What Are They Remembering?
Your guests walked away from your service this weekend with a collection of stories. They are stories they’ll tell once they return to their cubicle, their neighborhood, their dinner table. They are stories of delight and stories of disappointment. They are stories that will cement a positive experience or further erode a negative one.
HelpScout illustrates this for us from a TEDTalk by Daniel Kahneman:
Here’s a scenario: you go out to dinner with friends. The food is wonderful, the wine is fine, and the environment is just right. Stimulating conversations are flowing, and everyone is happy. Right when you’re about to pay the check, the waiter knocks over your glass and spills wine all over your dessert and pants. Forget about the pants; now you have no wine or dessert. Everything up to this point was perfect—until it wasn’t.
What will you remember when you walk out?
The majority of the experience was blissful, but many of us would remember—and tell our friends—about the spill. If asked to return, we may be hesitant because the memory of the spill overpowers the hour of happiness.
Put yourself in the shoes of a random guest from this past weekend. Think through the lens of their experience: parking, signage, your kids’ space, the worship experience, the message, the speaker, the announcements, the environment. All of it combines to create a memory. The question: what overpowers what you want them to remember?
