163 - Why Your Fan Experience Fails Without Consistency (And How to Fix It)

Your customer service problem isn't actually a people problem—it's a consistency problem. When fans get different experiences depending on who they interact with, they blame the organization, not the employee. This episode introduces the non-negotiables framework: simple "always do" and "never do" rules that eliminate guesswork and scale great service across your entire operation.

KEY TOPICS COVERED
• How inconsistency in fan interactions destroys ticket sales and repeat business
• Why your best employee doesn't define your customer experience—your most inconsistent one does
• The Cleveland Insight: John DeJulius's non-negotiables framework for scaling service without burnout
• Why "always do" and "never do" rules work better than motivation, pizza parties, or lengthy policy manuals
• Death by a thousand moments: how one bad interaction overrides five good ones
• Why customer service isn't a department—it's an organization-wide responsibility
• The direct connection between consistency and revenue: fans return when the experience feels smooth and effortless
• Building your organization's always do and never do list: start with 5–7 rules, not 20
• Specific always do rules for ticket sales teams: same-day responses, clear pricing, preparing fans before arrival
• Specific never do rules: don't make fans search, don't overcomplicate offers, don't treat all fans identically
• How to implement consistency at every touchpoint: parking, ticketing, concessions, guest services, sales calls
• Testing your consistency: Does your fan experience change depending on who they talk to?

TIMESTAMPS
[00:00] – Episode introduction and topic preview
[01:18] – The real problem: consistency vs. customer service
[02:50] – Introduction to the Cleveland Insight and John DeJulius's framework
[03:47] – What are non-negotiables? Always do and never do rules explained
[04:30] – Why simple rules scale better than motivation or lengthy manuals
[05:15] – How consistency shows up in staff speed and confidence
[06:07] – Death by a thousand moments: fan experience as a series of touchpoints
[06:35] – Why one bad moment overrides five good ones
[07:00] – Customer service isn't a department—it's organization-wide
[07:40] – The friction created when marketing, sales, and operations send different messages
[08:00] – How consistency directly impacts repeat purchases and ticket sales
[08:23] – The challenge: Is your experience dependent on who the fan talks to?
[09:00] – Building your framework: start with 5–7 rules, not 50 pages
[09:30] – Specific always do rules for ticket sales teams
[10:10] – Specific never do rules across all departments
[10:43] – Implementing always do and never do lists across ticketing, parking, concessions
[11:30] – Preview of next episode with deeper examples and implementation guidance


LINKS Mentioned:

John DiJulius

Always Do/Never Do - Youtube

Episode Link - https://revelocitysports.com/podcast/episode-163/

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Transcript

Jeremy Neisser (00:00.302)
Welcome to episode 163 of the Sports Marketing Machine podcast powered by Revelosity Sports, the show that helps you sell more tickets and grow your fan base. I'm your host, Jeremy Neiser. Today, we're going to talk about something that doesn't get enough attention, but it absolutely impacts your ticket sales more than almost anything. And it's your customer service. But not in the way you think.

This isn't about, well you gotta be nicer or smile more. This is about why your fan experience feels inconsistent. So if you're a GM, external relations director, you're running your ticket operations, you're at a high level of an organization and you just have this feeling that things aren't going the way that they should, this might be the episode where you go, aha, this is why.

Today I'm going to share a simple framework that can fix it. Because here's the truth. Your customer experience isn't defined by your best employee. It's defined by your most inconsistent one. Let's get into it.

Jeremy Neisser (01:18.52)
you

Jeremy Neisser (01:28.014)
Let's dig into the real problem. Most teams think they have a customer service problem. They don't. They actually have a consistency problem. Here's what I mean. One rep is incredible, fantastic. One rep is average and one rep creates friction, but they don't realize they're creating fiction.

And the fan gets completely different experiences depending on who they talk to or they're working with. Same team, same brand, totally different outcome. And when that happens, fans don't say, hey, that one employee wasn't great. They say, hey, the team was frustrating. That's the gap. Where this framework that I'm going to share with you today, where did it come from? I'm going to call it the Cleveland Insight.

This idea isn't mine. I had the privilege to sit down and be a part of a guest experience training from John DeJuulius. John DeJuulius was the customer service manager many years ago for the Cleveland Indians, now the Guardians, and trained his entire staff on this specific framework. What he realized when he was working for the Indians at the time was simple.

You can't scale great service with motivation. You can only give people pizza parties so many times, right? Motivation doesn't all the time. That's not going to drive it all the time. You scale great service with clarity because telling your staff, we're going to provide great service, take care of the fan means something different to everyone. Instead, what John DeJulius created

was something called non-negotiables. And I'll put a link into John DeJulius, and this isn't really about like me promoting him, but it was such a framework and such clarity on what we were trying to accomplish at this time that I think it's so valuable for sports teams. So John DeJulius created things called non-negotiables. The simple rules were, always do, never do. This is no gray area, no guessing,

Jeremy Neisser (03:47.052)
That's where it gets really powerful. The simple rules were always do and never do. Why does always do and never do? Why do they work? Because it's simple. Think about how most teams train their staff. Long manuals, policies that nobody remembers, best practices that never get applied. They don't scale. But always do, never do.

Simple to remember, easy to train, and easy to reinforce. And most importantly, it removes hesitation. Your staff doesn't think, am I allowed to do this? They know this is what we do here. That speed and confidence shows up in every interaction. From your ticket taker, from the person in the parking lot.

From the person who's calling people to try to sell them a season ticket or a mini plan or a group from your folks at the concession stand, always do, never do is very simple for them to remember every single time. That speed and confidence will show up in every interaction. What this fixes, and I put the title to this, death by a thousand moments.

Here's why this matters so much for teams. Your fan experience isn't just one minute or one moment. It's a series of moments. They see the ad, they click on the website, they try to buy tickets, they ask questions, they show up to the game, they go to the parking lot, they pay for parking, they interact with the staff at the parking, and then interact with the staff at scanning their tickets, they buy concessions, they leave their stadium, the arena, after...

having an experience that's six, seven, eight, nine, ten different touch points across multiple things and here's the problem one bad moment will override five or six good ones as sad as it sounds one bad moment will absolutely override five or six good ones so if one person gives a confusing answer doesn't follow up makes things harder than it needs to be that's what the fan remembers

Jeremy Neisser (06:07.692)
not your fireworks, not your promotion, that moment. So how do you get company-wide adoption? And I think this is where some teams get this wrong. They treat customer service like it belongs to ticketing or guest services or specific departments. It doesn't. It actually belongs to everyone. Every single person in your organization is part of treating and

impacting fans from a customer service level because the fan doesn't see departments. Sure, they may come up and buy a hot dog and they know that that's the worker there, but they don't know that that worker who gave them that hot dog is not the same person that works in the office. They just say, Hey, they all work for the team. So they lump everyone together. They see one brand. if marketing says one thing, sales says another,

Operation handles things differently. That's friction. For this to work, it has to be company-wide. Same standards, same expectations, same language. So how does this impact revenue? Let's bring this back to a lot of what a lot of our teams are thinking about, and that's about selling more tickets. Because this isn't just about the experience, about repeat.

behavior. Fans don't come back because you ran one good promotion. They come back because they felt, by golly, this was easy. It felt smooth. It was worth it. I got a good value. And if your experience is inconsistent, they hesitate. They wait and they don't buy again. So how do you transition everything that I just shared with you into action? You have to start simple.

You don't need to over complicate this. You don't need a 50 page document. You need a handful of always and a handful of never. So a handful of always do and a handful of we never do that. That defines how your team treats fans. It's clear, it's simple and it's repeatable. So here's my challenge for you this week.

Jeremy Neisser (08:23.008)
Take a look at your fan experience and ask this question. Does it depend on who the fan talks to? Because if the guest services customer experience is different between what you get at the concessions to the person in the parking lot, to the person who's taking the ticket, if all of those are different, then you don't have a people problem. You actually have a system problem.

And this framework is one of the simplest ways to fix it. So if you have found this episode helpful, be sure to share it with someone on your team, especially someone operations, external relations, or ticket sales that are trying to improve things so that you are continuously working towards selling more tickets. If you want help building this out for your organization, don't hesitate. I'm happy to have a conversation with you.

kind of share a little bit more about how this might look but if you would like a little bit more I'm gonna give you some steps here to how to actually build your always do never do list let's add a few things number one for always do never do here's some tips some takeaways here before you wrap up you don't need 20 on the list you need like five or seven that actually move the needle so

Here's a couple good ones for the sales side of things. respond the same day. Speed equals trust. Silence kind of kills momentum. Always make it easy to buy. So clear pricing, clear steps, no confusion. Always give fans a clear next step. Always assume confusion is your fault, not the fan's fault. Always follow with interested fans. Always prepare the fan before they arrive.

So those are some five always do's and then here's a few never do. Never make the fans search for information. If they have to dig or they have to search for stuff, they're just not going to convert. It's just a bad experience. Never over complicate your offers. Never treat every fan the same. Like there's a difference between group leaders and season ticket holders and first time fans. Like never try to pass the fan around when there's a problem. Own it.

Jeremy Neisser (10:43.8)
help them solve it, never disappear after you make a sale. Those are just five ones and that's specifically leaning into the ticket side. But if you're the general manager, you're running your operation and you're thinking about how do we make this better? Maybe you bring this up at a staff meeting when you're talking about guest experiences and customer experience, how do we make this better? Let's come up with five to seven always dos and never dos.

that we would have in a card that we stick in our wallet or stick in our pocket or we give to our staff or we put it in concessions that everyone follows the same exact process because your customer service will incrementally increase when everyone is doing the same thing and it's a simple message to them. next episode

I'm going to dive into the always do, never do list even more and really kind of share a lot more around some additional things for you and some stronger examples. If you're going to be meeting with your team and you're like, right, well, how do I put this together? I'm going to give you all of that information in the next episode next week, but this is a good running start for a lot of teams, always do's and never do's five to seven. You put on a list and everybody knows.

what to do, how to do them during the season and the concessions and the parking and the ticking, everyone's on the same page. I think that would be super helpful for you. So if you found value, be sure to take a moment to rate or review this episode. It really means the world to me, but more importantly, it's share it with someone who's working in sports, trying to grow their fan base and sell more tickets. Until next time.