A potential PR disaster

[Upminster Blue]

Quote[/b] (I 8 COLU @ Nov. 18 2006,07:28)]

Quote[/b] (Upminster Blue @ Nov. 18 2006,01:06)]

Quote[/b] (D62SUBOY @ Nov. 17 2006,22:06)]OK, point taken but......I've been to approximately 50% of away games this season but choose not to use the Trust coaches. Mainly because it's far cheaper to go in a car with 3 or 4 others.

Leeds United away £22 + £5 petrol = £27

Also, where does loyalty start?
Supporter since 1984. Season card holder for six years. Attends approximately 50% of away games a season.

As opposed to......

A supporter since the end of our most recent first promotion season. A season card holder since our second and attends 85% of away games a season.

Who is the most loyal and deserving of limited available tickets?

I make The Late One absolutely spot on.

No system will be perfect, but the point is that there are many systems that are far, far better than what we've got.

I've only missed 4 away games (league and cup) in the last 3 years and have been going away regularly for nearly 20 years, in mostly very, very lean years.  I think it's only fair, as a loyal customer, to get some form of preference for my past loyalty.  

What is really ****ing me off is the club's attitude, especially as they should have learnt their lesson from the Man Ure game.  Effectively, what they're saying to me is "take a day off work (which I can't afford to do), queue for 3+ hours and after all that effort there's a good chance that you wont get a ticket because they've gone to all the Johnny come latelys who rarely attend away games and who wont be renewing their season tickets if we get relegated".

This is in no way meant as a pop at our newer fans.  All I'm asking for, as is The Late One, is a bit of fairness and loyalty from the Club.  I don't think that's unreasonable.  After all, I'll be renewing my season ticket for next season, the season after, the season after that and so on irrespective of which league we're in.  I can absolutely guarantee if we're relegated 2,000+ of our newer season ticket holders will not be renewing.

Ok a lot of us loyal supporters in different ways
I myself have supported SOUTHEND UNITED since 1971 and have had an st for the last few years, and have followed them throw thick & thin, just like many others have done home and away up to 1991 when I moved to north Norfolk, since then I have only really been going to every home game, a return trip of 260 odd miles and 5 hrs spent driving each game. Does this make me, and all the other supporters that live away from the team that we still chose to support and show allegiance to, any less a loyal supporter than say those who live local and can afford to go to the away games because they don’t have the expense of travelling to the home games.

Good points. You're effectively saying the same as me, there must be a fairer way to disribute the Spurs tickets with the aim of rewarding longer standing fans.

An alternative to my previous suggestion of giving regular away fans priority would have been to give priority to longer standing season ticket holders. We had about 2,800 season ticket holders last year, which pretty much matches our Spurs allocation (assuming we have been given the minimum priority). Why hasn't the club given these longer standing season ticket holders priority?

Again, would have been far better than the half-arsed system they've come up with.

 

[Upminster Blue]

Quote[/b] (Xàbia Shrimper @ Nov. 18 2006,08:31)]Southend United touts itself as a "business". A business would reward loyal customers with a prize of some kind. It wouldn't fling open its doors and shower gifts on people who come along every other week; whilst those customers are appreciated, they cannot be considered equals to those who come along week-in, week-out, rain or shine, and support the business. The vast majority of businesses have worked this one out very quickly and issued 'loyalty cards' ~ reach a certain level and you'll be eligible for some sort of reward. It's a simple concept and, despite one or two obvious examples of blatant scamming, it works.

No doubt both Ron Martin and Geoffrey King consider themselves as businessmen. They both know how businesses work and, one would assume, they both know that the customer is all-important in making that business work. Martin has, for the most part, been able to work out how the football supporter works for he has become one during his tenure as owner of Southend United. King, on the other hand, still has no concept of what a football supporter is and, more often than not, appears to hold the football supporter in absolute contempt. His job quite simply is to get cash into the coffers and keep the club afloat and, to be honest, there's nothing wrong with that.

But, other the past month, there have been two clear examples that the people running Southend United still have no idea what it is to be a football supporter. Owners will come and go but there will always be a core element of supporters to keep that club alive for, without them, a club is dead. Football clubs shouldn't need to work on loyalty schemes; you pick your club and you stick with them through thick-and-thin, there should be no switching allegiences when the going gets tough. However occasionally there are times when there is no option but to work with a loyalty scheme and these games against Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur very clearly demonstrate that to everyone but the owners of the club.

I've followed the Shrimpers since the mid 70s but, for obvious reasons, my attendance has been somewhat erratic over the last three years. (The recent run of success is down to me; when I left in December 2003 we were sh!te; now look at us.) But I already know at least two STHs who are not intending to go to White Hart Lane who, if they were lucky enough to procure a ticket, give it to me if I should so wish to travel over the England during that week and attend the game. That's not right. Why should I get any preference over a core element who have followed Southend home and away through some very difficult times this season? No way. But that's how it starting to look: ticket distribution in a way that doesn't reflect loyalty during this hard season.

The scenario now is that those fans who are loyal (anyone who has attended over 20 games this season is far more loyal than me!) will be trying to find a way to watch the game ~ a historic game for Southend United ~ and will probably be trying to infiltrate the home sections; so much for segregation. Those fans DESERVE a ticket, not season ticket holders. And, much as I think a club shouldn't need a loyalty scheme, these past few weeks have demonstrated that maybe they do.

Hopefully the club will learn from this ... but I strongly suspect that they won't. People like Scriv and Steve might suggest ways to improve the reward of loyal fans but businessmen like Geoffrey King are pig-headed when it comes to making money. They don't care so long as the tills are ringing ...

Spot on.

The lack of customer service and valuing loyal fans astounds me.

 

[Upminster Blue]

Quote[/b] (Hooly @ Nov. 18 2006,09:45)]

Quote[/b] (The Late One @ Nov. 17 2006,21:32)]They could have easily used Col Ewe as a starting point. It is worth pointing out however that it was the Trust that came up with the arrangements for the Col Ewe ticketing (i.e. stubs from Burnley or Leeds).

Very commendable in it's way.  But would the club not have the right to say back to us "where are all these true fans that this scheme was set up to help?"  They could justifiably point out that they didn't actually bother to turn out for Cull Ewe as some of the tickets ended up going on general sale.  

FFS we only got 970 odd places there and the vouchered STH's or non seaso travellers, who you're all claiming should get priority, didn't take up the allocation in full.  Doesn't that give the club licence to sort of drive a hole in this loyalty type argument?  

Equally, a valid argument is that if you can't be bothered to go to Col U, for what is a far more important game, you don't deserve top priority for the Spurs game.

It doesn't take much effort for the club to keep track of how long you've been a season ticket holder, how often you purchase away tickets etc etc and to give priority accordingly. In fact, any half decent business would keep this sort of information as a matter of course for marketing purposes.

 

[McScriven]

SEE HERE