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Don’t Harp on the Customer’s Mistake - 6/24/25


Seth’s daughter, Sarah, had missed some swim classes, and Seth remembered that the aquatics center had several make-up classes available late in the summer.  So Seth pulled up the class schedule on his phone, found one that worked on his and Sarah’s schedules, and planned to attend a session Read more

Create Customers for Life - 6/17/25


Veronica has gone to the same automotive service shop for at least 20 years.  She bought a new car about a year ago, and this is the third car she’s brought to the shop instead of taking her car to the dealer where she bought it.  She’s had three Read more

Don’t Turn the Customer into the QA Department - 6/10/25


Roberta received a form with information filled in by the company after her conversation with the account rep.  Roberta just needed to review the information, fill in some of the blanks, sign it, and resend it in order to set up a new account. She noticed that the effective date Read more

Imitate to Improve - 6/3/25


Oscar Wilde said that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”  Now this doesn’t mean that plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.  Nor does it mean that great impersonators such as Rich Little, Dana Carvey, or Frank Caliendo are always offering flattering portrayals of those that they imitate. Wilde’s Read more

How the Customer Perceives a Truth as a Lie - 5/27/25


You’re the customer, you’re asking about an unused item that you’re returning, and you hear the employee say: “The refund process takes 7-10 days.”  You’re thinking: “Great!  I can get the refund check as early as a week from today!”  The reality is that the company means that they’ll Read more

Tell Customers What’s Next - 5/20/25


In most businesses that have been around for a while, how a process was originally designed is not how it currently operates.  Sometimes this change is referred to as “practical drift,” where the actual process moves further and further away from the documented steps over time.  Maybe the changes Read more

Questions to Guide You to Empathy - 5/13/25


“If I was him, I would do ABC…” If you’ve ever heard somebody say this - whether it’s a friend or acquaintance, whether it’s some TV reporter or podcaster - you may get as frustrated or as annoyed as I do. I get annoyed because we are not that other person. Read more

Negate the Nervousness - 5/6/25


The customer needed a loan, so he walked into the bank, but he was a little nervous.  He knew that launching his business would be easier if he had some working capital, but that’s about all he knew.  He was anxious because he didn’t know what to expect in Read more

Don’t Rush to Resolve Quickly - 4/29/25


The customer is angry, so you use the CSS LEAD technique as designed.  You, listen, empathize, accept responsibility, and deliver on a remedy.  But it doesn’t work.  The customer is still upset, and maybe even a little more frustrated than when you started…why?! If the use of this technique fails, Read more

Energy v. Apathy - 4/22/25


I asked a couple friends who are much more scientifically-oriented the question: What is energy?  I didn’t mean E=MC2.  I meant physiologically, what is energy? They described a lot of things that sounded really good, yet far too advanced for my non-medical mind. Part of the reason why energy is of Read more

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G’Day = Good Relationships

Posted on May 13, 2010 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

An Australian soccer club had an issue. Attendance was poor, and even though they were constantly getting new fans, most went to fewer than four matches per year.

According to a goal.com article (http://www.goal.com/en/news/808/australia/2010/05/10/1917241/exclusive-edwin-lugt-taking-sydney-fc-forward), the Dutch CEO of the club called in a fellow Dutchman and created a position for him called “General Manager, Fan Relationships.” I LOVE THIS TITLE! But even more than the title, this new executive did what you expected someone trying to build fan relationships to do.

According to the CEO “He builds a database with potential new fans, developing strategies, activities to communicate with those fans one-on-one in a targeted way so that we know who the fans are, expanding and enriching the profile so that we know what they want, and targeting activities and communication towards them. You have members, regular fans and incidental fans. The question is: how can we develop them and get them higher on the value chain? In order to do that you’ve got to stimulate them but first you’ve got to know who they are by inviting them to register, via in-stadium activities or stimulating them to pre-purchase, because if they do that online you know who they are and can start communicating with them.”

These are the exact types of strategies that we help our sports (and other industry) clients to implement. Why? Because they work. They take the focus off transactional values and put them on lifetime values. The take the focus off a customer as a number and put the focus on a customer as someone with whom you need to build a relationship for the long-term.

Know your customer, setup an ongoing communication plan with them, address their retention drivers, and grow with them.

Be a relationship developer.

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