When an Explorer takes the brave step of submitting their information to be connected to a local church or ministry, we want to honor that bravery by getting them a response as quickly as possible.
For this reason, we ask that you respond to Explorers as soon as possible, and no later than 12 hours after their message comes in. We see the highest response rates when you can respond within 15 minutes-2 hours.
The best way to respond to an Explorer is by responding from your Gloo account. This will change the Explorer's status to "Served" and will alert the system that they have received a response. If you do choose to contact your Explorers in another way (email, phone call, etc), make sure to manually change their status to "Served" in Gloo so that the system will know they have been responded to in another way.
Once it has been 14 hours since an Explorer’s message came in, you will get a warning notification email indicating that the Explorer is at risk for being rematched, and you will have 2 hours to take action before the rematch occurs.
If it has been 16 hours since an Explorer’s message has been routed to you and the Explorer has not received a response in Gloo or had their status manually changed to Served, our system automatically rematches that Explorer to another church/organization that can serve that Explorer immediately. We consider this Explorer to have been ‘dropped.’ You will no longer have access to their contact information, or be able to begin a conversation. If you are clicking the button in your email or text notification that usually takes you to the Explorer's conversation and it isn't taking you there, this most likely means the Explorer has been rematched and is no longer available in your account.
Rematched Explorers will be removed from the default view of your Inbox, but you can still see them by filtering for the Rematched status in your Inbox. All of their contact information will be hidden, and you will not be able to send them a message.
Explorers may request a Rematch at any time if they feel another church might be a better fit to their needs.
One step you can take to limit the number of Rematched Explorers you have is to turn your notifications on so that you are notified via email, text, and/or push notification when a new Explorer has been matched with you.
What does Reassigned mean for an Explorer?
When you see an Explorer in your inbox labeled as Reassigned, that means they have been rematched to your organization from a previous organization. Sometimes, Explorers get Reassigned to another organization if the Explorer is matched with an organization that does not meet their needs or they have not been responded to within the 16 hour window of initial matching.
In general, the expectation is that you respond to any Explorer that reaches out to you. There may however, be occasional examples of Explorers that have been matched with your account that shouldn't have been- maybe because of a wrong zip code, or a very specific question you are not equipped to answer. If this is the case, please contact us at support@gloo.us to have that Explorer rematched to a more appropriate organization.
If you have any questions about how to appropriately respond to your Explorers, check out our helpful Explorer Connections Best Practices!