The recent Louw Flyer article ‘Breaking Bread’ brought back fond memories. I remember doing some work with Heather Hildick – what a pleasure, even if things didn’t work out perfectly she was always good with her team. Racing needs more of those glues that bond…
As I am one of the horses whose ears got continuously flicked, and eventually got tired of it, I thought I’d share some of my experiences from the perspective of 1. internal work team, 2. outside work team and 3. visitor in the hope that it might add answers to some of the questions posed.
Along with your columnist, I also wondered for many years why the absence of such seemingly obvious and simple customer centric treatment such as a happy greet as you enter and leave – common courtesy one would think but not trained or enforced anymore and yes, this small gesture can make a lasting impression for sure. This I regret is down to management and what culture they foster and enforce – ugly is as ugly does?
1. Internal workers
Making workers on the day feel part of the team by at least acknowledging that they are doing a job that is part of making the day a success – not making life difficult for them – common sense one would think? Those betting clerks with indifferent manners – ouch, why? Every single worker on course represents the sport and the service – its a bit like school many years ago – every learner from a certain school represents that school’s creed and should be honed and trained on how to project it, and doing this by example is a good way of getting it across.
2. External workers
As part of ‘press’ sometimes I think they did get it right in the past (and yes one could quote here about rose tinted glasses but then equally one could say that a frog will cook to death in water with temperature slowly raised, things are definitely off worse now when there should have been progress by now) whereby we were furnished with transport to the track, badges and a tent with sandwiches etc. But mostly, you were treated as ‘in the way’, ‘irritation’, ‘get out of the way’, and ‘get off the track’ when trying to photograph the heroes and connections so that the world out there can get a glimpse. Yes, being down there in the pack getting bumped whilst trying to get a record of a historic event isn’t easy, so why make it more stressful by treating them like vermin – no wonder no photographers arrive on semi-important days or less important meetings – couldn’t be bothered and the treatment is [bad word]. I wouldn’t be surprised if the lack of press coverage is a spin-off contribution of this over many years.
3. Visitors
Unless you are dining on the top floor and/or own a string or stud farm, you may as well get used to being invisible. In fact, so many visitors get the invisible treatment that they have truly disappeared! Last year I was surprised to experience the UK’s proverbial save our bacon Endeavour ‘Racing For Change’ (you may want to Google it) at Ascot – I do hope it is working as the treatment of the common punter has picked up somewhat and you do feel like you are being wooed, informed and entertained – this is especially good for those punters like me, who pretend to know nothing (more than the nothing that I normally know, I mean lol!). Point is, they are trying and at least now you know you’re at a racetrack with race horses, not at Hyde Park in London with some hacks going for an outride.
Disney is not Cloud Cuckoo Land
Ever been to Disney Paris or Orlando? The minute you walk through the gates, you know where you are. There is informative interaction from all kinds of platforms to tell and remind you that you are at Disney – human, machine, static. Even the most cynic of adults cannot help but to succumb. Each park is ergonomically worked out based on how much excitement, exercise and exposure humans can bear for maximum experience pleasure and retention. So, they are not overloaded, overtired, hungry or fed-up with seeing Snow White once again.
Now if they can get the recipe right, why can’t racing? The UK is trying but long not there yet. I pretend to be a freshman every time I go to a course to see if I can learn the sport or game or excitement without friend’s input or my own slog at research. So, last year was the first positive experience at some effort from their side via ‘Racing for Change’ – they still missed the bus though in that it was a bit contrived, perhaps its because they haven’t thought of physically being in the shoes of that idiot on the track as a first time visitor and just how boring it is to visit a place where you have to beg or hack for information about their product/service. Sometimes ‘dumming down’ works, especially with something as complicated as racing. But first, you have to understand who the customer is. South Africa of course has no clue. And this is not due to nobody ever suggesting all of the above countless times before, sadly.
After all of these years I continue to struggle understanding how something so simple and obvious is so hard to understand and implement.
I have a friend on the ‘lunatic fringe’ and every day I pray that he may be wrong when he says there is no visionary leader.
Thank you for your publication. Every little bit helps on our way to changing the mind set and culture.
With best wishes from London, Don
