Live Blog From Renew Conference: 41 Lessons On Doing Ministry Like Chick-Fil-A: Inviting Good Customer Service Into Your Ministry

For the next several days, I will be attending the Renew Leadership Conference hosted by Union Baptist Church and Bishop Sir Walter Mack in Winston-Salem, NC.  I have been dispatched by INJOY Stewardship Solutions to add value to those in attendance and capture the best leadership insights I gleaned from an all-star lineup of speakers.

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The next session was was Doing Ministry Like Chick-Fil-A: Inviting Good Customer Service Into Your Ministry by Mrs. Pam Moncree.  Chick-Fil-A has experienced 53 YEARS of continued sales growth.  Pam is a franchise owner.  She could barely get through her content because the attendees kept giving testimonials about how much Chick-Fil-A meant to them.

The following are 41 quotes and lessons from her wonderful session:

1. She opened her session by introducing her 29-year-old manager who oversees the $5.5 million operation.  He started at the store at 14-year-old.
2. It’s not just a business. It’s our home.
3. It’s a little thing that make up the difference day-in and day-out and that hospitality to others that change a church to a home.
4. Two guests.There is one on the other side of the counter and the one beside us.  In the church we forget to extend that love and hospitality to the ones serving beside us.
5. Hospitality starts right beside each other.
6. You can to love, honor and respect both sets of guests in order to serve them.
7. Service – going above and beyond. Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Matthew 5:41
8. People come to Chick-Fil-A for the experience.
9. Chick-Fil-A is not a Christian business. It is a for-profit business based on Christian principles.
10. How do you get young people to be so polite? It’s not easy but it’s our culture.
11. We embrace service.
12. You have to have a strong desire from team members to serve.
13. If you don’t connect with the people outside the door they will never come in your door.
14. Our responsibility is to create raving fans.Raving fans are willing to pay full price and spread the message everywhere.
15. If there are no customers at the counter, we are to go into the dining room and love on our customers.
16. People who got us to where we are today loved our cole slaw. But we have to let go of some things to move forward.
17. Do I want to hold on to things I love or provide new things that make us an option.
18. Super-food was when we went to the next level.
19. In other to move forward, we have to let some things go.
20. “It was my pleasure to serve you” does something to your spirit and soul.
21. I have an opportunity to not only feed people physically, but spiritually.
22. It’s OK to be polite.
23. You have the right to take care of guests any way you feel fit and they’ll keep coming back.
24. We stay rooted and grounded in our culture but reinvent ourselves to serve the needs of our guests.
25. We know our purpose and mission and stay grounded in our culture.
26. We are the #1 business in our industry in the area of retention.
27. We find out what our employees want to do and then do whatever it takes to allow that individual to do what they want to do.We love them.  We care for them.  We want what’s best for them.
28. I’m choosing individuals who will not stay with me forever.
29. Most of us achieved our dreams because someone else believed in that dream.
30. The #1 app used today is Chick-Fil-A. This is staying relevant to our guests.
31. We constantly cheer. We constantly celebrate each other.
32. Church, you own that community you are in. Everything you do should permeate from being part of that community.
33. Chick-Fil-A is successful is because individual operators take ownership of their town.
34. My responsibility for my business is to cast vision and then have leaders to take that vision forward. I also need them to have a vision for themselves.
35. You cannot feel threatened when people have their own vision.
36. We can do other things because we serve great food.
37. I’m looking for individuals who will have the courage to learn to serve.
38. It starts with the leadership. When you’re non-judgmental, nothing else matters.
39. We’re not in the chicken business.  We’re in the people business.  We know our culture and we stick with it.
40. How can we be hospitable without food.  That’s who we are.
41. The church still has to pay the light bill.

It was my pleasure to sit in this session. More to come this afternoon.

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