Email from City about ticket frustrations

[Stiff Little Wingers]

True mate.

There are things that can be done improve things now, e.g. more effective CRM and more customer service staff, but there needs to be an overhaul of organisational and business development for lasting improvements.

For example, there needs to be honesty about the current state of play before embarking on anymore significant changes. When options for development are being assessed there needs to be clarity on what the plan is and a thorough understanding of the pros and cons of different options for getting there. For example, the changes to the ticketing arrangements were partly designed to negate the offerings of independent face value ticket sites. In doing so they added a couple of thousand Blues each week who need help with sorting their tickets. These are often Blues who before hand might not have even had Supporters Numbers. Was this complexity and added demand considered when developing the ticket site, planning staff training and workforce capacity. I doubt it:

Then there has to be thorough testing and review as implantation is trialled and rolled out. We’ve seen the consequences of failing to do this properly.

Yes, fully agree

 

[Tim of the Oak]

Whilst not wanting to appear an apologist for the club I can't help thinking that, although City didn't make any redundancies as far as I'm aware, some of the folk who were furloughed might have left to find other jobs because they couldn't afford to live on furloughed wages. Or some of the staff might have been moved over to other departments.
Therefore the roles that they usually fulfilled, the supporter service, ticket office etc. was, as we all know very depleted. This means that they need(ed) to recruit staff quickly and get them fully trained in the ways of our unique club. We have to give them time to 'bed in' so to speak and get up to speed.

I know that I've been lucky, very lucky, in that my transition has been relatively easy and I have only had to phone the club twice, pressing the 1s and 2s diligently, and neither time was I on very long. Five minutes first time and 9 minutes the second time. Plus I was lucky enough to apparently speak to staff who knew what they were talking about. I did take a trip to the 'drop in' session and again was lucky in that I only really needed to check the correct way to access the reader so was in and out quickly, even getting the same tram back to Eccles after it had completed its journey to Ashton and then returned.
So you can shout me down, call me privileged/lucky whatever and I will accept it but I am trying to take a pragmatic view. :-)

It's been a shambles but I think that there is light at the end of a very long tunnel. COME ON CITY, tomorrow we start our journey through Europe let's show 'em, show 'em all.

As the afternoon went on all the people I am aware of with ticketing problems in our SC Branch were sorted. This was mainly delayed tickets to phones using Android / Google Pay and Blues switching to Google chrome as their default browser. I’m lucky, on this occasion, to be an iPhone user.

That said, I’ve seen loads of Blues still trying to sort ticketing problems on a Face Value ticket site and waits of 2 to 3 hours on the phone have not been uncommon. I agree that there is a good chance that furloughed staff may have moved on to other organisations who might have offered better wages / conditions.

If all the people with tickets for the 3 home games over the next week get into the ground, hopefully the Club will have a little bit space to start making more improvements.

 

[Gundog’s Gundog]

True mate.

There are things that can be done improve things now, e.g. more effective CRM and more customer service staff, but there needs to be an overhaul of organisational and business development for lasting improvements.

For example, there needs to be honesty about the current state of play before embarking on anymore significant changes. When options for development are being assessed there needs to be clarity on what the plan is and a thorough understanding of the pros and cons of different options for getting there. For example, the changes to the ticketing arrangements were partly designed to negate the offerings of independent face value ticket sites. In doing so they added a couple of thousand Blues each week who need help with sorting their tickets. These are often Blues who before hand might not have even had Supporters Numbers. Was this complexity and added demand considered when developing the ticket site, planning staff training and workforce capacity. I doubt it:

Then there has to be thorough testing and review as implantation is trialled and rolled out. We’ve seen the consequences of failing to do this properly.

Let’s get a petition going for you to become the head honcho of supporter services.

 

[Johnny Mars Bar]

This is all lip service and nothing will change.

They were aware of and acknowledged (at least to CM) the issues before the season even started and things have gotten worse not better.

What happened to the promise of relaying important changes via CM for feedback before implementing? Went straight out the window at the first opportunity with decision to make Cup tickets non transferable.

The only thing that’s gonna happen is they will outsource some more call centre staff to be glorified message takers who will have to pass most things on or will give out the wrong info, but the club won’t care as the wait times will have reduced

Completely agree.

 

[The_Maverick]

Meaningless, if you don't employ staff who are familiar with the workings of City and football in general.

Call centre staff are ten a penny and unless we have people who are competent and can be trusted to action stuff correctly, we might as well be hiring people from Maccy D's.

Well for someone with 12k posts that was not only incredibly stupid but also insulting.

Call centre staff are not "ten a penny"

The process of advertising, interviewing, training people takes time. Yet by your logic we should be able to recruit people that have an affinity to our club and drop them straight into the call centre. Where do you find these people?

I work for a major Tire (SIC) company that covers 3 time zones. My training was 3 weeks long. Yup, 120 hours training to work in a call centre before Ive even spoken to a customer.

Oh and if you think we should hire staff from McD's clearly you haven't seen the clip online regarding the Regent Road store and the bird......

 

[jrb]

1. Additional and fully trained ticket office and customer service staff based at the Etihad Campus. A purpose built, state of the art call centre on the Etihad Campus. End the out sourced calls to a call centre in......
2. An email department.
3. A live chat department.
4. The ticket office open every day from 9am-6pm Monday to Saturday, 10am-4pm on Sunday, with a minimum of windows open constantly.
5. A dedicated department to deal with supporter complaints and grievances.
6. 2 separate websites. 1 for everyday City news and features. The other for match tickets.
7. A total revamp of the separate ticket website to make it easier and clearer to buy tickets for individual fans, groups of fans(mates), families(bundles), etc.
8. Monthly updates on the OS via City Matters onp erformance targets(met), on-going issues, positive changes, etc.
9. Monthly meetings with groups of fans for a minimum of 12 months to discuss and get feedback on the ticket office and customer service improvements or on-going failures.
10. The end result. The fans will be happier. The club will sell more tickets and get more matchday revenue.

 

[manchester blue]

Spot on. We have this a lot at my work. Talk is cheap, let's see what the results are. I'd like to see some sort of service level agreement whereby we commit to meeting waiting time targets - for example if you are number 1 in the queue your wait is no longer than 10 mins.
Can done with good training and motivated staff and proper management

There’s no customer service jobs being advertised. I call bullshit though it could all be outsourced in which case it’s not about customer service but passing the buck.

 

[fathellensbellend]

The whole fiasco has alienated thousands of fans for no good reason from what I can see, the benefits appear less than non existent, the hassle immense, and replaced a system that was convenient and flawless, and most importantly liked by the fans.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

Well for someone with 12k posts that was not only incredibly stupid but also insulting.

Call centre staff are not "ten a penny"

The process of advertising, interviewing, training people takes time. Yet by your logic we should be able to recruit people that have an affinity to our club and drop them straight into the call centre. Where do you find these people?

I work for a major Tire (SIC) company that covers 3 time zones. My training was 3 weeks long. Yup, 120 hours training to work in a call centre before Ive even spoken to a customer.

Oh and if you think we should hire staff from McD's clearly you haven't seen the clip online regarding the Regent Road store and the bird......

Simply with regards the training involved, that takes time and City and the fans need immediate results.

It was no slight, call centre jobs have never been no prevalent, that was the intended reference.

As was the analogy that such is the ineptitude of rccent weeks, we might as well have had people serving us burgers rather than answering ticketing issues.

No offence intended.

 

[Eric Hitchmough]

1. Additional and fully trained ticket office and customer service staff based at the Etihad Campus. A purpose built, state of the art call centre on the Etihad Campus. End the out sourced calls to a call centre in......
2. An email department.
3. A live chat department.
4. The ticket office open every day from 9am-6pm Monday to Friday, 10am-4pm on Sunday, with a minimum of windows open constantly.
5. A dedicated department to deal with supporter complaints and grievances.
6. 2 separate websites. 1 for everyday City news and features. The other for match tickets.
7. A total revamp of the separate ticket website to make it easier and clearer to buy tickets for individual fans, groups of fans(mates), families(bundles), etc.
8. Monthly updates on the OS via City Matters on
performance targets(met), on-going issues, positive changes, etc.
9. Monthly meetings with groups of fans for a minimum of 12 months to discuss and get feedback on the ticket office and customer service improvements or on-going failures.
10. The end result. The fans will be happier. The club will sell more tickets and get more matchday revenue.

Fantastic post.