Today, Mitch Barnhart introduced a new... something. Let's call it an "initiative," for lack of a better word. It's called "BBN First," which purports to encompass three "core principles:"
- We will compete for championships and make our fans proud.
- We will provide a first-class game-day experience.
- We will create a shared family atmosphere.
All are laudable attributes, to be sure. Part of me wonders why these aren't already considered core principles of any athletics department, but perhaps I'm being too cynical. Let's see if we can glean more information as to their application from Barnhart's letter introducing BBN First:
Guided by these concepts, I formed a Fan Experience Committee with staff members from event management, marketing, ticketing and communications as we began the new year. We are meeting regularly to assess all aspects of our fan experience, but we need your help.
We want to know how we can best serve you. We want to know what we can do to give you the game-day experience you deserve. We are already investigating and refining on our own, but we need your input.
Okay, now I get it. This is essentially a customer satisfaction survey with the open-ended question, "How can we improve from your standpoint, dear fan?" As a former employee of a company who did this sort of work, I can say that the question is both over-broad and the solicitation too unfocused to produce a great deal of actionable information. They may get some general ideas, I guess.
I hope it works out for them. Soliciting feedback from your patrons is always a good idea, and perhaps simply creating a website with a comment box rather than a carefully-designed survey instrument is a new and innovative way to gather feedback. I admit, my experience in opinion research makes me skeptical, but then again, I hardly consider myself an expert on the subject.
Anyway, if you have suggestions, now you have a place to put them.