Local company creates church index

The Cape Girardeau company designed the Faith Perceptions program for churches based on the consulting firm's mystery shopping program for businesses. It sends in "undercover" mystery guests each Sunday.

"When a business is losing market share, we use mystery shoppers to better understand the customer experience," said Jennifer Hendrickson, president of Hendrickson Business Advisors. "When a church or denomination is struggling to grow its congregation, we send in mystery guests to better understand the Sunday morning experience."

More than 40 churches have used Faith Perceptions to better understand what a first-time visitor thinks and feels when he attends a church service. Fifteen measurement criteria are evaluated on each visit, and more than 400 visits have been made. Now that a sufficient number of churches have participated, Faith Perceptions has an index that aggregates all the church data compiled to date. This index has also been segmented by congregation size so that each church can compare itself against a peer group of like size.

Faith Perceptions is administered through the Faith Perceptions website (www.faithperceptions.com). Nearly 1,000 individuals have registered to make undercover visits. Faith Perceptions generally uses "unchurched" applicants who do not attend church on a regular basis, thus ensuring an unbiased opinion.

Hendrickson Business Advisors is a management and marketing consulting working with businesses and churches throughout the United States.