We are launching the greatest improvement to our app so far, making it possible to communicate with your congregation from your phone. When we launched “People” last autumn it was with the ambition to make it simple to use for direct and personal communication with the congregation and other interested people. We believe that the church is under increasing pressure - it must find a way to communicate that resonates with the youth group, and have the tools to support the employees and volunteers in the church in the best possible way. Since smartphones have recently overtaken laptops as the UK internet users’ number one device, these tools cannot be restricted to computer use, they have to also be available via phone. Therefore it is with great pleasure that we announce this update.
The background of People
Naturally, the church needs to be present where the congregation interact, and since social media and online presence is such an integrated part of social life today, it must now consider how to use digital media as means of communication. Digital presence is essential in our society, where 89% of all age groups use the internet.
Additionally, the church must look into how to substitute the church magazine and printed media with more relevant mediums. Digital communication has the advantage of being much cheaper and easily personalized. Where church magazines, flyers and letters are often written for everyone, an e-mail can easily be made personal, directly targeting both content and age groups.
Since the launching of People it has become an integrated part of the work in many of our ChurchDesk users. One such user, Christina Iversen, says “With People we can organise our members into different groups, so they get targeted information. We can, with a few simple clicks, send information to one or more of our saved groups in ChurchDesk’s People.” With People for the app it becomes even easier to reach out to members with a quick e-mail, sent directly from your phone.
A few clicks for fast communication
In People for your phone you can choose between seeing your contact list or segments. If you select one contact, you will be shown all entered information for that person. It makes it easy to get in contact with the engaged couple that you are meeting tomorrow, or a volunteer who needs to be reminded of an upcoming event etc. By clicking on the contact’s phone number in the app, you can call them up directly from your phone, and if you choose the e-mail address you can write and send a message there and then.
It is also possible to send a message to multiple contacts or segments at once which is great for informing people about changes, cancellations, or many other needs. You can add or remove contacts from the message up until it has been sent, ensuring that you reach the right audience.
The digital presence is essential for the church
We hope the new version of our app will make it even easier for you to communicate with your members, even when you’re on the go. Every day we work on developing the best tools for the church, and this update is an important step on the way. The update is now available for the iPhone 4s or newer (iOS) and we are working on a version for Android phones to be released in the near future. We hope you will enjoy People for smartphones and look forward to hearing your feedback.
