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Confirm the Customer is Cleared for Takeoff - 11/18/25


An airplane pilot is told when they’re “cleared for takeoff” before they begin to accelerate down the runway.  The air traffic controller (ATC) has looked at everything in front of the pilot, on the runway and in the air space, and checked to ensure the pilot is good to Read more

Build Relationships with First-timers - 11/11/25


We’ve worked with one of our sports clients for over 10 years, and although the main focus of our work is research with their fan base, we also provide informal consulting advice and guidance whenever possible.  One approach we’ve talked about on and off for years is the need Read more

Last Impression Faux Pas - 11/4/25


Rightfully so, many customer service experts harp on the importance of the first impression.  It happens quickly, and it can impact the individual’s perception of you and the organization.  We even wrote a Tip of the Week on this years ago called First Impression Faux Pas. What many people tend Read more

Familying with Customers - 10/28/25


In our transactional society, it’s hard to think about customers in the long-term.  But if we want to be as successful as we can as an individual or as a business, we need to view customers through a relationship lens. What do we need to know about them to Read more

Avoid These Techniques - 10/21/25


We had a Customer Service Tip of the Week recently that addressed gaining control of the conversation.  One of the key points was that the focus should be on gaining control of conversations in various circumstances, but trying to avoid making it your goal to gain control of the Read more

View Quality through the Customer’s Eyes - 10/14/25


Geri had been dealing with backups in the downstairs plumbing system of her house on and off for the past year.  The most recent company that she called in to unclog the pipes stated that they could send a camera down the pipes and tell her exactly where the Read more

Be Supportive, Not Defensive - 10/7/25


[An employee on the phone with a customer…] Who told you that you didn’t have to submit that form? … Bob?  Oh brother!  You see Bob is our “special” co-worker.  He seems to always tell customers the wrong thing to do, and we’re having to clean up after him.  Read more

Some Customers LOVE Predictability - 9/30/25


I was facilitating focus groups of businesses that utilize local government services.  The phrase that popped up multiple times was “Time Is Money!”  What these municipal customers were conveying was that their time was valuable, and delays were wasting their time.  But the conversations were not just about how Read more

Find Your Special Sauce - 9/23/25


When I watch a football game and I see a great quarterback (somebody who may be considered a “Star”), he might be an excellent runner, have a big arm, be able to diagnose the defense and get his team into the right play.  But he’s likely not great at Read more

Gain Control of the Conversation - 9/16/25


The customer’s angry or upset or they have a complaint.  They’re very chatty or very wordy or they just want to talk to somebody.  You’re on a time crunch, and the customer obviously is not. There are times when you need to gain control of the conversation.  It’s important for Read more

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What is Your Post-Exit Strategy?

Posted on August 31, 2009 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

Every year, professional sports teams lose season ticket holders.  These season ticket holders exit the organization because of a myriad of reasons.  With the economy like it has been over the last 18 months in particular, professional sports teams are losing season ticket holders at an alarming rate.  Many pro sports organizations deal with these issues by ramping up their advertising and marketing efforts.  Many others chalk up the losses to a bad economy, but few of these organizations really have a strategy targeted at these former season ticket holders.

These ticketholders have left; so what is your strategy post-exit?

Some of the best sales prospects your organization can have are former customers. You already have a great deal of intelligence on your former customers. You already know their likes and dislikes, their preferences, what’s most important to them, key demographic information, and their purchase history. Well, at least you should know all this information.

The two things you don’t know are two pieces of information that can make you a lot of money very quickly. The first piece of information is the specific reason or reasons why they left. This is where you avoid making broad assumptions about the season ticket holder base, and you look specifically at each one to determine why they left. You would probably be shocked to find out why the individual season ticket holders left even though you might be able to guess broadly about the major reasons why season ticket holders left. By knowing why they left, it helps in future conversations to help get them back.

The second piece of information that’s vital is their likelihood of future interest in your products and services, or as pro sports teams focus, on tickets. You have to know what level of interest they have and in what type of individual game ticket, a mini plan, or some form of full season plan. Without this information, you don’t know enough to have an efficient sales pitch with a former client.

So what is your post-exit strategy?

With our pro sports clients, it includes conducting Exit Interviews in a soft form with the season ticket holders to gather intelligence about these key pieces of information. And then to use the results of that research to both apply to current season ticket holders to best retain them but also — in the hopes of increasing revenue — to make targeted sales pitches at the former season ticket holders.

Your lost season ticket holder is one of your greatest sources of future revenue. Have a strategy for getting them back.

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


Be Better Than the Pretzel Man

Posted on July 21, 2009 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

I was attending a basketball game a couple years back, and I had an urge for a soft pretzel.  There was a pretzel kiosk setup in the concourse, so I got in line behind 3-4 other customers.  When it was my turn to order, I walked up to the kiosk vendor, and he was looking down at his counter where he was preparing the pretzels.  I waited, and he said nothing and did not look up.  So I asked for a pretzel, and he proceeded to pull out a sheet of wax paper, went to get a pretzel, and added some salt.  Still looking down, he put the pretzel on the counter in front of me with his right hand, and with his left hand he held up three fingers.  I pulled out three dollars, gave it to him, and with his head still looking down, he said nothing else. I took my pretzel and walked away.

The entire transaction took place, and he did not say a word. He did not look up at me. He did not seem to care.

Many sports organizations talk about the “game day experience” as if it was all about the halftime entertainment or the before game rock band playing outside the arena.  But much of the experience from the customer’s perspective relates to the interactions that they have with arena vendors and staff.  This vendor conveyed that he couldn’t care less about the customer.

Although the way he expressed it may have been to the extreme, the reality is that a lot of vendors and city/county personnel who work at sporting events do their job for the task that it is without realizing who they are doing the task for – the fans, their customers.  The more of these individuals who convey that they couldn’t care less, the more fans that you’ll get who could not care less as well.  If the employees and vendors and other game day workers act like they don’t care about the customer or customer service with their poor communications or attitudes, you’ll see more and more fans conveying that same lack of attitude or lack of respect in how they communicate with others.

Make sure that the game day experience is about more than flashy entertainment; make sure it is also about customer service.

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


Keeping the Sports Fan – 1 at a Time

Posted on June 15, 2009 in Sports Please leave a comment

It’s not all about wins and weather.  Organizations in the world of professional sports who truly understand the impact of the fan realize that there are many drivers of attendance and season ticket holder retention beyond how many wins a team has or how the weather is that day (for you baseball and football teams).

Marketing may bring you into a business as a new customer, but after that, the relationship and affinity for the organization often take over – if the business is smart.  It costs a lot of money to execute all those marketing and sales strategies, and the reason why organizations often talk in terms of ROI is that there’s usually a lot of upfront “I”  that you need to get the return on as quickly as possible.  You don’t get that return if the fan only attends 2 games, if the season ticket holder cancels after 1 year, if a losing record for a season means an automatic loss of the customer.

Sports organizations need to – at the start of the new fan relationship – ask why the customer is now a customer…and why they might leave.  Finding those retention drivers is vital to any organization wanting success; even though marketers often think in terms of demographics and client types when marketing to large groups, customer retention experts think of what would keep Joe v. Mary v. Marco v. Terry.

When you think retention, think 1-on-1, develop relationships 1-on-1, serve your clients 1-on-1.  Because if it’s all about wins and weather, then to the staff on the business side of the organization, you have zero control.  But if it’s about the relationship and the retention driver, the communications and the caring, the impact on their business or their personal lives, then you on the business side of the organization have some control.

Keep the sports fan by knowing what you can control in the relationship with that customer – one customer at a time.


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