“Hockey’s a funny game. You have to prove yourself every shift, every game. It’s not up to anybody else. You have to take pride in yourself.” —Paul Coffey, retired NHL player (1980-2004)
“We listened to what our customers wanted and acted on what they said. Good things happen when you pay attention.” —John Smith, CEO, General Motors, 1992-2000
The two quotes encapsulate my role at HockeyTech—first, we’re all about hockey, but we’re also very attuned to the needs of our customers. It’s with these two quotes in mind I’d like to talk a critical change in the way we ensure customer success.
As HockeyTech’s Director of Customer Success, listening and paying attention are critical foundations of my job. I’ve spoken to clients directly and also continually solicit feedback from our client facing teams on what they’ve heard from our clients. Built from a year’s worth of these conversations and observations, I’m excited to introduce our new “team-based approach” for ensuring the success for each our clients.
But first, let me take a step back.
HockeyTech: Bringing Together Five Great Brands
When I first joined HockeyTech last October, I was impressed by distinct capabilities of each of our five brands (HockeyTech Testing, HockeyTV, International Scouting Services, LeagueStat, and RinkNet). Yet, as with any company that has grown through acquisition, there was a critical challenge: each brand operated under its own historical processes, including customer support.
Our previous approach to customer support was process-based. If you had a question about LeagueStat, you called LeagueStat customer support. If you had another question about RinkNet, you were transferred or made another call—and there was no real time knowledge transfer between teams; any information from the first conversation didn’t make it to the second one. And clearly, this was unacceptable.
This presented a unique challenge for our clients—if you were using multiple products, you were being serviced by multiple contacts, oftentimes ones located in the same office, but essentially, worlds apart. This created a burden for clients—which lead to missed opportunities for us to ensure consistent service and uniformity across brands.
We needed to bring together internal teams, processes and historical customer information to ensure the success of our clients. We needed to share and integrate the information we had.
This season, that changes.
We Listened. Introducing Dedicated Customer Support Teams.
Now, each of our clients will have a dedicated team for customer service, with ONE phone number and ONE contact email.
• Each team is led by a Relationship Manager who is tasked with ensuring your success—and can help navigate any cross-brand challenges that may arise, while ensuring you get the most out of ALL of your HockeyTech solutions.
• Your team also features a Customer Service Representative, who can help you with any specific issues across each of our solutions.
• The third member of your team is a dedicated Content Administrator who will ensure that your statistics, player data and game information needs are met.
My job in ensuring your success—and by providing a single contact and a soon-to-be familiar team for each of you, our clients will receive a consistent, high-level of service from skilled professionals who understand all of their hockey and technology needs.
We listened—and continue to listen to our clients. And I think you’ll be pleased.
Written by Jeremy Reed, Director, Customer Success, HockeyTech