You may think this doesn't have anything to do with real estate (but I am sure all you savvy activerainers know that it does) but I witnessed THE MOST BLATANT example of someone needing customer service training I have ever seen yesterday at a Durham Bulls baseball game. I was there as a guest of a big family outing. A group had invited their membership, their significant others, their spouses and their children to come and enjoy an evening at the ball park. They had a buffet cookout at the Miller Lite tent in left field and our seats were "anywhere in two sections", lower and upper, at the extreme left field end of the park. Many members of the group arrived early. Some chose to get their stadium seats first and then get food, others were more interested in eating than in where they sat. One family of four in particular had settled themselves in four seats in the front row and then gone to get food. As we got closer to game time, the sections that we were told were ours exclusively filled up with members of the group. Sometime around maybe the second inning, a couple showed up with actual tickets for two of that family's four seats.
They were not part of the group--someone had given them their season tickets and, not unreasonably, they wanted to sit in their seats. And likewise not unreasonably, the family that got there early and was told by Durham Bulls Athletic Park officials that they could sit "anywhere in these two sections" was justifyably annoyed that nobody had said "anywhere but these two seats, which have actually been leased for the season to someone else," (oh, it really is about real estate), in time for them to simply sit in the four front row seats that were available at the time they sat down.
A woman, a park official person, was summoned by the couple who wanted their seats and she came and simply told those people, a husband, wife and two kids, who, until moments before happily enjoying a minor league ball game up close and personal (you can reach out and touch the opposing team's pitchers, warming up in what serves as a bull pen from those seats) that they had to move and they could sit anywhere in the (now nearly full) section. I never heard her say anything resembling an apology. She just turned and waved her arm in the direction of the sections and said "you can sit anywhere in these two sections." Bear in mind that by now, there probably weren't 4 seats together in the sections and in order to watch the game, the family was likely going to have to separate. She never said "I am sorry, we screwed up and how can we make it right for you?" She never said to the couple with the tickets, "I am sorry, we screwed up, why don't I find you two better seats?" She simply told the members of our group "you can sit anywhere in these two sections but here."
The father was annoyed enough to say they were going home (likely NEVER to return). They were made to feel as you might if you had poached someone's seats, snuck into them illegally, and the owner of the seats showed up. rather than sat in seats your were told were yours at the beginning of the evening.
I could think of a thousand ways it could have been handled better, but not one way it could have been handled worse!
Time for a little customer service and sensitivity training at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
How's your customer service IQ? I know none of you would ever do something intentionally to make a client or customer feel like they had poached seats in a ball park, but are you paying attention to how the things you do and say make you clients, customers and colleagues feel? Just a demonstration that made me sit up and take notice. Customer service takes constant awareness.
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