One of the things that I hoped had been consigned to the past with the accession of Knighthead to the board room in B9 was the phrase “typical Blues”.
Yet the last couple of days seem to very much belong to the “typical Blues” stereotype.
While it does feel very nit-picky to look at this issue in light of all the great stuff that Knighthead have done, I personally think it’s important to reflect on the situation to understand what is just moaning and what actually needs to be done.
The problems with things being late
Regular readers of this blog will know that from a personal perspective I was not impressed with the length of time it took for season tickets to go on sale.
Some of it was understandable.
We didn’t know until the end of the last game of last season which division the club were going to be playing in this season.
And it’s undeniable that relegation must have affected commercial and marketing plans, potentially causing a strategic rethink before season tickets went on sale.
However, the decision to then drag out the release of season tickets until after the appointment of Chris Davies (which itself was a long process) ensured that nothing went on sale before mid-June.
From a marketing perspective, I have to admit delaying sales has paid off in spades.
Keeping season tickets off sale for so long built up hype and expectation.
It kept people talking about them, ensuring that when season tickets did go on sale, they proceeded to sell like the proverbial hot cakes.
Indeed, we’re at a point that was almost unimaginable two years ago; 18,000 season ticket holders and the first home game of the season a sell-out.
Yet these delays appear to have had a negative effect when it comes to the logistics of actually getting season tickets to fans.
I don’t know when the physical cards were ordered by the club from their suppliers, but something appears to have gone wrong.
As the club confirmed in an announcement on Wednesday evening, the delivery of these cards has been delayed to the point where the club no longer feels that cards can be dispatched by Royal Mail in time for all fans to receive them before the game.
I suspect that the normal workaround for this would be to issue a paper ticket for the first game of the season to all fans who needed a physical ticket.
However I suspect this workaround is not possible bearing in mind the issues that were caused by paper tickets at the Rangers friendly.
The only options seemingly left for the club were to firstly ensure that all season ticket holders with issued with a digital season pass whether they requested one or not; and then secondly to offer those that needed a physical ticket the opportunity to collect it in the days prior to the game.
Yet despite doing their best to overcome these issues, social media and messageboards are awash with fans who aren’t happy.
Are their complaints justified?
The Complaints
In the 13 plus years I’ve been writing blogs about Birmingham City, I’ve had many chances to reflect on how lucky I am.
This situation is no different.
I’ve received my digital season ticket and I’ve had no issues in adding it to my Apple Wallet.
While I am going increasingly grey, I’m young enough to be confident using my phone to scan tickets and have plenty of experience of doing so at other sporting events.
And even though I’ve not had my physical season ticket come through, I’m lucky that I live just a mile away from the ground, and that working from home would have allowed me the chance to go and collect a physical season ticket should I have needed to do so.
While I am lucky with all of these things, many Blues fans out there are not in the same position.
According to the Blues announcement of the 18,000 digital season tickets sent out, 9,000 have currently been downloaded.
This means that half of all season ticket holders have either not been able to download their digital season ticket or have not received it at all.
And while I expect that number to drop massively in the next couple of days, I sincerely believe that there will be a substantial portion of fans who are lacking either the hardware, the software or the confidence to use a digital season ticket.
Not all of those season ticket holders will be able to make their way to the club to collect a physical season ticket.
The club have done what they can to ensure that fans can pick up their physical season tickets.
Collection hours have been extended from 9am to 9pm both today and on Friday – but that won’t help those fans who have a long distance to get to the ground or who are away until Saturday.
Issues have also seemingly been exacerbated by a lack of staff in the ticket office; something that will be tested again by a short turnaround for tickets for three consecutive away games in eleven days.
Whether this is due to staff being on annual leave or there just being a lack of staff in that department, it does feel like something has to improve there – especially if this season is going to be one of bigger crowds at all home games.
Despite all of these problems adding up to a “typical Blues” kind of feeling, I do think there is a learning opportunity here and a chance to improve things for the future.
Solutions
One of the big things I’ve liked since Knighthead have come in is that there seems to be a mentality that problems cannot be allowed to fester.
There is no doubt that a lot of improvements have been made and that communication has become a lot better (if not always spell and grammar-checked).
However, it does feel that ticketing has been something of a learning curve for this new regime.
Some lessons have already been learned; for example we have seen a much more transparent process with regards to away tickets after the issues before the West Bromwich Albion game last season.
Yet despite the departure of one member of staff last season who seemed to be the scapegoat for all ticketing woes, not everything has been fixed.
For example when I bought my own season ticket, I was forced to go to the ground to sort it out as I couldn’t renew my season ticket online due to the fact my email address was apparently not aligned properly with my client reference number.
I found out on arrival I had not two but three different client reference numbers on the system, and it took the helpful girl behind the counter five minutes to sort everything out.
Now while other people might not care about this, I sincerely believe that one of the first things the club needs to do is to properly sort out its CRM (customer relationship management) system to ensure that everyone has one client reference number only, and that all data held about fans is timely and accurate.
Having all that squared away would ensure that all season ticket holder emails sent out would definitely go to the correct email addresses, resolving the complaints of people who have not received their digital season ticket by email in the future.
From a marketing perspective, there also needs to be some additional thought into how sales campaigns are created and executed.
As much as it’s mysterious and hype-inducing to delay releases on things like tickets, I do think it’s imperative that until the club has a phone system where people can get through in fewer than three attempts in less than an hour of waiting, that a surfeit of time needs to be available to deal with all sales and enquiries.
As fans, we too can be part of the solution.
There is no doubt in my mind that Saturday is going to be busy and therefore it’s probably not a good idea if 90% of the crowd turns up ten minutes before kick-off expecting to be in their seat before the ref blows his whistle.
And while I know many fans will balk at the idea, I think if ever there was a time to maybe think about taking advantage of the new fan experience at the ground, Saturday might be it.
Most of all, as fans we need to do everything we can to make sure our entry to the ground is seamless.
I absolutely agree we can’t be responsible for technical issues, but we can do our best to help ensure user error is kept to a minimum.
For those of us with digital season tickets, that means it might be an idea to try not to have a dying phone battery just before we go in.
For those of us accompanying fans who are older or less confident with digital tickets, we should do our best to make sure that they know what they have to do and be there to help ensure that they get in without fuss.
Most of all, we need to exercise patience if there are long queues to get in.
Despite all the moaning you might perceive above, I’m really looking forward to Saturday and I have no doubt in my mind it’s going to be an enjoyable experience.
Let’s not let something as minor as the delayed posting of a season ticket ruin what could be the start of a beautiful season.