When The Shit Hits The Fan
As I approach the start of my tenth season working in football, I’m reminded of the day it became a reality.
Until then, actually making a living within sport was a pipe dream at best, and not something I’d ever given any serious thought to. But a fortuitous set of timings and circumstances meant that I was in a lift after a meeting at Wembley Stadium.
Mark Bradley had founded the Fan Experience Company a decade earlier. The aim had been to put fans – and a younger audience - at the centre of football, and it was clearly working. Family attendance in the EFL was rocketing, and now I was going to be a part of the movement.
It felt strangely uplifting (especially given the lift was going down) and I was excited to be able to share some of the best practice I was seeing every day and implementing in my existing role into a new world.
Like Mark, my background is in customer service. We both spent far too many years helping organisations improve it before finding our way into a place we are even more passionate about. Now I would be able to use my knowledge, skills and expertise to help a game I loved. Mark looked at me as we stopped to pick someone up on the third floor, and his expression was one of expectation management.
‘I think football is about ten years behind’ he warned. I smiled. That couldn’t be accurate, I thought, but didn’t say anything. Ten years? And boy, was he right?
My customer service excellence ideas had to go onto the backburner for a while. Things that were routine - and even mundane - in the world I operated in were not yet a thing within the bowels of a football club. That took some getting used to, particularly when I suggested things such as a club asking their fans what they thought.
‘You mean you want me to talk to them?’
Nowadays, ten years after Mark’s warning, clubs have fan engagement plans and talk to their supporters all the time. Or at least far more than they ever have in the past. They are, like it or not, treating them a bit more like a customer.
Of course, the biggest no-no in football is to even think of fans as customers or consumers.
Given the World Cup has been accused of just doing that, it’s become a touchy subject. But that’s because FIFA seemed to treat fans that way from a purely monetary POV. They even have a role that’s called Senior Manager, Fan Loyalty & Monetisation.
My own take? Fans should never be called either, but sometimes they should be treated more like one. Because they are pretty close to being one in almost every way anyway.
Are You Being Served?
There are many area where fans and customers are almost identical:
They are the ones with the money
They are purchasing something – usually several things, including entertainment but also refreshments and merchandise
They provide lots of data
They have an expectation of being treated pretty well while they are there
They will be unhappy or even complain if they don’t get what they want
The one obvious difference is that fans are – to a degree – a captive audience. They don’t think of the club in the way that they would another brand, such as a retailer. If they get poor service there, they can just take their custom to another store, or online.
Fans will never say ‘we were shit today, so I’m going to support City from now on’. Nor do they take their support away simply because their beer is flat, the pie luck-warm or the bloke in the club shop looked at them in a funny way.
There is a layer of commitment that most brands can only dream of.
For years, clubs have exploited this ‘loyalty’ in several ways. Taking a fan for granted is easy, but still disappointing when it happens. But clubs rarely worry too much about the fans who turn up and say nothing. My Dad has a season ticket at ‘his’ club but only really hears from them when they want him to renew it. He’s become a number; one they’ll only miss when he’s not there.
There is an assumption that fans will be there no matter what, and they are somewhat immune from the churn that other organisations face. Worse still, there is the ‘if they don’t like it, someone else will’ mentality at some clubs. So they don’t try to hard to impress them because they know they’ll still turn up. Even if prices rise, or they treat them quite badly.
Manchester United were accused of this last week when thousands of fans had their accounts restricted. Some loyal followers, who insist they’ve done nothing wrong, are up in arms as the club’s accusatory tone makes it appear they are being treated as touts.
One, a pensioner, had been a season-ticketholder at Old Trafford since 1974. It’s worth pointing out that at times in that era, attendances were far from the sell-out 75,000 they are today.
The club declined to comment. The fan’s son, also a season-ticket holder, was happy to though, saying ‘They don't want fans, they want customers.’
That dreaded word again.
Another One Bites The Dust
The big difference is that fans really love the club. No customer – however much they might like the Iced Brown Sugar Oatmilk Espresso – loves Starbucks in quite the same way. That inbuilt level of commitment and willingness to forgive is almost unique to football. Brands have to do so much, over many years, to create anything like that kind of loyalty.
A football club just has to win a cup. Or promotion. Or even a penalty.
There is something about a football fan that’s more akin to religion in the way they feel about their club . There is a sense that the ground, players and everything else are sacred in some way, and as Mark often reminds me, ‘no-one asks their loved ones if their ashes be scattered in Sainsburys’.
But that level of feeling shouldn’t be mistaken as an excuse for a club to do whatever they want.
If anything, it should be a reason to treat them even better.
