Sports, Rules, and Refs Make Your Customer Service Feedback Different.
The customer is always right …
Not Really –
In rec sports leagues – the customer is right about 53% of the time – The other times …
Well they are going off of incomplete information, group think, or just a general lack of understanding.
Having worked in the rec sports league business for almost 25 full years, we can tell you that its an industry that perfectly fits the idea of “Hanlon’s Razor:”
Never assume malice at which something that can be explained by neglect …
or the way we like to say it in Social Sports League Land:
Don’t assume the worst case scenario when someone just made a normal mistake …
You assume your friend is trying to stand you up, and is a bad friend, and your mind races to the worst possible outcomes, when really your friend is a dufus, forgot to charge their phone, and their car broke down … or even ran out of gas.
Yes, we all have that one friend … and you are like “how is it even possible to run out of gas” … and yet … they run out of gas.
And you still love them anyway …
For sports its a bit different, but the concept still remains –
A ref or ump who is “favoring” the other team, “calling things one-sided” and has a clear “bias” or even wants to see a team lose?
Well 95% of the time the ump is either just bad, or inconsistent, or just doesn’t know the rules = neglect.
Captains and teams think an ump “has it out for them” – but we’ve found the ump seldom even knows who the team is, they are just calling things differently than last weeks ump, so they stand out like a sore thumb and attract attention.
When starting a new league you also might find the idea of a “make up call” is cemented like an obvious part of sports and life that will never leave players heads, yet in reality we have seen maybe 1 or 2 “makeup calls” in 20 years. Sit in the stands at a youth basketball game and you would think that make-up calls happen every 4 minutes.
One extra special famous complaint we kept in the archive has a team swearing that the kickball umpire “had it out for them,” was trying to keep them from scoring, was making up stories different than what everyone else saw, and just basically making up arbitrary and random calls.
Well damn – the customer is always right !! This captain took the time to write a huge email detailing all the issues over the last two weeks – how embarrassing … we need to get rid of this umpire right away !!
Not really …
When you follow up with the umpire you realize that there are at least 2 to 3 sides to every story, just like normal life.
There is a perfectly good explanation for all of the complaints – and so the Captain of the team didn’t like the calls, but the calls were never “bad calls” or even “wrong calls.”
In many cases the captain either didn’t understand the call and the application, or just didn’t like the time or the way the call was applied during the game. Maybe they even fully understood the call, but didn’t like it being called in the 6th inning of a close game.
People might not argue a pass interference call in the first 30 seconds of a game, but we guarantee you they will argue a pass interference in the last 30 seconds of a game.
Sometimes it’s timing, and often times its explanation.
Your umpire made the absolute correct call, they just explained it really poorly, used an awkward phrase, or added too many extra words and confused the heck out of everyone.
Maybe they even fell right into the customer service trap:
They say something like “Well I’m sorry but I have to call this because the rulebook says so …”
Ugh
People new to umping who have come from heavy customer service jobs like restaurants and bars will always say “I’m sorry” instead of just explaining what they saw.
We can always remember the fancy concierge at a nice hotel, or maybe even the host at a fancy restaurant that goes out of their way to clean up a bad situation (the food was wrong, cold, late) or make a memorable experience –
Its the Bear’s brother, Richie aka Cousin, in the hit FX Tv show “the Bear” who runs out to get Chicago Deep Dish pizza for a restaurant guest to create a magical experience and story.
In the case of the refs and umps, they can create magical experiences by hustling and calling a great game, but they are often at the mercy of the people in the game. They cant give you a free dessert because your pitcher just walked 3 in a row to load the bases, and they cant comp your bottle of wine because you showed up short 2 players for a playoff game.
The more a new ref or ump tries to force customer service solutions where they don’t belong, the worse they can make things.
BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY…
The more you as a league owner or director instantly take the side of the customer, because the customer is “always right” the more you risk alienating your referees and creating a situation where there is only one side to every story, and nobody wants to work for your league … because you never “have their back.”
The old joke we often make is that the closer the complaint email or phone call comes to the end of the game, the more CAREFUL you need to be about taking it at face value.
Someone finishes a softball game at 10pm and by 10:15pm there is a long complaint email about the umpire. You wanna take your time with that one …
What are the odds that the person emailing you just lost a close game and instantly raced to their phone to fire off an email?
Sure – Sometimes an umpire really messed up. Sometimes you might have a real big customer service problem on your hands.
But most of the time you are getting a laundry list of judgement calls that your players didn’t like, but might not have been wrong or even incorrect.
No one likes getting a ticket for an expired parking meter. But did the meter attendant do a bad job? Or did they just follow the rules, even though everyone hates the rules and hates the meter person for doing their job?
Nobody likes parking tickets, nobody likes getting audited, and nobody likes losing sports games, even when they say they just wanna have fun and don’t care if they win or lose.
People who say they don’t care if they win or lose definitely care about winning.
Do you know who actually doesn’t care about wins and losses ?
People who never mention wins and loses. They just say … “that was fun” … even after a close loss.
When you are starting a league, or growing a league, there will be many stories where it might sound like a staff member is the worst person to ever walk the face of the earth, but after a little bit of follow up, you find they actually did exactly what you asked them to do …
With enforcing rules, with making calls, and sometimes even when dealing with angry and disruptive players.
They may have given an angry player (or a dad) plenty of chances to not go down a road that led to an ejection or literally asking them to leave the court. They may have followed every procedure exactly the way YOU asked.
And when you get that angry email from the dad …. WHILE THE GAME IS STILL GOING ON … because he is sitting in his car writing it on his phone … because he just got kicked out of the court …
Who’s side are you going to take?
Is the customer always right ?
With complex rulebooks, and judgement calls, there will always be confusion by parents, coaches, players, and people who never even bother to read 2 sentences of your rulebook.
Make sure you understand this so you avoid creating a situation where nobody ever wants to referee or umpire for your league, because you only ever listen to 1 side of the story…. the customers.
Oh and back to our original kickball complaint … the kickball umpire who was so biased and unfair that the captain just had to email in to say how incorrect they were and how terrible of a person the umpire was.
Guess what didn’t make it into the e-mail …
The terrible, biased, no good umpire, hung around and umped an extra 8th inning for the team that was complaining against him, and offered to ump an additional 9th inning, which the teams declined.
Normal kickball games only last 7 innings and end in a tie in the regular season, yet this ump stayed behind and worked extra – for free – in order to give teams a better experience and more playing time.
Sounds like pretty good customer service… that never made it into the complaint email.
Make sure you find the balance of when the customer is making a solid point that you can improve on (the ump showed up late – they had the wrong gear or field setup) versus when a customer is venting in a Hanlon’s Razor style because they didn’t like or understand the calls, even when they are 100% right.
-League Lab