What I Learned about Marketing and Customer Service after Spending 17 Straight Days on the Road

I don’t know how it happened.  But it did.

Have you figured out why
your center may be under performing

Between my assistant and me, we put together a schedule that had me flying all over the country to visit clients, attend BPA’s Bowl Summit and visit my wife’s cousins. 

But here is what I learned:

Airlines just don’t care. They simply don’t. In fact I am sure in their job searches they advertise, “If you really dislike people and are totally incompetent and can’t make logical decisions, then we have a career move for you.”  Since when does a “we apologize for the inconvenience announcement rate a gold star in customer service?

They cancelled my flight twice, because the deicers were frozen. Really? The DEICERS were frozen?  The DEICERS???

C'mon Man!!

I got stuck in a middle seat between two hip hop artists who though that the volume on their headsets should exceed the noise level of an Air Bus 320. In fact on this fabulous cross country red eye flight, I was treated to several diet cokes and my choice of salt or fat loaded high carbohydrate snacks at outrageous prices. 

The gate to my plane closed as I was running up to it screaming from about 50 feet away, “Please hold the door” as it was shut in my face and guess what I got. That’s right, “Sorry for the inconvenience.” 

Flight delays due to weather I understand, but after being delayed two hours and finally landing at an airport to be told, there is no gate, so we’ll sit here for 45 minutes. Time passes and then when we get up to leave, we find that the jet bridge is stuck.  I hope you don’t run your bowling center like the airlines.

Car rentals and hotel rooms were not much better. Since when is a mid size sedan a Chevy Spark?  Ina ddition to me, my rollerboard, briefcase and my nose barely fit in there; (I do, however; kind of undersatnd about the nose. :)

And why does my gold status in your hotel rate a handicap room next to the elevator? And oh yes, why does your FULL service restaurant close at 9pm with the nearest eating establishment being a McDonald one half mile away that also closes at 930pm?

More importantly when I visit bowling centers and a few FEC’s why are you all complaining that the programs didn’t get done because your “help couldn’t get to it.  Didn’t you write it down? Didn’t you check off the “to do list” and timeline I sent you? Didn’t you hold meetings to see what the progress was on these important projects? 

You mean you really couldn’t get together an MLK lockin program when I gave you the letter, telephone script, flier and press release as well as all the contacts to all the kid’s organizations, schools and clubs in your town last month?

And you didn’t get the email campaign content and Facebook campaign copy we did and just follow the schedule?  Copy, paste, click.

Fortunately, this was only a few instances, but still…why not?

Perhaps, it is just easier to count money, do the receipts, go to the bank and fill vending machines, (the easy tasks that don't challenge you, but it sure takes up time), rather than do the hard work of bringing in new customers and retaining others. That's your choice. But its not a very good one and I say that kindly of course.

It's four basic steps. Plan. Delegate. Monitor. Modify. Repeat.  

Look at the debacle in Atlanta, caused by two inches of snow, if you really want to see what happens when you don't plan, delegate, monitor and modify?  You get a "Holy S^*T."

Some centers claim they don’t have a marketing person on staff, but then again when that person comes on board, she is, all of a sudden a pizza maker, hamburger flipper and desk person more than a marketing person.

Why?

So here’s what I am suggesting:

1.     Find someone you respect in your town who can hold you accountable for hitting deadlines, doing the tasks you agreed to and measuring the results. I’ll do it, but I won’t be gentle about it because I care, passionately, about your business and don’t want to see you fail. Ever!

2.     Train your employees better than you trained your new puppy. In many instances, I’ll bet your dog is better trained and listens to your commands better than your employees.  Do your employees really know how to approach a customer? To do lane to lane solicitation? To implement a “90 second sign up” process. To collect data on a busy Saturday night without begging or pleading?  To instantly identify a prospect's demographic profile and match the prospect to the program. That's how they were designed, right?

3.     Are you constantly providing your employees with feedback and coaching tips to get them to be better at their jobs.  Professional and collegiate football teams practice, practice and practice again.  After you hire someone, do you retrain, reinvigorate and re-energize him every few weeks?  Do you formally review that person’s performance after three months, six months?  See, if you don’t care, why should they?  And do they know how to deliver great customer service?

4.     And finally, is marketing and selling the number one priority for everyone inside your building. Have you established a culture of “business growth” or just mere survival?

5.     Promise me you’ll put this sign up over the time clock in your office and wherever else your employees congregate:

“I Will Do Today What Other Cannot Do So Tomorrow I Can Do What Others Can’t”

And that’s my rant for the month.  

Call me if you need me to fire you up. No fees. No bills. Just because I care…alot

Off the Wall Summer Ideas. Well Someone Has To Do IT!

We’re always dealing with something. Some days it seems like we are swatting away problems every 15 minutes. The bartender called to tell us he is sick and won’t be in; well at least he called. Lane 13 and 14 are giving us heartburn, a scorer part is out and it looks like snow is going to wipe out tonight’s biggest league of the week.

On top of all the day to day ins and outs, you have to gear up for fall leagues, mid winter leagues, summer leagues, tournaments and now you have to maintain your website, create social media communications, send out emails and maintain your website.

Sometimes it feels overwhelming.

So grab a cup of Joe and let me take you through some quick planning ideas for summer leagues.  I know your summer leagues have been getting a bit softer every year, once in a while you get a great program going and it boosts you over last year, but the home runs are getting fewer. L

Stop fighting it.

Summer is the time when you have the most lane availability. It’s a time to introduce new people to bowling and put on your sunny face.  It’s a time to host company parties, fund raisers and special events. It’s a time for Kids Bowl Free and building your data base. 

It’s a time to refresh and rethink.

Last year, you put together your summer league schedule from the year before and the year before you put together a schedule from the year before that. 

Are you still going to do what didn’t work so well the last three years and “hope” that it somehow works this summer?  Seriously?

Please get a fresh sheet of paper or open your computer screen, laptop or tablet and right this down

WHAT CAN I DO THAT WOULD CREATE AN EXPERIENCE THAT PEOPLE WOULD TALK ABOUT?

 Here are some idea starters:

·        A summer fund raising league where you contribute $500 to the charity.  Did you know that the American Heart Association and the BPAA now have an alliance which will help you work with local chapters?

·        A Miller High Life Shirt League that’s so retro that it is cool for your seniors or for companies…and you can do it in 8 weeks.

·        A NASCAR league where participants get tickets to the Pocono 400. Available for proprietors in NY, NJ and PA.

·        A Bowlers night at the ball park, whether it is major leagues or minor leagues. NO it’s not just giving them tickets. They don’t need you for that. It’s about putting together an adult child package that includes tickets, an autographed ball or picture of the team, food vouchers, play time for the kids on the field and maybe a meet and greet with the players. No doubt this would be easier in the minor league stadiums, but hey you never know.  What’s that experience worth to Dad and Junior or Juniorette?  You got it. Priceless!

·        A series of company parties that you market as hard as or even harder than your holiday parties. What? Companies don’t have outings in the summer? Of course they do and here’s what you can promise: GUARANTEE THEM AN-INDOOR-NO RAIN-OUT-NO-ANTS-NO-SUN- BURN-NO-HEAT-STROKE-NO-DROWNING-NO-DEHYDRATION-NO FAINTING-SUMMER-OUTING. Think that’s enough benefits.  Go put that on a big postcard as a headline and send it out. I’ll bet your phone will ring off the hook.  And even if it doesn’t ring off the hook, you will get some parties…AND YOU’LL GET SOME PEOPLE TO TALK ABOUT IT.

·        How about turning the center into a club on Friday and Saturday nights and book a band schedule and publish it in April or May. “It’s expensive,    I can’t do it. It’s hard.” Yeah, Yeah, I know, but here’s how you do it. Get your junior bowlers or high school bowlers to go scout up bands in the area. Then set a price of $15 to come in on Friday or Saturday night. You keep $10 and the band gets $5.  If the band doesn’t have a following or know how to use social media; you don’t want them anyway.  If you’re real creative, you might be able to get a few bucks from a charity to sponsor it or Pepsi or a store in town as a way to keep the kids off the street in the summer after the sun goes down and their “heat goes up”.

·        Start your planning now. In February. Have it all done by March 1^st. make your flier and websites open play friendly.  Have leagues for competitively high average bowlers (scratch leagues, get better gear leagues, tournament leagues – run a different tourney each week – on the same lane conditions.  Have leagues for low average bowlers (Bad Bowlers –I’m bad but getting better at Happy Lanes).  Have leagues and instructions for newbies; for newcomers in the neighborhood who usually move after their kids are out of school for the summer. 

·        And then go back and check on which leagues were successful last year Create an incentive for those bowlers to bring a friend.  Create an incentive for your employees too. If you’re still thinking $2 a bowler, you might as well close this summer. I’m talking $25 a bowler for a 13 to 15 week summer and $100 a team for the same thing.  Think about it, if the league bowls 13 weeks and you get $10 per bowler per week, you’re getting $520 per team. If you get A NEW team that didn’t bowl with you since last summer, that’s an additional $420 you will get that you didn’t have last year. NOT $100 you will spend. You don’t spend it until you get the increment over last year’s 10 x 4 league.

All right now. Lift your spirits. Go out there and fire up your team. Brainstorm every new idea possible and then go out there and make your customers say WOW!

And WOW again!!

Awareness

Been moving around the country since the new year and talking to lots of proprietors.  One of the topics that came up, during the course of our conversations, was the subject of "awareness."

"Fred, one proprietor said to me, "we just aren't visible. Bowling has no awareness."  I agreed. Another proprietor said to me: "People just don't think about us; they don't think about bowling".  Again, I agreed.

And then it hit me. We're looking at the wrong end of the problem. It's not more awareness we need.

We need to do something so cool, and so outrageous that our community of followers starts to talk about us and that creates awareness.

What if I rolled a bowling ball down the length of US 95 in an attempt to set a new Guinness Book of Records.

Would that be outrageous enough to get our followers to talk about us so much that other people, who don't follow us would become aware of bowling?

Yeah, I think it would.

Boring.

Marie and I checked into a Florida Hampton Inn for about 4 days and I remarked to her how unremarkably remarkable this hotel is. In fact it was the same hotel I stayed in Detroit, Dubuque and Des Moines. They’re all the same…give or take a few wrinkles here or there.

But over the last 10 years, something has been happening in the hotel rooms. When Holiday Inns used to advertise that “the best surprise was no surprise", they were right for the time. Back then all the weary traveler wanted was comfort, convenience, ease of service, reliability and quality.

But that was then and this is now.

As David Brooks commented in the New York Times recently, “It’s easy to forget how much more boring the marketplace was just a two decades ago – more boring cuisine, more boring restaurants and more boring hotels.”

Recently, there has been a creative brand explosion within the hotel industry. It’s called boutique hotels. And while a $339 night hotel in Soho NY can be sold out and $139 Hilton Garden Inn goes begging for rooms, I ask myself why that is?

Simply because people will pay extra not to be bored.

People are no longer buying things. Do you really think the IPad, the big screen TV, the bazillion Internet gadgets and devices are being bought are being bought NOT because they are just “things”, but because they represent “experiences."

So the basic rule of consumer happiness is:  Buy Experiences, Don’t Buy Things.

If you are still selling things, you have a problem with the new consumer and more importantly if the hotel industry, which used to be a commodity can differentiate by turning itself into an emotional experience, why can’t the bowling industry?

Clues of this starting are beginning to be seen. From the "all open play experience" to the "private lanes" to "the boutique centers"  to the FEC with bowling as an anchor, we are seeing this trend s-l-o-w-l-y starting to take shape. and it needs to start moving faster. We need to get an emotional arousal from our customers because the Internet has taught them to expect more and thus they are culturally more competent than ever and more informed to make better choices that won't result in boredom.

But far too many proprietors are holding on to the past.  And while it is expensive to change; it is far more expensive to remain the same and be viewed as just plain old BORING!

The Crackerjacks Effect

Any good marketing person will tell you that the first objective of any direct - mail - campaign is to get the prospect to OPEN THE ENVELOPE. 

And so there has been a lot of research done on sizes of envelopes, color, shape, address (printed or handwritten), copy on envelopes vs. no copy on envelopes, return addresses vs. P.O. Box return addresses and, first class vs. bulk rate

I have found that there are only two types of envelopes that will get a reader’s attention in a pile of mail. 

One is a handwritten envelope.

The second is a bulky envelope. I call it the “Crackerjacks effect” that promises to contain more than just another bill or boring letter. Most people are naturally curious. If there is a prospect of getting a gift or a treat, then at the very least they are going to open up the letter to find out what’s inside. This is one of the reasons why the Crackerjacks effect is so effective.

Curiosity is a tool that you can use to your advantage when working on a direct mail campaign.

Think of small items that you can include in your letter that will make the envelope bulky and therefore make your readers curious enough to open it. Be careful to only use items that will remain intact. Biscuits for example will just end up as a handful of greasy crumbs.

Campaigns with chocolates are best done in the cooler winter months otherwise that too can end up as a sticky mess. If you don’t want to use plain pictures then consider sponge cut outs. This could be a very effective way of making your envelope bulky but ensuring that your message remains intact.

Why should I read your letter?

With direct mail campaigns, you need to give your prospects a compelling reason to open and read your letter. Because people get bombarded with so much information and so many sales pitches on a daily basis, you need to find a creative way to get your prospects attention.

Give them something to be curious about and you already have a foot in the door. Here are a few ideas that are very effective:

·         Include a headache tablet with the phrase: “If thinking about something to do with the family this weekend is giving you a headache? Happy Lanes can help. Then go on and explain your program pointing out the benefits of affordability, quality time, feelings of accomplishments, team spirit, etc.

·        Attach a matchstick to the top of the letter. In your introduction you can explain “Here’s a burning idea that’s all about Good Time family Fun.” Happy Lanes is the place to cool off with family and friends this weekend>

·         If you are a promoting a special event or corporate party, you can include a balloon. “Dear Peter, if you are thinking of ideas for your next company party or celebration we can help you….”

·    You can include chocolates. You can even personalize the chocolate wrappers. Then in your introduction you can say something about having a sweet deal to tell them about.

·    Include a sweatband and a comment: “Are the costs of your weekend family fun making you sweat?  Does it feel like an endless marathon effort? Happy lanes can help!

For most people getting a surprise in the mail is a welcome diversion from an average stressful work day. A bulky envelope with a handwritten address is far more likely to get a person’s attention than a corporate looking printed envelope.

Not every letter needs to be bulky mail especially if you are sending out a series of letters. You can decide at what point it will be most effective in your campaign.

Be creative and have fun with it. If you do you can be sure your readers will enjoy it too.

As always, I strongly urge that you use a multitude of tools in  CONJUNCTION with your mail campaign,  which may include a series of letters + an email campaign + daily posts on Facebook and a “YouTube” video,  strategically timed and placed.

And finally it is better to go after that segment which is tightly defined to represent your best prospect for buying the offer you are selling…even if it represents fewer in numbers. 

Give me 1000 great prospects vs. 10,000 suspects any time!

Bowling vs. Time

It’s holiday time and the kids, parents and grandparents are spending quality time while busy consumers are spending time during their free time to go shopping.  Later when they get home they will try to have some down time or free time or alone time or “chilin’ out” time.

You see time has become classified so many different ways that it has become, in many instances, even more precious than money, because once time is gone, you can NEVER get it back. With money, you always have a chance, even if it the lottery. 

It stands to reason then that when choosing how to spend their down time, family time, quality time, spare time and recreational time that consumers have become very choosy, especially since there are so many more options than ever.  Yes, very choosy indeed.

And there you are sitting in your nice bowling center waiting for them to come to you. This time of the year, they DO choose you more frequently than other times.

Why this time of the year only?

Because they have discovered that you represent a good value for their time, a way to spend quality time with the family and also can be a fun time. The fact is you have trained them to go bowling over the holidays. Is it because they like you MORE over the holidays then they do during other times of the year? Or is it because you’re close, convenient and relatively affordable?  

So how do you replicate Christmas week every Friday night thru Sunday and to some extent Monday thru Thursday after 9pm?  

It's about the battle for the consumer's time. And the battle for the consumer's time is a battle of survival. 

Restaurants, Casinos, Vacations,  Big Screen TVs, X Boxes, Movies, Hobbies, Roller skating, Ice skating, Little League, Soccer, Lacrosse, Basketball, Football, Golfing, Business meetings, Religious gatherings, Theaters, Concerts, Second jobs, Exercising, Visiting family and friends and God knows how many more venues compete with you. 

And because you say so little about your business, people forget you are there. The less you do, the more the consumer forgets about you.  Do you think these other guys are sitting around doing nothing? Heck No. They don't let us forget.They are in our faces every day.

It starts with letting the people, who come in this week; know you are available in January and February. If you can’t get their name or email, then hand them an old fashioned bounce back coupon with a real good offer to get them to come back.

Spend some time this week thinking about how you can be more valuable and likable during other weeks. How can you be one of their top three "time choices?

Oh, one other thing, if the consumer is coming to your center to spend some time, why aren't you charging by time instead of a game?  But that's a whole other rant!

Yeah, take some time. 

The Baby Boomer and Bowling.

72 million Americans are between the ages of 50 and 68 years old who are approaching or have reached the age of retirement. Some will have an easy and prosperous retirement, while others will be working a long, long time.

I’m not sure where I will fall in this spectrum based upon new health care laws, tax laws and the fact that I still like what I do. I never ever thought I had a job, but rather that I had work to do. It was my career and my career (and work) contributed to who I was a man, a husband and father.

N o doubt there are lots of people out there that perhaps feel the same way and as they look around at their options, they ask “What shall I do? Where am I going?

And yet we, the bowling industry have lost this fastest growing segment, actually two segments; older boomers 65+ and younger boomers 50-64.

We lost them because they moved to a more affluent suburb when they were younger and bowling was not “de rigueur.”  None of their friends bowled.

We lost them because they too viewed their work as a career and not a job and made sacrifices like traveling two or three or even five days a week to gain advancement. No time for bowling.

We lost them because things got expensive and their wives worked not only for the money, but for fulfilling the role of the “New American Woman”.  Finally women were liberated enough to feel confident enough to pursue any career they wanted.

We lost them because bowling alleys weren't healthy. Fewer and fewer of them smoked and bowling alleys were places where people smoked and drank and maybe even cussed.

And finally we lost them because new and more inviting entertainment options became available where they didn't have to commit to a 36 week schedule; which we refused to change…until we had to.

So here’s the question, how do you get a 55 to 64 year old to bowl?

The “old think” traditional answer is to form a 55 to 64 yr old fun league for 12 or 14 weeks. But that’s not the answer.

What you really need to do, I believe, is to view this group as a new segment that might have bowled in another lifetime, but today, well, it isn't even on their radar.

But birthday parties and anniversaries and celebrations certainly are. When was the last time you had a marketing campaign that targeted 50, 55 60 and 65 year old birthdays.

Surely if you begin to get a few of these “millennium nostalgia parties” going and create an atmosphere with 50’s and 60’s music, they might bite.  And as you get more of them, then and only then can you offer a fun nostalgia league that offers premiums like gift certificates for restaurants, vacations, gift certificates for professional pictures of them and their grand kids as well as other items you can think of.

But first start with a great party plan. Nail down everything from decorations to desserts to service levels and expectations. Then invite a few of them for a free party and take videos for them. Get testimonials. Get glowing testimonials. Send out press releases to senior centers, to the Council on Aging in your community. 

Send it to www.cafemoms.com who have parents that are 55 to 65 year olds and probably help plan the parties. Send information out to party planners if you don’t have a data base of 55 to 65 yr olds, go buy one from  www.InfoUSA.com and test a direct mail piece for a birthday party.

They’re out there. All 72 million of them, just waiting for you. If you want to work at it.

p.s. The Boomers also have the most discretionary income of any age group!