Soccer Tournament Review

Today, I saw a comment from a team rep come over that said this:

Our coach, John Smith has reached out to the tournament several times via e-mail in regards to us not receiving a confirmation on our acceptance into the tournament. It was only after checking the status on line that we saw that we’ve been accepted. Due to lack of follow up on your part and lack of confirmation for the tournament we are going to pull out and will be stopping payment on our check.

Got me wondering how many times the tournament sent an email to coach Smith (not his real name, of course) that went to his junk folder or he didn’t bother replying to. So, I looked it up. Four messages were sent to him, without a reply back.

Our advice: If a coach does not answer an email, CALL HIM! And, you may want to advise your teams that you will be sending emails and that if they do not hear from you within a reasonable time, CALL YOU! Email is rapidly becoming an obsolete communication tool as more and more ISPs are deciding for their customer what is and what is not spam.

And, make sure your subject lines are not “spammy.” A subject line like “You’re Accepted!!!” will probably hit the junk folder, whereas a subject line like “Your team has been accepted to the 2008 Major Classic” will make it all the way to it’s destination inbox. Be specific and stay away from punctuation like ? and !!!!

You may also wish to drop postcards in the mail with the team acceptance, just in case emails are not getting through. While it may seem counter-intuitive for a web site to advocate for the USPS, it is the end product, not the tools, that are the important thing.

But, please, the goal is not to point fingers around in a circle about who didn’t answer their emails. The goal is to communicate, whether that is by phone, postcard or email.

Today, I finally put the customer service number to the Wall Street Journal in my cell phone. And that is not a good thing.

I put the number in because the newspaper carrier misses my house with regularity and when I need to call them, their web site is so full of news and segmented information that I can’t ever find the number quickly.

Our Advice: Be reachable, but first, take care of those things that make teams feel like they need to call you in the first place! Keep your Frequently Asked Question up to date, your news on the front page timely, dates published when certain things are going to happen (like team acceptance and schedules). And, make sure your news is written in very simple language.

And, if the teams still feel like they need to call, keep your phone number current n each page of your web site.

I enjoy reading email that coaches, parents and team reps send soccer tournaments. It’s a great insight into our target market and keeps us on our toes about what the soccer public needs and expects from tournaments and the web site that supports it.

My favorite emails are the ones that write paragraph after paragraph of needs and concerns and then they say something like “Oh, great web site, btw!”

By the way??? BY THE WAY? Do they not know how hard we work on making the web site easy to use, reliable and real-time accurate? Do they not know how many weekends we have given up to make it possible for them to even notice that the web site is great? But, perhaps that is the point; at least they noticed something great when they saw it, even if it was a footnote.

Our Advice: Nobody will appreciate the blood, sweat and tears you pour into your soccer tournament than you. But, don’t expect them to. If they are not complaining about the basics like field lines, lack of port-a-potties, no water at the field, games always starting late, no referees…. you’re doing something right! Chances are they will notice that things went fine without a hitch.

Think about the last time you complained because there was no food at the grocery store. Or the last time you didn’t have a place to sleep. Yet, when was the last time you complained because the waitress was a little bit late bringing the coffee refill at a restaurant. Exactly. When the basic needs are taken care, it is only then that we find the time to complain about the minutiae.

So, the next time someone complains about having to pay for parking or a 10 minute overlap in their multiple-coach team schedule or an 8:00am game, just smile. You know you’ve taken care of the big things.

BTW, mostly nobody notices the way a TourneyCentral web site is always up and running, is accurate and is easy to use. I guess that is a good thing.

Today, I was reading Seth Godin’s blog and read a story that made a perfect argument for a TICO Score for ranking soccer tournaments.

It was hidden as a marketing post on “green marketing” but there, plain as day, made the perfect argument for a service like TICO Score. A simple number that assigns the health of your soccer tournament that tells everyone at a glance if you are good, bad or average.

Our advice: Send your participants to www.ticoscore.com to evaluate your tournament. Also, read www.challengedividend.com.

When we bring a soccer tournament on board, they most likely already have a web site that a volunteer has been managing. Mostly, the demands of the teams with online registration, communications, real-time scoring, schedules etc. has become overwhelming and the tournament is looking to replace that with a commercial product.

Everything usually goes along fine until they attempt to transfer their domain name to point to the new content. Most of the time, it is then that they find out the tournament, the club or the league does not legally own their domain. The volunteer or the web developer who set up the web site as a “favor” to the tournament back a few years most likely registered it under their own name. If the transfer is amicable, usually the transfer goes smoothly, but most often, it doesn’t. The volunteer is hurt because he/she is being replaced and takes the domain with them, leaving the tournament with a fight or a change to another domain.

Rightly so, the tournament believes they own the domain name and most often, they can prove the volunteer or developer was acting as an agent for them, but that is a very long fight. In the meantime, teams need to apply, etc. While it is always best to pursue securing intellectual property (IP) that you have developed, in many cases, it just is not pragmatic to delay your tournament until you can.

Our Advice: ALWAYS register all domains as property of the club, league or tournament, whatever your legal entity. The registrar, passwords and accounts that pay for the domain should be kept as part of the official record of the entity. And, while you are making sure your domain name is secure, also make sure the data that resides on the Web server, the account that serves the site and the source files on the volunteer’s/developer’s computer are also yours.

It may cost you money to secure your IP, but is sure beats “free” when you can longer use your data, domain or Web site.

On the surface, a stay-to-play rooming policy may be a good thing for your soccer tournament. It is fast becomes the de facto standard for housing at soccer tournaments. But, be aware that with a stay to play policy, teams are now expecting services.

Some of the services expectations are
- Find them rooms. If you are getting money from your stay to play policy, teams now expect you to find the rooms for them. Giving them a list of hotels and phone numbers is not longer enough for a soccer tournament with a stay to play policy.
- Service complaints. If the teams have problems with hotels, they are YOUR problems, not theirs. Have a contact number and someone on staff to deal with the hotels and resolve issues.
- Cancellation issues. If your tournament cancels or the team cancels, the teams expect a full refund of their room fees and will not tolerate hotels holding “cancellation fees,” regardless of what was signed. Most of these transactions are credit card transactions and card companies will do chargebacks without regard for agreements. If the room was not used, the charge will most likely not stick.

Our Advice: By all means, establish a stay to play policy for your soccer tournament, but do not expect that to be passive income. Put someone in charge who has the flexible schedule to work with hotels in the daytime and teams on nights and weekends. And, have this person available during registration and on the first day of competition to deal with hotel issues.

Make sure this person also has a relationship with the hotels and that all the GMs know who you are and have all the details about the soccer tournament.

And, lastly, this position is probably too important and demanding to be a volunteer position. Consider paying your housing coordinator a flat fee or a percentage of the rooming charges.

Of course, you can always opt to use a housing agency, but be sure to pick a reputable one who has a history of great customer service. Rooming revenue is nothing if you have to get involved with disputes between the housing agency, teams and hotels with every complaint.

There are a lot of spring tournaments closing registration and accepting teams. For 2008, on average, TourneyCentral applications are up and average of 38% over this time last year and soccer tournaments are cutting more teams due to field limits, referees limits and just overall bad fit.

As you can imagine, this is an increased opportunity for team managers, coaches and club presidents to send vicious email. What I call a “drive-by” emailing.

Our Advice: First, take a deep breath and fight the urge to reply in the same tone and manner. It may seem personal, but it is not. Email hides the humanity of the conversation and it is easy to “blast off” on a nameless, faceless machine. It doesn’t make it more excusable or easier to take, but… well, just breath.

Second, do not reply via email. Look up the head coach’s phone number and place a call to him or her. Once you start talking human being to human being, it is a lot harder to say really mean things to each other. There are those people here and there who can say mean thing to anther human being without remorse, but they are few and far between. If the coach you are talking to is one of those people, he/she is only validating your wisdom of choice by not accepting their team. If he/she is that much of a jerk BEFORE they get to your tournament, think about what a handful they will be in person!

Third, follow up the conversation with the email. If it is the head coach that sent you the “drive-by,” confirm what you talked about. If it is the team manager or club president or other person who has an “illusion of influence,” confirm that you spoke with the head coach of the team and encourage they to speak directly with the head coach. Leave it at that; do not offer additional details. If the head coach wishes to share, then he/she will. Do not engage further in any additional discussion via reply email.

Rule one: Remove technology as soon as possible from any conversation that is best handled by human beings. Machines have no feelings and they don’t care about yours. People, on the other hand, do and assess the impact of their words and body language many, many times during a single conversation. Use that power.