Artist impression of the Olympic Stadium
The ticketing for London 2012 has been controversial to say the least. It may have generated massive demand but the customer experience leaves a lot to be desired..
On the face of it, it has been a huge marketing success for Olympic organisers, Locog. 1.8million people applied for 20million tickets even though only 6.6million tickets are available. So they’ve got to be doing something right and they should be congratulated for stimulating such demand.
But let’s be honest, this is the Olympics…in London. The biggest sporting event in the world, taking place in one of the biggest cities in the world. It was always going generate massive global interest for its ticket sales.
But the criticism isn’t of the volume of ticket sales, it is of the ticket prices, the ballot system and the fact that money is taken from accounts before applicants know which events they have secured. Hardly a great customer experience…
Branding expert Mark Ritson recently hit the nail on the head in his article in Marketing Week, where he wrote ‘Let’s be honest here – to be British is not necessarily to be brilliantly organised and in control all the time. We are a nation that singularly fails to organise things well and deliver as predicted – and yet we come through in the end. Just as the 2008 Games were fundamentally Chinese because they were so well controlled and orchestrated, the 2012 Games will only be truly British if they are open, fun and slightly chaotic”.
I love the romantic sentiment that us Brits will always come through in the end, but I prefer to be more organised and deliver a better customer experience from the off. Which is why I love 08direct.co.uk’s new call management packages. With all the amazing new features such as time conditions for call routing, call queues and full IVR , there’s no excuse for even the smallest business not handling their customers’ call ultra-professionally.
Richard Griffiths
Director of Marketing
