season ticket holder | Customer Service Solutions, Inc. - Page 16

The Secret Sauce for Great Customer Service - 3/26/24


I was working with the League Office for a major American sport several years back, and one of the executives asked me to describe our Secret Sauce that helped our clients improve the fan experience and customer retention.  I gave him a sense of what makes us unique and Read more

The Miracle of an Apology - 3/19/24


Unfortunate but true story… The manager basically lost his mind.  He terminated his employee on the spot.  She had told the customer that there was going to be a delay in the shipment.  The employee called up the customer ahead of time to let the customer know what was about Read more

It’s Not About the 5-Minute Wait - 3/12/24


Robert went into his supervisor’s office to update her on a situation at the payment desk.  Robert said that a customer was about fourth or fifth in line, waiting to be served, and the customer was complaining loudly about the wait.  He was there to make a property tax Read more

Lessons from the Greats - 3/5/24


I was recently facilitating a workshop on the customer experience, and I made the point that it’s usually beneficial to look at your personal life for great experiences; identify what really resonates with you in a positive way in order to uncover ideas to improve your own customer service. So, Read more

The Empathy Roadmap - 2/27/24


For some people, empathy comes naturally.  There’s an innate desire to learn about the other person and to sincerely convey that sense of interest and caring.  But for many of us, sometimes it helps to have a communication plan.  It helps to know what to do in order to Read more

“You’re the Boss” - 2/20/24


Terrence is excellent at what he does.  From a technical standpoint, he knows how to keep the facility clean.  He’s the lead custodian, and he knows that keeping things straight does not necessarily mean keeping things sanitary.  He knows what chemicals to use and not to use, how to Read more

Customer Understanding Leads to Relationship Growth - 2/13/24


We’ve worked with educational organizations at all grade levels over the years.  One special and unique characteristic about the staff who work in these organizations is that there’s a clear intent to know about the students as individuals, to focus on them rather than purely focusing on what’s delivered Read more

Define Customer Service Success Differently - 2/6/24


When I’m watching television, listening to the radio, or listening to a podcast, it’s always interesting when the topic moves to the question:  How can you be a success?  The speakers often discuss the process of becoming a success with the assumption that people believe success is defined by Read more

Care Enough to Give Them a Heads Up - 1/30/24


Nothing bad at all might happen.  Every day in the office could seem like every other day.  Sights and sounds and smells might continue to be the same.  But we have a lot of construction going on around our offices, and the building manager knows the type of work Read more

Be Better than AI Customer Service - 1/23/24


There was a recent CBS Sunday Morning Show story called: How artificial intelligence is revamping customer call centers. The journalist described how artificial intelligence is being used in customer service, and he noted the millions of pieces of information that can be processed in a matter of seconds. There are clear Read more

New Season, New Season Ticket Holders

Posted on in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

Many of our clients have the greatest chance of LOSING customers if they are new customers. That’s especially true with our sports clients.

When a new season ticket holder (STH) arrives, they are excited, have expectations, have written the big check for the first time, and want a great experience.

With all of their expectations, all that emotion, and all those expenditures comes all that risk.

Part of how you keep these new clients is obviously to meet and exceed the expectations, provide more value than the expense, and feed that emotion positively.

But realistically, the other part of keeping those clients is to educate them on expectations you CAN meet, about their role in having a great experience, and about all you do that they don’t yet realize is available.

With new clients, be their educator.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more information at: http://www.cssamerica.com/

Check out our new customer service book at http://www.amigreatat.com/


The Power of Thinking Big and Bigger – Steinbrenner and Welch

Posted on in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

With the recent passing of George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees, fresh on our minds, it’s beneficial and timely to take a look at a couple core philosophies and actions that he undertook which would apply to any business.

If you start by looking at the outcomes of what he did, you identify tremendous revenue streams and many World Championships won.

But there was a lot that happened before that revenue and those championships were won. There were many managers hired and fired. There are many players who played for him. There was the rejection by his hometown of Cleveland when he wanted to own the Indians. He was suspended by Major League Baseball. But in the end, he persevered; he changed as a person and as a leader. And throughout this time, he was willing to spend money to get the best and brightest. He was willing to create his own entertainment network to promote his main product – the Yankees. And while the grandiose scale and financial resources of Steinbrenner are hard for us to imagine having ourselves, that mindset is not so hard to imagine.

So imagine we own a business, and our business is a sports franchise. And whether we want to increase our season ticket holder base, retain more season ticket holders, increase fans’ passion, or create our own internal “Raving Fans” in the minds and hearts of our employees, we have to think big. We get very little success in life if we look for and think about and expect very little. But we have the greatest opportunities to achieve big things if we think bigger.

I remember a story of how Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, went into some of the GE businesses to talk to the leadership in those businesses, and he congratulated them on their high market share. The leaders were pleased with the praise, but they had plateaued in their growth because they had such huge market share, and the markets just weren’t growing.

So Welch told them to redefine what their market was so that they would only be a small player in this newly redefined market. And once they did, the innovation, the creativity, and the growth all started to happen again.

Look at what you’re trying to accomplish as an organization, then take a step back to think big. Maybe you can or can’ t accomplish every idea you come up with, but just by viewing the possibilities, you’ll uncover new ways to think and to act and to succeed.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more information at: http://www.cssamerica.com/

Check out our new customer service book at http://www.amigreatat.com/


Don’t Hibernate on Your Customers

Posted on in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

Summer is the downtime for many sports – NBA, NFL, NHL, etc. But for the staff of those organizations, there is no downtime. This is a time to sell for the upcoming season, having completed renewals. But those organizations need to realize this is also the time to learn, to view their existing season ticket holders (STHs) as suppliers of the information needed to gain referrals, gain information on share partners, gain intelligence on the information needed to retain them in Spring 2011.

For sales to new STHs, this is the time to think renewal as well. At the initial sale, that’s the best time to know why they signed up for tickets, who are the share partners, what do they expect from the game day experience and their relationship with your organization, how do they prefer to communicate with you, and how/when do they expect to use their tickets.

There is no downtime in customer retention.

Don’t let retention efforts go into hibernation this summer.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more information at: http://www.cssamerica.com/