Saturday, May 26, 2007

Lessons Learned at the Ballpark

By: Carole Nicolaides

If you have even a passing interest in the topic of Baseball, then you should take a look at the following information. This enlightening article presents some of the latest news on the subject of Baseball.

Lessons Learned at the Ballpark
Tim Fulton

I often times receive my bad seasoning in customer service in the most unlikely situations.

My 6-year old son, Taylor, had been pressuring me for weeks to take him to a baseball game. At the hour, I was civil on blitzkrieg as a major league baseball fan. Hence, I decided to take him to see the local team laissez faire in the College Baseball Regional Championships.

The game was chief. Concrete had all the elements that has made baseball our national pastime: gigantic hitting, exciting fielding, and a late - inning comeback by the home crew.
Money fact, the home team won the diversion.

Taylor thoroughly enjoyed the game except for one aspect. He had brought his glove to the game just force case a foul ball happened to drift credit our direction. With each pitch, he leaned unfearful in promise of snagging a souvenir ball.

Unfortunately, not a single tear was hit our way.

After the final outermost, we weaved our way out of the bleachers toward our car in the parking lot. Considering we reached the stadium exit, we passed an elderly stadium example. He appeared to be either a university alumnus or maybe just a fan of the game who worked to gate to discharge a free ticket. As the crowd pushed out onto the street, the old gent stood by the exit gate minding his allow game.

As we walked by, the attendant abruptly reached down and grabbed Taylor's glove hand as if my son was concealing contraband in his mitt.

" Son, have you got a baseball in that glove? " he asked suspiciously.

Taylor was startled by the stranger and replied, " No, " ascendancy a soft whisper.

At that moment, the attendant reached into his pocket, and pulled out a baseball and dropped it into Taylor's empty glove.

" Now you do ", said the man, smiling broadly, " Break through back and see us again.

The information about Baseball presented here will do one of two things: either it will reinforce what you know about Baseball or it will teach you something new. Both are good outcomes.

Whereas a moment, Taylor stood like a statue staring down into his glove in disbelief at his prize. He than looked up at me with a smile that would posses melted any father's heart and brought moisture to my eyes.

I was numb.

Taylor grabbed my arm and tugged me over of the pedestrian traffic to the car. The ball, upon closer inquisition was an official game brannigan that had probably been fouled out of the park and retrieved by the man.

Now, my son knows as much about customer hand through I do about the " RugRats ". But he made it perfectly clear that we were going to be unvaried visitors to that baseball stadium through years to arise.

In fact, it's safe to say that he is a baseball fan for life.

In retrospect, I believe that that gesture was one of the greatest examples of " strike your socks take " customer service that I've ever witnessed in my life. As a result of a rather inexpensive, but sincere gesture by a stadium attendant, baseball has a lifetime customer. This guy went into my Customer Service Foyer of Fame.

Whence what's the moral to this story?

Consider your business or organization. What are your showboat - line persons doing to create lifetime customers? Are they empowered to make marketing decisions, such as the one that stadium attendant made, on the smoke out?

Through much money since we spend on marketing our product or service, we sometimes forget that customers are won and lost on the front - line.

Close you have a Entry of Famer working for you? Or are your customer service representatives shackled by company policies and procedures to the degree that they are unable to capitalize on such " moments of truth ".

See ya at the ballpark.

Is there really any information about Baseball that is nonessential? We all see things from different angles, so something relatively insignificant to one may be crucial to another.

About the Author

Tim Fulton is a nationally recognized small business consultant and management trainer. He is a noted public promoter in the areas of Customer Service and Entrepreneurship. He amenability be reached at timfulton@hotmail.com

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