Communication

[Side Show Joe]

I'm not writing this to knock on our athletic department, just wondering how you feel about exploring new technologies in the area of fan/customer communication.

The wife and I took her father to see Creighton play the Sooners in Norman today. He is a life long OU fan and had never been to a game. It was my first time at Lloyd Noble. For those wondering, yes, I proudly wore my Mean Green gear to this game, and yes I got many odd looks for it. I bought the tickets about two weeks ago, and have received at least 20 emails regarding games and events at OU. Sadly, I know more about what is happening within their athletic department then I do about ours. Don't get me wrong, Within the past two weeks I have received emails from the Mean Green, just not as many and not as informative.

The topping on the cake was when I checked my email tonight, I had received a "Thank You for Attending Today's Game" email. I can't remember ever getting one of those from our athletic department, and like many of you, I'm and season ticket holding member of the Mean Green Club. The "Thank You" email from OU contained pricing information for the seats we had today, for upcoming games against Iowa State and others. The email was sent out within minutes of our tickets being scanned at the arena. I tip my hat to OU for doing an amazing job with communication and marketing.

I'd love for us to have this software too. I don't believe we have something like that right now. Again, I'm not knocking our department, I just want us to have the best possible chance to increase attendance (aside for our on the field and court performance). I think more in depth emails and adding a similar "ticket scanned" automated email system would help for both football and basketball.

 

Observations

- Lloyd Noble is a nice venue, but it isn't substantially better then the Super Pitt. It has better lighting and a very nice double decker 12 screen jumbotron with digital ribbon, but both are similar in size. OU does a great job of making sure that wherever you look in the arena, you see the logo, name, and slogans of their teams. I'd like it if we did that in our facilities.

Edited December 20, 2015 by Side Show Joe

[JesseMartin]

It's funny, in the summer of 1999 the SGA exec board and a couple of others took a trip to Austin to meet with UT's student government and get some tips since they're always on top of lobbying and get a lot of respect and somewhat equal footing with a good portion of the administrators on their campus.  While some people saw the wisdom in it, others asked why we were "kissing the collective ass of UT" and if it was intended as a way to get in tight with people to transfer or pursue higher degrees there later.  The fact is, if someone already does something as well as you want to do it, there's no shame in humbly asking them for information/background/ideas.  Anyone who feels otherwise has likely fallen victim to their own hubris and deserves the failure so often aptly associated with it.  I see this as a parallel situation (read as: opportunity).

[Rudy]

I paid to watch FIU's feed of an NT game years ago. I STILL get FIU emails.

[97and03]

I paid to watch FIU's feed of an NT game years ago. I STILL get FIU emails.

I went to the game and still get their emails. I had to buy tickets from their ticket office and I regularly get offers.

[NM Green]

I did the same thing that Rudy did and get nearly as many FIU emails as I do North Texas.  

Bringing up ideas is not about slamming on the Athletic Department.  It is a new day in Mean Green land and I am excited about the future.  But these types of communications of ideas is what is severely lacking and always has been.  I get UNLV emails weekly letting me know what is happening with the Rebels in whatever sports are on deck for that week. The other thing I absolutely love is their "Meet your Rebel" email.  I get a pic of a profiled UNLV Rebel highlighting his or her past accomplishments or introducing me to them if they are a new team member.  BBALL is their bread and butter in Vegas so I get a solid 12 weeks of education leading me into the season.  I haven't been a Rebel season ticket holder in over 3 years but got an email as recently as this past week, connecting me to the UNLV community.

Many ideas come out on this board.  We all have our inspector hats on when visiting another sports venue.  That is why this A Department needs to figure out how to allow ideas to flourish in a safe manner without being shot down.  Some are not doable in their perfect form but perhaps an adjustment of some sort.  Our Athletic Department used to feel more inclusive in the past so it can be done but it starts with a reach out and request to know "how are we doing."  Look at Tripadvisor and Yelp.  My hotel clients watch that like hawks and know what they hit and miss within seconds of the effort.  I used to employee a staff member at my hotel whose job was solely to manage the Facebook page and other communications.  She became the virtual face of the organization responding to every single comment positive or negative and this was 6 years ago when social media was stirring but not driving company responses like I see it having an impact today.

Finally being a Five Star experience can happen in Denton.  The philosophy of the best of the best in the world I am privileged to work with build extremely guest-centric experiences.  They don't want the guest to have to lift a finger or do any work during their visit.  They pride themselves on having proactively thought of all of your needs in advance and do the unexpected.  That phone call after the OU game is unexpected.  You had never experienced that before and now you feel appreciated for your visit, time and money included.  That didn't cost much either.  

The Houston Astros do this remarkably well.  I  bought tickets to go down to a game a few years back and was followed up with a call asking about my experience at Minute Maid park.  This wasn't an automated call but a gentleman who acted like my personal concierge.  He asked if I wanted to buy season tickets and after learning I was a Ranger fan made notes and asked permission to call me the next season regarding the future matchups.  Somewhere in there he learned that though I was solo on that first trip I wanted to take some friends with me next time.  The next year he called and told me about the scheduled matchups that season and offered his assistance for when me and my buddies come down.  Fantastic.  This dude made me king for the call, stirred my interest to round up the crew and was ready to set me up for a fun weekend down in H Town.  Based on my background when I get WOWED that means you have hit a new high.  

Oh and they never take a play off.  That flag story at the top of the stadium was much deeper than not flying the flags on the last home game of the season.  It revealed a gap of opportunity to me that exists in our current state and I never want any employee at the University I treasure to play the victim card of "You don't know how hard it is here."  That is yet another thing I don't see at Five Star experiences around the globe.  The best just figure out a way to make "something" happen.  

Merry Christmas everyone.  It is going to be an amazing year head.

GMG  

[Dr. Seuss]

It's hard not to knock the athletic department when all of these ideas are the norm.  We're still using an abacus.

[drex]

With all the controversy swirling around Villarreal, the one glaring weakness of his athletic administration is customer service.  Customer service can really cure some of the ills of poor attendance.  There are many horror stories about dealing with the athletic department...I've heard many of them from various people.

[oldguystudent]

I still get email updates from Baylor and TCU after attending baseball games at each several years ago.

[Mean Green Matt]

The athletic department needs to be open to outside ideas especially from successful programs but also from fans. I didn't  spend the time to go back and find the threads but I seem to remember several stories of fans either offering to fund and work on a promotion and being shut down or fans doing promoting of their own (not pretending to be associated with the athletic department or anything like that) and being scolded for it after the fact. Those kinds of things are unfortunate IMO given our current situation. 

[ColoradoEagle]

This athletic department is lazy. That won't change until RV retires.

[FirefightnRick]

It's sad that so many..possibly our majority have to have an experience like Joe to wake up to what the rest of us have been trying to point out all along.

 

BTW...it's been several days and one of our newly signed recruits name is still misspelled on MGS.

http://m.meangreensports.com/m/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/121715aaa.html

 

Rick

 

 

Edited December 21, 2015 by FirefightnRick

[UNT90]

This thread is a moot point.

Same AD will mean the same ticket office failure and terrible marketing, the later won't change until the former changes.

And someone mention Hubris preventing learning. Listen to the recent podcast with RV or the Littrell introductory presser. All you find is hubris. 

[JesseMartin]

It's a causal quandary, really, because the fact may very well be that due to our dismal history in that area, our (collectively speaking, but not all-encompassing) praise of his accomplishments may have created this pride that may not have been there previously.

Edited December 21, 2015 by JesseMartin

[UNT90]

It's a causal quandary, really, because the fact may very well be that due to our dismal history in that area, our (collectively speaking, but not all-encompassing) praise of his accomplishments may have created this pride that may not have been there previously.

He points to buildings because he can't point to winning. If he could point to winning, we would have MANY more buildings. 

This isn't hard, people.

[Christopher Walker]

Hear, hear.

[meanJewGreen]

I'd hate to jump on the "bash the AD here", but I'd love to hear some experiences from you guys as to poor customer service from the department. Has it happened for you in other university departments as well? 

[Aldo]

I'd hate to jump on the "bash the AD here", but I'd love to hear some experiences from you guys as to poor customer service from the department. Has it happened for you in other university departments as well? 

Whenever I have to remind someone to also send me my parking passes they've been cordial. Coleman was always energetic whenever I called them to renew my season tickets.

But the only other interaction I ever have is the newsletter.

The newsletter is always nice to me. Doesn't give me viruses or anything.

[UNT90]

Whenever I have to remind someone to also send me my parking passes they've been cordial. 

 

...

[oldguystudent]

I'd hate to jump on the "bash the AD here", but I'd love to hear some experiences from you guys as to poor customer service from the department. Has it happened for you in other university departments as well? 

Just now I got an email soliciting season ticket renewal for the 2016 season.  Thing is, it doesn't make renewal of MY seats available.  It's selling me seats in the lower bowl.  Not worried about it or anything, but it does seem odd that the system wouldn't recognize that I've got static seats every year.

[Aldo]

...

[aztecskin]

While I hesitate to compare UNT athletics experience to a professional sports team, especially an MLB one, I have to say that my experience with the Scorpions (NASL) in SA has been much better after attending a game than with our athletic department. 

I can add my anecdotal experiences to the list after going to away games (Rice, UTSA, Texas, Tennessee, SMU -- recent examples) and other schools' games (TAMU-CC, Texas State). 

---

There obviously is a lot this department could do better. It seems the only thing they are great at is telling us to 'manage up'. Meh. I will say the PR stuff around the Littrell hire was surprisingly competent. So there's that. 

[Quoner]

It was nice to get season tickets sent for basketball the season after I decided not to renew mine. Is that a plus or minus?

[UNT90]

It was nice to get season tickets sent for basketball the season after I decided not to renew mine. Is that a plus or minus?

Same thing happened to me. 15 minutes of calling the ticket office and my credit card company later (because I don't trust people who sent me tickets by mistake when they tell me my credit card wasn't charged), I was satisfied that I didn't get charged for something I didn't want. 

15 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

[FirefightnRick]

 

 

BTW...it's been several days and one of our newly signed recruits name is still misspelled on MGS.

http://m.meangreensports.com/m/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/121715aaa.html

 

Rick

 

 

Wheeler's name got corrected today.

 

 

Rick

[UNTFan23]

Email blasts are perhaps the easiest and least expensive thing any organization can do.  You create one and then form mail it to everyone and "Pow!" you have a "personalizes" marketing message sent to a couple thousand with maybe one of two people spending an hour or so with little to no real costs involved.  If you want to up the game even just a little with perhaps the same level of engagement, send a post card out to everyone through the mail. I got one in the mail the other day for the Mean Green Club Appreciation on January 14th.

The reason FIU and others send you emails is because you voluntarily opted in to receive additional notifications and have never opted out.