Virtually every adult has a horror story to tell about pitiful customer service. Racetrack patrons, unfortunately, probably have many, as racetracks in general have a notorious reputation in this regard.

A problem of inadequate customer service seems to be endemic in today’s society. Consider some failures outside racing:

• Several news reports of late have told of an airplane full of passengers being parked on a tarmac for hours on end, and in at least one instance the passengers did not have the benefit of food and water, air conditioning, or even a restroom facility.
• Apple’s iPhone 4 had a reception-interference issue. Steve Jobs reportedly advised purchasers “to hold it differently.” In other words, it was the customer’s fault, not Apple’s. Rather than do what is right, blame the customer. This episode is contrary to Apple’s usual strong showing on customer service.
• Time Warner Cable offers a “deal” periodically if an individual will sign up with the company for a land line, cable TV, and an Internet connection. Lo and behold, within a few months of installation the “deal” price has escalated by 20 percent with adjustments and fees. Bait them in with a low price and then switch the “marks” to a high price.

Close to one hundred percent of you could provide multiple anecdotes from personal experience about a disregard for you by a company or a government organization? Here is my most current example.

Have you ever had a dispute a with cell phone company over technical problems or overcharges? Recently, I purchased a brand-new high-tech LG cell phone from Sprint. Problem is, I found that the phone would send email accurately only part of the time. I told Sprint that 50-50 odds of an email message arriving were not acceptable. To make matters worse, the new phone quit completely within three weeks of my purchasing it. Sprint gave me a rebuilt phone to replace it, telling me that I could not have a new one because I had misplaced the cardboard box that the malfunctioning new phone came in. The old “hide behind corporate policy” runaround. When my next monthly bill arrived, it had a $75 charge for Internet and email usage, even though Sprint, at my request, had disabled the data package on my phone because of the technical problems Sprint could not fix. The disable date preceded my supposed data usage by eight days. Only after a lot of contact with Sprint via phone and three or four trips to one of its stores, did I get the $75 charge partially ($60) reversed. No adjustment was made for the three days I was without a phone at all while my replacement phone was being shipped.

What an aggravation and waste of time! When I consulted Consumer Reports and several other online sources for ratings on the various cell phone companies, I found that none of them fare particularly well on customer service.

Racetracks per se, like the cell-phone firms, are known for wretched customer service, though there are exceptions. This includes mediocre food, unclean surroundings, indifferent or rude employees, and an overall uninviting atmosphere. In my experience, the quality varies greatly from track to track, so it is not an immutable law that racetracks must treat their patrons in a shoddy manner.

A racetrack executive told me that some of his pari-mutuel reps were impolite to customers and that there was not much he could do about it because it was almost impossible to discipline or fire anyone due to the employee union. While I understand the obstacle, this kind of “give up” mentality is hard to fathom because there are other organizations with unions that deliver well on customer service. Pari-mutuel reps are under stress not to make a monetary mistake, but this does not mean that they have to be sour apples to the very people who account for their paychecks.

Any organization can improve customer service if management makes it a priority. For racetracks, at least for many of them, this has apparently not been the case.

Service is a key component of customer retention and racing cannot afford to let the patrons it has vote with their feet by leaving and never coming back. Moreover, racetracks will never get a second chance to make a good impression on first-time customers. One bright spot for racing is advance deposit wagering operations, which, in my judgment, overall get high marks for interacting with and servicing customers.

Ever read online customer evaluations of restaurants or hotels? Sometimes it is perplexing how the same business can receive reviews that are 180 degrees apart. One customer says the place is great and another person writes that it is lousy. Even businesses that overwhelmingly receive high marks typically have a few former customers who write negative things about them. The most effective way for management to discern how customers really feel about their business is to throw out the outliers–the comments that say the customer-service experience is the worst ever or the best ever—and listen carefully to what the remainder of the people have to say.

High-quality customer service is an ever-elusive goal. It requires hiring the right people and training them on an ongoing basis and dismissing employees as need be. It is no accident that the people who work at companies like UPS, FedEx, and Marriott are cordial and helpful. Corporate culture and management processes make it happen.

One of the most valuable and eye-opening jobs I ever had was as a host at a fairly upscale steakhouse during my college years. What I saw made a lasting impression about the vital role of customer service that one can not adequately learn in a book or a training session. Therefore, my suggestion would be for the chief operating executive of every racetrack to spend at least an hour on business days actually intetermingling with bettors of all strata–from $2 players to the high rollers–observing and soliciting their comments. An executive might even work periodically as a service employee (a pari-mutuel clerk, concession worker, etc.) to see what life is like on the frontline. What the racetrack is doing right and wrong will crystalize like no market research report can convey.

The now-retired chairman of one of Fortune magazine’s “most admired” companies told me that he spent many Saturday mornings at his firm’s retail outlets chatting with customers in order to get their feedback. Call it management by walking around. Call it commitment to customer service. Call it savvy.

Click here to see the 2010 MSN Money “Customer Service Hall of Shame.” 

Copyright © 2010 Horse Racing Business

A shorter version of this article appeared originally in the Blood-Horse. Reproduced by permission.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s vision for a premier globally-oriented management training program pertaining to Thoroughbred breeding and racing came to fruition in 2003 with the launch of Darley Flying Start.

The DFS curriculum takes two years to complete and a first-year class and a second-year class run concurrently. Each echelon is comprised of 12 students, whose backgrounds are diverse, running the gamut from fields such as business, law, and veterinary medicine.

In a typical year, about 50 of 150 applicants are chosen for additional consideration. Initially, these 50 men and women take online aptitude and competency tests and furnish a video demonstrating their ability to ride a horse. Each must have experience with Thoroughbreds and be fluent in English. Next is an actual in-person interview, wherein a candidate completes written and group assignments and converses with Clodagh Kavanagh, the DFS course manager in Ireland, and Joe Osborne, the managing director of Kildangan Stud and a DFS trustee.

The dozen individuals ultimately selected for DFS receive a scholarship covering their course-related expenses, plus a monthly stipend. Students spend five months in Ireland, two months in the United Kingdom, six-to-seven months in the United States, four months in Australia, and three months in Dubai—where they learn and work under the guidance of part-time DFS regional coordinators.

Students divide their time between classroom instruction and actually gaining hands-on experience with breeding and racing stock. Subject matter varies from business management to industry-specific topics; curriculum modules have been certified by universities in Australia, Ireland, and the United States.

DFS has graduated five classes. Fifty nine alumni from 15 nations are employed in some facet of racing and breeding, and are spread out over eight countries and five continents. Their occupations encompass a wide range of activities, including, for instance, racehorse trainer, bloodstock agent, and television personality on a racing channel.

Todd Pletcher, who has employed DFS students and graduates, says, “One of our assistant trainers, Michael Dilger, is a former Flying Start student. We have also had three students intern with us. All were very well prepared for what we asked them to do. They were reliable and dependable. Darley is providing a valuable service to the industry.”

Clodagh Kavanagh believes that DFS “has added a new level to the career structure in the Thoroughbred industry, which encourages talented young people to pursue their interest and commitment to Thoroughbreds. In the long term, this should translate into an industry that is strong and adaptable though a human foundation of committed, influential, and educated people.”

I have conducted a seminar with the DFS students twice in Lexington, Kentucky and found them to be bright, articulate, and enthusiastic. Almost all of the DFS graduates are employed in some facet of Thoroughbred horse racing, which bodes well for the industry.

As a longtime university professor myself , I know a strong educational program when I see one and DFS is such a program. The syllabus is very well thought out in terms of achieving the learning objectives. In particular, the students are required to interact with people with a diversity of backgrounds and interests and also must demonstrate that they can apply what they have learned in a classroom setting. Consequently, the program is neither too theoretical nor too vocational.

www.darleyflyingstart.com

Copyright © 2010 Horse Racing Business

In the wake of the recent Ernie Paragallo conviction in New York on 33 of 34 counts of animal cruelty, Bonnie Erbe, a journalist and television host voiced her take with a newspaper opinion piece titled “A Lesson for All Who Breed Animals.” Ms. Erbe’s harangue is a particularly egregious example of the one-sided negative articles that have been written about horse racing. Consider the dialogue in just part of the essay:

“Thoroughbred racing is a dying sport because it relies on slots and gambling to keep it afloat. But gamblers no longer need rely on race tracks for a fix. There’s Internet gambling, casino gambling, heck, even buying lottery tickets, if bettors are so inclined.

If breeders’ incentives went away and interest in thoroughbred racing were allowed to die a natural death, untold thousands of horses would be spared the hell on Earth of being brought into the world, to be overworked, over-raced and then sent off to slaughter.

Thoroughbreds are hardly the only equines or animals that are over-bred. The American Quarter Horse Association is the largest equine breed registry in the world.

And we all know millions of cats and dogs are killed at shelters each year because there are too many of them.

Nonetheless it’s a simple fact that if thoroughbred breeding were restricted, fewer horses would be shipped to slaughter.”

Following are a half dozen brief observations concerning Ms. Erbe’s assertions and proposed remedies.

First, racing may be a sport in a downsizing mode but it is hardly “dying.” In spite of a severe recession that has taken its toll on sport, entertainment, and gaming in particular, pari-mutuel handle on Thoroughbred horse racing in the United States is still over $12.3 billion annually–which is more than movie-theater revenues. Harness racing adds at least a couple of billion dollars more. In such venues as Hong Kong, Japan, and Sweden, horse racing is enormously popular and pari-mutuel betting handle is buoyant. Like horse racing in the United States, Major League Baseball is not nearly as popular as it once was either, owing to competition and other factors, but no knowledgeable observer has concluded that it is dying.

Second, Ms. Erbe used a broad brush to paint all people who wager on any kind of gaming as needing a “fix.” Talk about a generalization. This is like saying that everyone who drinks an alcoholic beverage needs it for a “buzz.” While some gamblers overdo it, the vast majority do not. Many people like the intellectual challenge and/or entertainment of handicapping horse races or playing poker or blackjack, within their means.

Third, the Paragallo case did not concern racehorses being “overworked, over-raced, and then sent off to slaughter.” The poor animals were malnourished on the Paragallo farm.

Fourth, linking the entire Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse enterprises to the Paragallo criminality exemplifies guilt by association, slander at its cowardly best of countless animal-loving good folks. No racing owner, trainer, fan, or whomever, with a functioning conscience, would look at the pictures of Paragallo’s neglected horses without a sense of extreme sadness and moral outrage. However, Ms. Erbe chose to use the Paragallo incident, a sample size of one, to generally indict people who own Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses (Standardbreds evidently got a pass). There is no reference whatsoever to the numerous people and organizations who work mightily to make for safer racing and to save former racehorses from slaughter; people like Texans Dallas and Donna Keen, who both train racehorses and operate a rescue facility at a deficit that they cover out of their own funds. One can easily find a litany of such efforts in the racing sport/business, which Ms. Erbe perhaps neglected to research and mention in her condemnation—or maybe she did know but chose not to provide these facts in order to bolster her denunciation. Would Ms. Erbe think it fair to disparage the morality of all money managers over the Bernard Madoff fraud? Should we ban investing because Madoff and others like him ruined so many lives?

Fifth, Ms. Erbe correctly said that “millions of cats and dogs are killed at shelters each year because there are too many of them.” Would she prefer that we curtail or outlaw dog ownership because irresponsible people won’t have their animals spayed or neutered? Maybe the United States should adopt the strict one-dog policy of many Chinese cities? The Associated Press reported in 2009 that China’s enforcement measures in Guangzhou were being “instituted in other parts of China with reports of often cruel results, including allegations of authorities sweeping through neighborhoods and beating pets to death in front of their owners.”

Sixth, Ms. Erbe regaled with this histrionics-laced logic: “If breeders’ incentives went away and interest in thoroughbred racing were allowed to die a natural death, untold thousands of horses would be spared the hell on Earth of being brought into the world, to be overworked, over-raced and then sent off to slaughter.” This is like saying that “untold” millions or billions of people would be better off if human reproduction were to be curtailed or stopped entirely because some among us are born into abject poverty and/or are denied basic rights by oppressive governments. Ms. Erbe’s solution is based on her (superior?) judgment about who should be born and who should not.

The usual recipe in attack articles like Ms. Erbe’s is to use emotionally charged words, intersperse a grain of truth here and there, paint an entire industry with a negative brush and do so on the basis of an unrepresentative sample, engage in guilt by association, provide as few metrics as possible, and avoid a balanced analysis of the facts.

Ms. Erbe is a skilled crafter of syntax. But at least in her article on horse racing, her reasoning was specious. Moreover, she did not even attempt to present a two-sided evaluation. Call it fashionable bashing.

Like all human endeavors, horse racing has its strengths and weaknesses and the sport is sometimes embarrassed by the actions of deviants. To be sure, perfect it is not. Yet a modicum of research would find that the industry has many benefits and is seriously pursuing multiple initiatives to address its recognized areas for improvement. Problems in racing should be discussed openly, but in a thoughtful and factual way in order to develop realistic alternative courses of action.

Ernie Paragallo and his ilk do not represent horse racing any more than despicable small-animal abusers represent families who cherish their dogs and cats as family members.

Whenever you see a hatchet job like Ms. Erbe’s, try to contact the author. Be respectful, don’t be emotional or insulting, focus on facts and examples, and ask for a fair assessment in the future. It won’t matter to people who have an ax to grind, but some may listen.

Copyright © 2010 Horse Racing Business

For the full text of Bonnie Erbe’s article, click here.