What makes client relationship management special for The Oklahoma City Thunder pro basketball team? During an interview at Convergence 2013 Scott Loft, VP Ticket Sales, Retention, and Database Operations for The Oklahoma City Thunder said: “We don’t treat our fans like a seat number… We want to create genuine meaningful relationships. We want our fans to make decisions with their heart, not just their heads.” The Oklahoma City Thunder organization uses Microsoft Dynamics CRM to reach the hearts of their fans.
The Oklahoma City Thunder team includes 14 account managers that work with their season ticket holders. Unlike other organizations, they do not just track the names and purchase history of their clients. They use Microsoft Dynamics CRM to store the information that helps build relationships. They know their fan’s favorite players and entertainers, their alma mater, their birthdays, their pet’s names, probably even their pet’s birthdays. They have over 50,000 hobbies stored in their database. They care about what is important to their fans and they use this to build real relationships. Loft commented that account managers are invited to weddings and on family vacations, so this is not your typical sales rep relationship.
For example, email campaigns are set up to send a Happy Birthday ecard to a fan, signed by their favorite player. Or they are invited to a pregame event with 20 other people that all root for the same college, like the same entertainment, and are served their favorite food. That is the kind of extra attention that reaches peoples’ hearts and helps them feel that they are part of a community that cares about them.
This type of community means that the Oklahoma City Thunder’s loyal fans keep purchasing tickets through winning seasons and non-winning seasons alike.
Oklahoma City Thunder fans have their own microsite . If they choose to share their social media accounts, this information can be tracked within Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The account manager can then easily review tweets, updates, likes etc.., to stay in touch with what is important to their customers.
When asked his advice for 2014 Scott Loft commented that he felt there is a “renaissance of service coming”, meaning that in this digital age, customers will once again demand the kind of personal attention and customer service that used to be the norm, but that has recently become the exception rather than the rule.
The Oklahoma City Thunder is already leading this revolution and effectively using Microsoft Dynamics CRM to help them do it.
By Anya Ciecierski, CRM Software Blog Editor, www.crmsoftwareblog.com
