For those new to us ...

21st July 2010

Author and serial ‘undercover customer’ Mark Bradley has developed a reputation for using real customer experiences as a catalyst for change in conventional customer-facing industries like tourism and retail. But it was an invitation from the Football League to look into the family match day experience that has led him to a more vocational path: getting more people to live football. Mark explains to Steve Hurst how the Football League has led the way in using the fan experience to deliver some impressive results.

Saturday 30th September 2006 is a date writ large upon my family’s world. Swindon Town drew 1-1 with Boston United. In the four years since that game Swindon have consolidated a mid-table place in League One, tied up an innovative sponsorship deal with FourFourTwo Magazine and generally upped their game on and off the pitch. Boston, on the other hand, quickly sank to their present position in the Unibond League. Painful perhaps, but Durham City, whom they beat 10-0 last weekend, probably have the last word on football misery.

But this match was significant as it was the first game we undertook as part of an exercise to get a ‘customer view’ of the family experience at ‘live’ football. Our aim was that this ‘snapshot’ – detailed feedback from a real family – could become a catalyst for improvement. 

My rationale was as follows. In my experience organisations see the customer experience from the internal perspective - seeing things in terms of processes, products and the people who deliver them. However, when customers are asked for their opinions (still rare, in my experience) they talk in terms of experiences, benefits and outcomes. This disconnect often explains the low profile that customer service has in many industries – but it also helps explain why the most genuinely powerful aspects of research are often sidetracked in the pursuit of statistical relevance and mathematical accuracy. 

I’ve also learned that organisations who genuinely embrace consultation not only generate valuable feedback but in industries where customers may have been taken for granted in the past (like football for example) the simple act of asking for a customer opinion will also generate warmth for the club concerned. Fans’ default attitude is often ‘they don’t care, they don’t listen’, so any diversion from this expectation can be powerful.

Secondly, when a Club complements existing research with detailed snapshots of the real customer experience (i.e. seeing things through their customers’ eyes and walking in their footsteps) the revelation can act as a catalyst for wider change. I guess that the emotive nature of such snapshots may make them difficult to rationalise, but their power in creating focus across the Football League in recent years is undeniable.

We hear that ‘football is different’, but it’s also fair to point out that it had to overcome some particular barriers. Some parents’ perceptions were still tainted by 80s violence and the odd, more recent flare-ups. The mistaken perception that football grounds, for some of the more high profile fixtures, are always full had put other Mums and Dads off even trying for a ticket. Finally – and not insignificantly - there is a continuing belief among many people that football may be unjustifiably expensive.

Add to that the fact that the average age of the fan was increasing, from late teens in the 60s to 40+ as we entered the new millennium and the need to re-focus on creating ‘fans of the future’ had become urgent. So our family odyssey became an important first step.

Our travels took us to 30 matches over a 6-month period (at the end of which, my wife had begun to contemplate communicating with me through her solicitors). ‘What are we doing this weekend?’ she’d ask innocently. ‘It’s Lincoln v Hartlepool on Friday night, Forest versus Doncaster on Saturday lunchtime and Grimsby against Hereford on Sunday afternoon’ was the underwhelming reply. Soon, however, she stopped asking and threw herself whole-heartedly into a new regime of Chicken Balti Pies and 50 / 50 raffle tickets.

Having gathered together a large national network of ‘mystery families’ to sample the atmosphere at their local Club, we helped the Football League launch their Family Excellence Awards in the summer of 2007 and have watched Clubs embrace the family experience ever since. 

The visiting families experience every last step of the match day experience – from making first contact and enquiring about tickets and getting to the stadium to enjoying a visit to the Club Shop and sampling the refreshments to the match itself. Their feedback has highlighted some common challenges. How do we price in a way that attracts families to their first game and makes a regular visit compelling? How do we make travelling to away games family-friendly? How do you stewards best combine their safety imperative with activities that reflect their role as the face of the Club on a match day? How do you deal with the short attention spans of younger kids while avoiding patronising the older ones? How do you create an inclusive, safe, friendly and yet passionate atmosphere when a minority of fans still believe that ‘I’ve paid my money. I can say what I like’?

These are not easy challenges, but three consecutive years of ‘family’ competition amongst the Clubs has led to some real and remarkable change. There are now several ‘away family areas’ where host clubs liaise with the visiting club to ensure travelling families enjoy a great experience. This year Nottingham Forest have successfully tried out a new unsegregated family area, where home and away families sit together examples of innovation, while Wycombe Wanderers’ stewarding team’s fame has led them to be engaged by other event management companies in Buckinghamshire. Leicester City routinely collect feedback direct from fans on a match day, while Cardiff City are introducing a range of innovative schemes including the piping of away team TV footage to the visiting sections of the ground – much appreciated by travelling Newcastle fans earlier this season who were able to watch highlights of their own team while enjoying a pre-match drink. More widely, the Football League’s Enjoy The Match initiative, which aims to create a coalition of support for ridding family areas of hateful and abusive language, has facilitated the introduction of more family-specific services and facilities.

Southend and Huddersfield Town have innovated on the match day programme front, both successfully re-interpreting the ‘magazine’ concept while MK Dons’ cushioned seats and outstanding disabled fan experience have put their stadium on the ‘must visit’ list.

Pre-match and half time entertainment is starting to diverge from the stock-in-trade ‘kick a ball into a receptacle’ spectacle to something a little more imaginative. Mascot races, cheerleaders, crossbar challenges, kids’ football matches and a ‘battle of the Indie bands’ competition outside one stadium are all encouraging people to get to the ground early and enjoy refreshments ahead of the game, especially if the half time action is going to be more persuasive than a trip to the coffee stand. 

For me, one of the most interesting areas is the refreshments experience itself. The sense we get at some grounds is that the ‘once a fortnight’ sales opportunity is dismissed at not meriting an overhaul. Fans complain of high prices, poor quality fare, long queues and indifferent staff. However, when Clubs like Norwich, Coventry and Middlesbrough introduce new products, improve queue management and provide swift, friendly service, fans soon forget about the prices – and everyone benefits. Some of our most memorable experiences are food-related: Boor’s ‘Parmo in a Bun’ and Delia’s Pies shouldn’t be missed!

Clubs are now taking the learning from the family experience and applying it to other groups of fans. They’re learning, perhaps surprisingly, that fans’ needs don’t generally differ, regardless of their relationship with the Club. Long term fans simply want to have their love for their club reciprocated – they’d like to feel more engaged and to play more of a role in the Club, when often they only hear from their beloved Club once a year – and then only to ask them to pay for their season ticket again.

Fans with disabilities generally accept that the facilities at some older stadia may provide an initial obstacle, but nothing compels them to come back more than an enthusiastic and empowered member of staff who’s seen things through disabled fans eyes, who knows that the majority of disabilities are ‘hidden’ and is confident enough to take charge of the situation and offer help.

This increasingly evident confidence springs from a renewed commitment to consultation. More Clubs are asking fans for feedback. They’re creating representative online panels of supporters and asking them to set the improvement agenda. They then enjoy the benefit of face-to-face supporter meetings where the agenda is already set, the discussion focused on specific improvements and the ‘voice that shots loudest’ no loner monopolising the agenda.

Something like half of the 72 Clubs in the Football League currently hold the Family Excellence Award – which has, with the expressed support of the Clubs, evolved quickly into a benchmark for excellence, rather than a ‘minimum standard’ – so it’s not a time to rest on laurels. However, the number of families attending Football League fixtures has increased by 12% over the past three years – that’s nearly 2 million more fans. And when the vast majority of Club income in the Football League comes from ticket revenue, that’s a healthy boost to Club finances.

My (still) weekly visits (which have now extended to the SPL and the League of Ireland) confirm that there’s still a lot of work to do, but we know that Football is learning all the time – and our little odyssey has hopefully helped them learn that that pricing might be sufficient to get an inquisitive family along to their first game, but it’s the overall experience that determines whether or not they’ll come back.