MLB | Customer Service Solutions, Inc. - Page 2

Home  /  They Booed You. Should You Boo Back?  /  MLB

Talk About Yourself to Build Customer Confidence - 4/16/24


When you’re dealing with somebody who is anxious or nervous about a situation, a customer who feels like they don’t have much control, an individual who is unsure and uncertain, it’s important to put the customer at ease.  It’s important to build their comfort level.  It’s important to help Read more

The Proven Value in What You Do - 4/9/24


Forbes wrote an article last year based on a compilation of the results of research on customer service and the customer experience; it was titled:  100 Customer Experience Stats For 2023. In reading the article, you’ll note that many of these key research findings are about you – the value Read more

A Tale of Two Texts - 4/2/24


Having to get allergy shots once a week is never fun, and for Janet, it became an even bigger frustration. She had the shots typically scheduled on Tuesday around 10:30 in the morning, figuring she would avoid the morning rush as well as the lunch rush by going mid-morning.  However, Read more

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

•••••

They Booed You. Should You Boo Back?

Posted on May 23, 2012 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

When Cleveland Indians’ pitcher Chris Perez chastised fans for not showing up at the stadium and for booing the first place team, a Sports firestorm erupted. How dare the player get on the fans?! What right does he have to rip fans?! Where does a rich player come off chastising people who pay their hard earned money for entertainment…and his paycheck?!

In the article Chris Perez calls out Indians fans, Perez’ rant is documented, and the team’s counter to his comments is noted as well. The team distanced themselves from his words, and praised the fans.

When you hear about this story, what it essentially comes down to is last place attendance for a first place team. So Perez’ solution to the issue is to say “Hey! We’re in first! Support us!” It’s an emotional reaction from a guy who apparently wants to win and wants support.

But that’s just the solution; nowhere in the article does it get at the root cause of the attendance problem. Many sports teams (many businesses for that matter) address issues with attendance or sales or revenue or retention with solutions without ever determining the root cause of the problem.

I was once told by the owner of a professional football franchise that the only thing that drives attendance is “wins and weather.” Well if that was true, then we could put a mathematical calculation together that looked at weather forecasts and wins, and determine attendance every year. If that were true, you could fire most anybody in business operations as well as game day staff, and there would be no impact on attendance. So while wins and weather have some impact, they don’t tell the whole story.

For the Cleveland Indians or any organization to truly fix attendance/sales/retention issues, they have to learn how to get to the root cause – what can be controlled in business operations, in particular. They have to think about how to – on an ongoing basis – learn from fans, develop relationships with fans, retain and grow business with fans.

Don’t let your company’s players try to guilt fans into spending their money with you. Find out why they left, and address those root causes to keep them.

Interested in addressing your team’s fan relations/retention? Check out: http://cssamerica.com/csssport.htm


For Some Angels, the Devils are in the Details

Posted on March 28, 2012 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

There are times when the best tool in customer service is…a calculator.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (a Major League Baseball team) got a PR black eye recently when it told ticket holders to redeem vouchers for their “advanced ticket packages” (about 7,000 were sold) at the stadium starting on a Tuesday at 9 a.m. Just to set the stage – there was a potential for thousands of fans to show up at the stadium at the same time to select seats.

Almost needless to say, this didn’t turn out well. In the article Angels’ ticketing fiasco is latest case of bad customer service, the author notes that 1,000-2,000 people showed up, and no more than “a few hundred” made it through the line by the time the box office closed at 530p.

Angels management told the author that essentially: (1) There were a lot of people wanting vouchers, (2) It takes a while for each person to select seats, and (3) What did you expect?

The bigger question is “Why didn’t the Angels use a calculator?” If they would have estimated a conservative 1,000 people at 8 minutes per transaction, then that’s 133 staff hours required. If you’re only open 9 hours, you need at least 15 booths open the full 9 hours. That’s BARE MINIMUM. In fact, they had as many as 2,000 people there and only had 7 booths open. They should have known weeks in advance that this was a major blunder waiting to happen by simply taking out a calculator and pushing a few buttons.

If customer service is important to your organization, and you have an upcoming event, do simple projections on volumes and workload, and make sure you have the staffing to support it.

Customers care about their time. Take a minute and grab a calculator to ensure you can show that you care about their time by minimizing waits.

Think this is interesting? See our work in Professional Sports at: http://cssamerica.com/csssport.htm


NASCAR Lessons…and Beyond – Engaging Fans with Social Media

Posted on December 8, 2011 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

Let’s learn a little fan engagement lesson from NASCAR. In the Bleacher Report article NASCAR Drivers, Wives and Twitter: Is NASCAR the Most Active Sport on Twitter?, the writer notes about the relatively extensive level of access that NASCAR fans have to drivers – in everything from pit road access to autograph signings to the use of Twitter.

We’ve done enough research with our pro sports clients to know that a certain percentage of season ticket holders (STHs) have a strong desire for that engagement with or proximity to the athletes. But why do they want it? That’s a question to ask.

You can’t setup too many 1-on-1 dinners with your Dwight Howard and one of your season ticket holders. You can’t setup too many Putt-Putt competition between one of your long-term STHs and your Jason Verlander. You can’t have your Aaron Rodgers sit-in on too many STH book clubs.

So back to the question – why do STHs want access? If you can understand the STH’s goal, maybe there are some alternatives you can suggest.

To many STHs, the “why” is about the experience, it’s about relationship, it’s about feeling like you’re in-the-know or part of something special.

Social media can help with this. It’s not the direct 1-on-1 relationship they might desire, but it’s much more of a direct interaction than a fan reading a journalist’s article or a marketing e-mail from the team. So, use social media to accomplish at least two relationship-building objectives.

First, provide more direct/personal insights from your players and executives. Getting to know these individuals as being more “real” helps to foster relationship-building. That’s why the husband/wife aspect of the NASCAR Twitter approach has such great appeal.

Second, use Social Media to track key STHs, monitoring what is going on in their world, their lives. You can use this to identify ways to be proactive with them, sending them a congratulatory note to strengthen the relationship (if they changed jobs) or asking a question to enhance your STH-intelligence (if they mention they’ve moved) or sharing an offer to increase sales (if they say they have friends coming into town during a time where there’s a home game).

Use Social Media to build STH relationships by letting them into your world and by learning a little more about theirs.

Listen to our latest podcast episode of “Stepping Up Service” on The MESH Network at http://themesh.tv/stepping-up-service/

Read our New Book – “Ask Yourself…Am I GREAT at Customer Service?” http://www.amigreatat.com/

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


« Previous   1 2 3   Next »