the exact percentage who purchase or don't purchase, the actual average sale, what they bought, where they browsed. And how the metrics are changing.

Imagine trying to lead a church and not having such metrics available to you. How would you know how to serve people if you didn't know their gender, age, race, socioeconomic circumstance, average stay time, and what "products" they actually consumed. You would always be guessing, and in all likelihood, you would be guessing wrong, because you would assume the next twenty people in the door would be like you.

But, as my brief observation suggested, the future will almost certainly be different. A congregation that thinks its current profile will carry on into the future is flying blind.

Your future "customers" might be techs driving Teslas and worrying about work-life balance. Or they might be day-laborers driving old pickups and wanting respect. Or retirees facing financial insecurity. Or middle-class families going down-scale.

My point isn't to paint an ideal customer profile. My point is to underscore the need for metrics showing who your people are, who your visitors are, who is in your likely draw pool, what needs they bring with them, and what "products" they are buying.

Only when you have such metrics can you design effective plans for welcoming, engaging, retaining and serving people.

How to gather metrics? You might start the way I did: just sit on a curb and observe. You will start to see patterns. You will begin to ask questions. (Why do over half leave empty-handed?) You will see what further information you need. And as you try out different ways of presenting your "merchandise," you will see what works.

It starts in not assuming you already know, and in not assuming your future will be like your present.

This blog post first appeared April 15, 2015 on Tom Ehrich’s blog “Fresh Day on the Road.” It is reprinted with permission. 

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