Email from City about ticket frustrations

[Tim of the Oak]

Most football fans don't leave 10 minutes early.

You can't use some fans leaving early as an excuse for the abominable customer service standards due to cost cutting by the club.

It’s not an excuse for piss poor customer service. More a reflection of a malaise that shouldn’t be there on and off the pitch. Maybe it’s time for the whole club to rediscover our passion.

At least the introduction of the rail seats has coincided with the return of signing across South Stand Level 1.

 

[RACHACE]

What makes you think that might happen? They take your money irrespective so I can't see why they would care whether you attended or not.

I read somewhere that was the case. Seems City have backtracked so all is good.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

So will Ciry’s latest link up help with customer services?

 

[Invisible Man's Bandage]

It’s not an excuse for piss poor customer service. More a reflection of a malaise that shouldn’t be there on and off the pitch. Maybe it’s time for the whole club to rediscover our passion.

At least the introduction of the rail seats has coincided with the return of signing across South Stand Level 1.

No wonder I can't hear a fucking thing from there in SS3.

 

[Stiff Little Wingers]

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.

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

 

[Tim of the Oak]

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

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.

 

[Eccles Blue]

It’s not an excuse for piss poor customer service. More a reflection of a malaise that shouldn’t be there on and off the pitch. Maybe it’s time for the whole club to rediscover our passion.

At least the introduction of the rail seats has coincided with the return of signing across South Stand Level 1.

Tongue in cheek time again!
It’s always very quiet over there although the hands get plenty of work when they’re signing!

I much prefer the singing!







*runs for the hills as fast as her little old legs will carry her* Sorry couldn’t resist it. :-) :-)

 

[Tim of the Oak]

Tongue in cheek time again!
It’s always very quiet over there although the hands get plenty of work when they’re signing!

I much prefer the singing!







*runs for the hills as fast as her little old legs will carry her* Sorry couldn’t resist it. :-) :-)

That end looks a lot fuller (excluding playing the rags and dippers when it’s packed) since the bottom rows were removed. Maybe it’s just an illusion but the atmosphere has been a lot better without just relying on the Singing Section.

 

[cityzen81]

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

 

[Eccles Blue]

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.