How to follow up with First Time Guests using Workflows

Workflows like most things start with groups.  When you add or register someone into a group, they are also enrolled in an active workflow.  So, if you haven't already, create a 1st time guest group and select it as the enrollmnet group for this workflow.  Once you make the workflow active, anytime someone is enrolled into this group, the system does five things: 

1. Unenrolls them from a workflow that started when they attended an outreach event (if they did). The goal of that workflow was to get them to come a first time. They just did.
2. Updates the 1st visit field on their member profile. This might have happened anyway if they were manually entered from a card or automatically from new family entry at Check-in.  But, it doesn't hurt to make sure.
3. Notifies Adam Barclay to do a personal visit or call within 2 days. You pick who to make the assignment to and the system adds a note into the note section on the guest's profile page. Adam will get an email and text immediately and another one on the due date (2 days later in this case).
4. Sends a customized follow-up email to the guest. You probably already have the content of this email - usually a thank you with an invitation to attend again and also a suggested next step like meeting the pastor.  You can add a  link in this email that will take them to a form to register for this next step.  
5. Waits until the following Saturday at 9 a.m.. This is the time stamp that controls the workflow scheduling.  It can be a certain number of minutes, hours or days; a certain day of the week like this one; or a specific date and time. Using the upcoming Saturday as the time stamp prompts the follow up text to be sent exactly when you need it whether the person was enrolled in the 1st time guest group on Sunday or Friday. 

Over the next 4 months the systems sends a series of personalized texts and emails.  For this workflow that means texts or emails sent on Saturdays

1. The week after they attend the first time (#5 above),
2. The following week, 13 days after first visit,
3. Two weeks later, just short of a month since the first visit,
4. 30 days later (left), two months after first visit,
5. 30 days after that or 3 months after their first visit.

These are all personalized and automated.  They are working in parallel with the personal contacts that started when Adam Barclay contacted the guest and entered notes and made follow up assignments based on that contact (#3 in first section of this workflow).

Once the person returns a second time, they are unenrolled from this workflow.  Note, just moving them out of the first time group doesn't necessarily remove them from the workflow.  For this to happen, you will create a 2nd time guest group with an associated second time workflow.  This 2nd time workflow starts by unenrolling them from the 1st time workflow.  Make sense?

If they do not return a second time within this four month span, you have done your due diligence to follow up with them.  You have sent them 6 texts or emails and at least one if not many more personal calls, emails or texts. 

If you do not define when your team has done enough to follow up someone, the pool of people they are working with gets so large that it gets stagnant and frustrating to work with.

So, we end the first time workflow by removing the non-returning guest from the 1st time guest group.  Just to keep them in one place, we've added them to a 1st Time Guest - 4+ Months Ago group.