What is an Explorer? đ§
Explorers are people in your community who have seen a message of hope online and responded by filling out a form. They have asked to be connected to a local church and are looking for someone to personally follow up with them.
Learn more about this program here.
How to start receiving Explorers đ§
Important: The Explorer Inbox is only included if you have added an Explorer Connections subscription to your account. Check out the Explorer Connections program as part of our Gloo+ offering.
Make sure your status in Explorer Status is set to Active, and you will automatically be matched with Explorers closest to you! If you go to your initials -> Explorer Settings and your status is listed as Paused, simply click Unpause under the status tab to reactivate.
Note: All new Gloo accounts are set to a Paused status for the first three days so you have time to prepare. At the end of the third day, your status will automatically switch to Active. Read more about paused accounts here.
Ensure email, text, and/or push notifications are turned on in your Profile. Once you have been matched with an Explorer, you will be notified via email, text, and/or push notification that a new Explorer is in your Inbox!
How to view Explorers đ§
Navigate to the Messaging menu and click on Explorers.
2. Click on an Explorer conversation & the person icon in the upper right corner to view their details. Youâll see information like their name, phone number, email, and zip code. You can also view the topic of the ad campaign the explorer responded to, and the first message the Explorer has sent you.
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Note: Depending on which campaign the Explorer interacted with, their first message to you may be a custom note from the Explorer, or a standard response like "I'm looking to get connected with a local church."
3. See how long ago an Explorer submitted their message and has been waiting for a response- the timer starts at 16 hours and counts down. The faster you respond, the more likely you are to get into a conversation with the Explorer. If an Explorer has been in your account for 16 hours and there has been no activity, that Explorer will automatically be rematched to another church and you will not be able to communicate with them moving forward.
Explorer Statuses
New Match - Any Explorer that is awaiting a first response - you have 16 hours & a countdown will display showing how much time you have left to respond
Rematched - The 16 hour window to respond to a new Explorer has expired & the Explorer was rematched to another church
Reassigned - The Explorer was previously matched with another organization and has been reassigned to you. You should respond to these as quickly as possible because they've been waiting at least 16 hours for a message
How to assign an Explorer to a team member đ
If you havenât already, youâll need to add a team member to your account who can receive the Explorer.
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Note: In order to view the Explorer Inbox, a team member will need either the âAdmin - No Restrictionsâ or âExplorer Accessâ permission level. Read more about the different permission levels here.
Click the Assign button that resembles a person icon near the Explorerâs name.
Choose a team member (or multiple) and click the checkbox next to their name to make the assignment. You can scroll through your list of team members to assign or search by name.
Pro Tip: We recommend having at least 2 team members, one of each gender, and assigning Explorers to the same gender teammate that is in the Inbox.
How to respond to An Explorer đ§
After reading the message submitted, craft your response in the âSend a messageâ box. Click Send and the text message will be delivered straight to their phone.
Important: Since your message comes to the Explorer as a text message from a phone number they have never seen before, make sure to introduce yourself and share how you got their information like in the example above! Otherwise the Explorer might not connect your message with the form they filled out online and think your message is just from a bot or is spam. Explorers may request a Rematch at any time if they feel another church might be a better fit to their needs.
Pro Tip: Need help with what to say? Check out this resource or try using our Conversation Support!
2. The majority of Explorers provide a phone number, but occasionally one won't. If thatâs an Explorer in your account, there will not be an option to send a text message. However, there will be an email option that will redirect you to your email provider and send the explorer an email!
3. All Explorers will automatically come into your account with the "Needs Response" status and will automatically update to âServedâ after you've sent your first message.
4. After the initial response, the same 4 statuses will be possible:
Needs Response: The Explorer has sent you a message back and is waiting on a response from you.
Needs Prayer: This status is typically automatically assigned when a Connection asks for Prayer. However, in order to avoid interrupting sensitive conversations with automated messages, the Prayer feature will not automatically activate for Explorers and this status will not automatically be assigned. If you want to mark an Explorer as needing prayer, you can still manually assign this status.
Served: You have responded to the Explorer and are waiting on another message from them.
Disconnected: You did not receive a response back from the Explorer and are ending the conversation. For texting purposes, this Explorer is treated as Inactive. This status can also automatically be assigned if the Explorer texts in "stop" to opt out of further communication.
Note: You may also see Explorers in your Inbox with status of "Rematched" or "Reassigned." A Rematched status means that the Explorer was waiting too long on a response and so was rematched to another organization that could respond immediately. You will still see the Explorer in your Inbox, but you won't be able to communicate with them. Similarly, a Reassigned status means this Explorer was previously matched with another organization that was unable to respond quickly, and has been reassigned to your account in an effort to get them a quicker response. Read more about rematched Explorers here.
Once you have sent your first message to an Explorer, they are automatically added to the "Explorers" group under your People -> Groups tab for ease of access later.
Providing Feedback on Explorers đ§
We are working every day to improve your experience of interacting with Explorers. In order to help us grow more, you are given the opportunity to rate your experience with each Explorer so that we can see which campaigns, methods and topics are working the best.
For each Explorer, when you update their status to Connected, Completed or Disconnected for the first time, you will be asked to rate the experience. This is optional, but you can rate with 1-5 stars, choose themes that stuck out, and offer comments. We greatly appreciate your help in continuing to improve your experience in receiving and responding to Explorers!
Note: If at any point you'd like to inquire about rematching an Explorer that may prefer a different organization, please contact us at support@gloo.us. We're happy to help!