This year, we’re celebrating 10 years of service to our customers.
As always, we’re committed to providing our customers with the best
service, quality solutions, and ongoing support to assist you in
making your ministry function as efficiently as possible. We thought
it would be nice to highlight some of our customers who have been
strong supporters of the ServiceU vision over the last 10 years.
First we’re going to share an interview with Kevin Miller at Idlewild
Baptist Church in Florida, then we’ll hear from Ashley Worrell at
Bellevue Baptist Church in Tennessee. Enjoy!
Interview with Kevin Miller, the Minister of Communications
and Programming for
Idlewild Baptist
Church in Lutz, Florida. Idlewild currently has 2,000 worshippers
every Sunday and was about half this size when they began using
ServiceU in 1997:
What solutions did you begin using 10 years ago and what
solutions did you add over the years? Did ServiceU help in building
solutions and making improvements to meet your needs?
“We started using EventU, after it had just gone to market.
I love the idea to this kind of solution. I’ve always been technical
in nature and loved to stay on top of what was going on in technology.”
“I saw the need for online registrations, tried another solution at first, then
went back to ServiceU. We’ve been using TransactU for five years,
then two to three years ago, we started using online giving. We take online checks and debit/credit cards,
which total about 20% of our weekly giving.”
What new technology have you most recently begun using and
how has it impacted your organization?
“We used to use a group of volunteers who would spend weeks organizing
the selling of tickets for our annual Christmas, Easter, and 4th
of July presentations. We’d have lines of people wrapped around
our church waiting to purchase tickets—it was ridiculous. Three
years ago, we began using TicketU for online reserve seating. Now
we have the capacity to easily sell upwards of 15,000 tickets, mostly
online. All the headache of the manual ticketing process has gone
away with technology use that TicketU has provided us with.”
In regards to ServiceU's customer service, support and training,
what would you say your experience has been?
“You can find companies that provide good technology and service,
but there’s something to be said for the owner having a heart for
ministry, that’s what’s driven Tim Whitehorn to keep going and serve
the church market. His desire to build tools that help the church
really go a long way for me. If I have a unique need, I can share
with him and he’s going to respond. He and his team are our partners
in ministry, not just in technology.”
Interview with Ashley Worrell, Helpdesk Manager for
Bellevue Baptist
Church in Cordova, Tennessee. Bellevue currently has 7,200 worshippers
every Sunday and an active membership of 18,000. Bellevue began
using ServiceU in 1997:
What challenges did your church face prior to using EventU
for events management at your church?
“When I started helping with the calendar process 10 years ago, we were using a mixture of Microsoft Outlook and paper forms. It was not reliable because we had to look through each day on the Outlook calendar to see if a particular room was already being used before we setup a new event. There were often conflicts that we missed. Also, the paper-routing system we had in place meant it would take days and often over a week for all of the support services to give their approval for an event. Not only was it wasting our time but it was also leaving an enormous paper trail with each event we had to process. We were in need of a better solution as the number of events and conflicts mounted daily.”
What were some of the advantages that Bellevue realized from implementing EventU?
“SerivceU worked with us to create a web-based system that surpassed our expectations. Through the EventU user-friendly application, we were able to check for conflicting events, organize list resource lists, and turn approvals around much more quickly and efficiently. It was amazing how much time we saved and how the calendar became something that we could use to help our staff instead of something that was causing frustration. It’s hard to believe that we once operated without the help of ServiceU.”
How has ServiceU helped determine real solutions and support services that meet your church’s needs?
“The staff at ServiceU are experts at providing solutions. Not only are they proactive in their approach to helping customers, but they also listen to the suggestions that we as customers offer. I’m amazed at how patient their support team can be whenever we’ve had to contact them for assistance or questions.”
“These guys truly have a servant’s heart and they offer their expertise in a non-threatening way that even the most ‘computer challenged’ user can appreciate and understand. Most companies do not care about your suggestions or concerns when it comes to designing software or applications. ServiceU does care. In fact, that is what sets them apart from any other company I’ve ever worked with, and that drive for excellence is what enables the ServiceU products to rise above anything out there on the market today.”