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Don’t Skip the Recap - 5/12/26


The playoff hockey game goes on for almost 3 hours.  There’s non-stop action, with plenty of penalties and takeaways and hits against the boards…and a few goals, as well. You didn’t get to watch the whole game because you had other plans, but you wanted to know what happened.  So, Read more

Finalize the Solution with the 6 Step Checklist - 5/5/26


In last week’s Tip, we showed why and how to Use the 6 Step Checklist before Resolving the Issue.  We noted the importance of taking 15 seconds to mentally walk through the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How to feel confident that you know what’s needed to fix Read more

Use the 6 Step Checklist before Resolving the Issue - 4/28/26


We talk about trying to resolve the issue right the first time, sharing the technique on how to manage the conversation to get clarity on the real issue, need, or goal, and confirming your understanding before moving forward. But what are you trying to clarify?  What are you trying to Read more

Use the Customer’s Words - 4/21/26


The customer is describing a problem on what they call their “computer.” They mentioned that the “screen” doesn’t “move from one page to the other.” They say that the “website’s name is typed at the top,” and it says sample.com with a “line, and then it says ‘home’ after Read more

Affirming the Customer with Empathy - 4/14/26


We’ve spoken and written about empathy for the 20+ years of these customer service tips, noting empathy as the most important quality any individual can have if they want to be great at customer service.  We’ve shared that - in order to serve our customers most effectively – it’s Read more

The Power of Teaching While Helping - 4/7/26


If you’re trying to develop a relationship with the customer rather than just simply handling their transaction and moving on, you are taking a long-term view.  You realize that that individual is someone you want to keep with your business for months or years to come, so it’s a Read more

Bear with Me - 3/31/26


As a customer, you’ve probably called a company and heard the phrase “bear with me.”  At that point, you know there’s going to be some sort of delay.  The CSR is giving you a heads up that there’s going to be additional wait time.  Essentially, they are trying to Read more

Slowing Down the Fast Talker - 3/24/26


Jeffrey had always been told by his manager to figure out the issue quickly and wrap up the conversation as fast as possible.  So, Jeffrey was hyper-focused at finding that one key word that could identify the issue and help him to transition quickly to what might be some possible Read more

Don’t Bury the Lede - 3/17/26


Mary was working at the office, and she received an e-mail alert from the water company.  There was a water outage in her neighborhood.  It looked like it was going to be a couple hours to fix the issue. Sure enough, a few hours later around mid-afternoon, Mary received another Read more

Confirm the Real Issue Before You Start Solving - 3/10/26


Have you ever gone “down the rabbit hole?”  It involves going deep into some topic, some discussion – with analysis that creates complexity as much as it resolves it.  And that dive into the rabbit hole often starts with a simple question. Going down that rabbit hole takes time and 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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