A Tale of Two Seats

Bob's Backstop for August 10, 2004

The French Revolution? Ronald Coleman? Charles Dickens?

Well, maybe.

For a lot of us, it was what it was like to be an Orioles fan over the past ten years. Perhaps it applies to the Orioles front office as well.

This is the story of two seats, and how they have come to be empty after being happily filled for a dozen years, and how only more attention to the customer can refill them.

I began my working career at Kings Dominion theme park near Richmond in the summer of 1975. The park was brand new. There had been years of marketing and anticipation of the arrival of this new amusement facility. We turned away crowds nearly every day that first season, and for several years afterwards (I was by now in a full-time capacity at the park.) It seemed that we could do no wrong, yet the philosophy of customer service was continually drilled into our heads, and in turn into the heads of our mostly young and impressionable employees.

It served us well when the Petroleum Embargo hit in the late seventies. As people sat in line for hours for gas, and late night trips became a nerve-wracking experience as the needle dipped towards "E" as a driver passed one darkened service station after another, the theme park business was hit hard as well. Still, we were an option to replace the long-term family vacation. We set up hot lines for potential visitors to determine locations and availability for gasoline, and did everything we could to make the journey as comfortable and worry-free as possible. We managed to make it through those times, though without the influx of free-flowing cash that was commonplace over those first few seasons.

We emerged from that crisis with two realizations. First, we had found our earlier championing of our customers paid off. When things weren't going so good, we still had a very loyal base of season ticket holders and regular visitors on which we could count. Second, we realized that this effort had to be redoubled. The presence of Busch Gardens down the road in Williamsburg, the uncertainty of gas availability, changing financial climates, the tastes of consumers, and the unpredictability of the weather were all factors in our economic scheme that we could not totally control.

What we could control was the way we treated our guests, and the way we thought of them, as customers not only for a day, but for a lifetime.

Even though individual Orioles employees do this (and I've had some great experiences with Orioles line staff), the overall mentality of the marketing/PR/admissions department falls short of positive marks. The organization touts itself as fan-friendly, but in reality leaves a lot to be desired.

The Atlanta Braves discovered that winning isn't enough, especially after their attendance began to plummet in recent years despite continuing their dominance of the NL East, as well as playing in a new ballpark instead of the creaking albatross of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium (if ever a facility cried out for a corporate name, this one did.) They have hired a marketing company to make the experience a better one for their fans, in hopes of recapturing their old attendance levels.

As a long time service facility manager, my experience is that recapturing what was lost is a long process and an arduous task but it can and must be done. The Braves are to be commended for the attempt. When the Orioles realize that papering the house with discount tickets and Dugout Club members should be supplemented by a new approach to fans, they may find themselves in a much better financial position in the future.

First, let's give the O's some credit where credit is due. The ticket takers and ticket sales personnel are outstanding, nearly every day, every time. The no-scalp zone was a great idea, and continues to be an excellent means of offering the ticket buyers an option. But there's a lot more that they do wrong then right.

(1.) It's been said a million times by a million fans. Put "BALTIMORE" back on the road uniforms.

The Reds, Cardinals, Braves, Cubs, Brewers, and Twins, as well as other teams, are all regional franchises. You don't have to take the name off of the uniform to be a regional franchise. If Washingtonians don't want to support the Orioles because they are the BALTIMORE Orioles, taking the name off of the road uniform won't change anything for those folks. It's true that some teams, including a couple of the aforementioned, do not have the city name on their road uniforms...but they never have. It's different when a team has it on the uniform, and then takes it off, and is careful to never refer to themselves as the "Baltimore" Orioles, but as only "The Orioles." It's shameful, silly, and insulting to the local fans. The team should be proud of their quirky, blue-collar home, and use it to their advantage, instead of pretending that they play in some sort of neutral theme park.

(2.) Answer the mail.

The seats in question here were originally mine, from 1992-2003. I gave up the pair of 29-game tickets for numerous reasons, all of which were not the fault of the ball club. There were issues that had developed with the club that made dropping the seats a lot easier, such as all the garbage games like weekday afternoons that dotted the 29-game plan and the overly heavy doses of the Devil Rays and Royals , as well as the lack of any discount, while ticket buyers for individual games could use their AAA membership, Coke caps, Wendy's coupons, etc, to get in at a lower price.

What I found interesting is the lack of response to any of my three letters or e-mails sent to the organization over the 12 months prior to my dropping the tickets. The last one, written just after I had given up the tickets, was well-written, carefully thought out, and very even in tone, explaining the reasons I no longer felt compelled to spend all that money on tickets. I never got an answer from anyone. Neither has anyone ever called me to try to get me to buy tickets again. This is simply amazing to me. A little less time dreaming up ticket tie-ins with Subway and Wendy's and a little more time spent on the customer base is in order here.

The ticket holder that took over my ticket plan from me has shown a little less patience. He's dropping them after this season, for some of the same reasons. He's registered complaints over a couple of issues, and found that it wasn't so much the answers were maddening, but the lack of care on the part of the person doing the answering. I've taught a course for many years on interpersonal skills, and how to defuse this sort of situation with a series of steps that makes the upset customer feel as if he/she is part of the process, and part of the family, even if the result may not be what they desire. The Orioles are missing out on this, and they need to fix it.

(3.) Improve the Concessions

The Atlanta people are focusing on this, and the Orioles need to pay attention, as well. No one knows better than I how much more difficult it becomes every year to find willing and able service workers. Still, the level of performance of the Aramark/private organization employees manning the concessions are sub-par. As you probably know, a lot of the stands are manned by organizations raising money for their groups, and the majority of the people working at the park do their best to do a good job. But way too many of them need a good kick in the butt, too. Sullen people who look like they would rather be anywhere else are much too commonplace. Whoever is in charge of this area needs to pick up their level of expectation. It's one thing to pay fifteen dollars for a beer, hot dog and french fries, but something else altogether when the person selling it can't even muster a thank you and you reach your seat only to find your fries are cold and stale.

(4.) Market Effectively.

As I mentioned previously, I should be a target for the organization. A long-time season ticket holder with a solid middle-class income and his own web page. :)

I haven't gotten one piece of mail or a phone call from the Orioles since the day I turned over the tickets. What's wrong with that picture?

The front office is all Sturm und Drang. Everyone's whispering about everyone else. Peter Angelos is at war with the Sun. He's at war with Washington, DC. He's at war with the mayor of Baltimore. He's at war with Sidney Ponson. Mazzilli is in danger of being fired. The whole front office is in danger of being fired.

Enough, already. It makes for a more interesting web page, and it does write columns, and fuel talk shows...but, who cares? It's supposed to be all about the baseball experience, not about front-office intrigue. That's for the hard-core folks, not the casual fan. As Ellen Barkin says to Daniel Stern in Diner, "It's too complicated, Shreevie! All I want to do is listen to the music!"

That's really all we want, guys and gals of the Orioles. We just want to listen to the music, and to be listened to. Don't make it so hard for us, and maybe we'll come back in the droves that you need.

By the way, thanks for changing the music mix at the games this year. Now if you could just turn down the volume a bit at times (have any of you ever tried to actually carry on a conversation, say, under the overhang in the lower deck?), we'd really be getting somewhere.