What could the club do to improve communication?

[lenners]

On season ticket sales - I am not a mate of Lenners but after 35 years I am not renewing so there are others of us out there.

I know of 6 other long standing Blades that are not renewing. We've got over 200 years of watching United between us, shares, Blades Revival and I've watched United in over 80 grounds, slept out for tickets many times in the car park, shaped my career and family life about being able to get to games.

We've stuck with United through far worse predicaments than facing another season in the championship, but something has changed.

I am not entirely sure what, but it's just not fun any more, it's boring and somehow the club just seems distant from us - I don't recognise the club now to the one I've stuck by in the past.

Communication and the fans forums - let's be straight. The club was forced into holding the forums after they were shocked by the loss of season ticket sales. They did not try to communicate with us for the previous 6 months and explain some of the farcical situations we had. As an exercise to sell season tickets the forums were awful and surely failed.

In a way I can't believe I am not renewing and I wanted to be inspired by our leaders to change my mind. Instead I was left thinking I had made the right decision. And I felt McCabe isn't that bothered any more either.

I am sure we'll limp through a few hundred more sales, maybe even another 1,500 or so and get to 14 or even 15k.

Many will say how great that is considering all that is going on. But once those 5,000 stop going it is hard to get them back.

Communication and PR has been terrible recently. Communicating throughout the season instead of only at season ticket sale time would be a start. Give Birch some interview training an make sure he knows what this club and its fans are all about.

But what I and the people I know who are not renewing want to see more than anything is action. Some inspirational, exciting signings to put down a marker as to what the club is about next season and beyond (it doesn't always take lots of money). And some kind of commitment to develop and keep our best players for more than a few months - or else the whole thing is pointless!

I suggest this email is forwarded to the club as the most eloquent expression of how supporters feel.

 

[raul]

my entire post. BOLLOCKS!!!!!

Well done for taking 1527 goes to work out what we already knew Bob....:fishy:

 

[bladesman1889]

They had a fans forum at the start of the season as well so not true again.

 

[lenners]

If you think we, or just about any club in this division, could've afforded to keep hold of them both you're plain deluded. And you'll be constantly disappointed because as a CCC club we can't continue to keep quality players, we should know that more than most.

Where is the suggestion we should have kept them both?
And CCC clubs do afford to keep their better players - we had one not very far from here which did so at the start of the season.
But what you actually say goes to the heart of what's going wrong.
It's as if we're reduced to supporting a balance sheet.
We actually have a thread suggesting the barometer of SUFC is how Watford and Charlton are doing.
What matters is what goes on on our pitch and how we play. Fans do not buy season tickets based on 'thank God we're not as bad as Watford and Charlton' or on a woolly claim that we're ok financially when anyone with half a noggin can see that this car crash of a season shows we are not.

 

[bladesman1889]

Where is the suggestion we should have kept them both?
And CCC clubs do afford to keep their better players - we had one not very far from here which did so at the start of the season.
But what you actually say goes to the heart of what's going wrong.
It's as if we're reduced to supporting a balance sheet.
We actually have a thread suggesting the barometer of SUFC is how Watford and Charlton are doing.
What matters is what goes on on our pitch and how we play. Fans do not buy season tickets based on 'thank God we're not as bad as Watford and Charlton' or on a woolly claim that we're ok financially when anyone with half a noggin can see that this car crash of a season shows we are not.

errr....you're the one moaning we sold them!

Wednesday rejected a 1.5m bid for Tudgay- hardly groundbreaking is it?

 

[Bladesman]

Mainly with regards to OS:

- Post less about our poor sister clubs around the globe which have yet to benifit us and only seem to damage our clubs image at the moment.

- Keep the fans updated with more accessable information without fleecing them for things like Blades World interviews.

- Get away from the lame premium.tv website cluttered layout.

Other things:

- Sort the big screen out so It does not crash (think that is just about sorted but it took long enough but I guess if you buy 2nd hand goods what do you expect?)

- Give some indication of where the club aims to be regardless of the global economic situation

- Announce a signing or departure properly without any waffle of the "oh we expect to sign Lita" etc and hopefully that would end the pathetic excuses after a deal fails.

 

[Paulus]

To be fair, all business communication is driven by bullshit and one sidededness. You don't get Tesco saying that "well, on balance, and having considered the issue fairly, Sainsburys do better bananas than we do".

That's partly my point though, I can live with the bullshit from a business, if Tesco piss me off then I can go to Morrisons but If United piss me off I'm not going to go to Wednesday. The relationship is different I'm not a customer I'm a supporter and yet we are treated as simpletons despite the fact that we are fundamentally biased in the club's favour.

 

[alcoblade]

Just lost my entire post. BOLLOCKS!!!!!

Basically I think the fans forums need to be more intimate and set up so that questions can be re-directed until the fans in the room feel it has been answered.
I also think Radio Sheffield shouldn't be involved as it puts up a wall where we all know it is being broadcast and it is for available to all.

Obviously the board cannot be entirely open and honest about every topic, available wage bill or transfer budget in exactly figures is clearly a no no. However we should be able to ask questions about our debt. On the accounts it is £50 Million, and our board seem quite comfortable with this yet the to the fans this seems too high. We need this explaining to us why the club doesn't see this as an issue, how is it easily manageable without impacting on the club? If we are looking at investing in the hotel/property for short term cost for long term gain we need to know this. At least we would know and then have an opinion on if it is what we'd want to do.

I think quarterly forums with Birch either via webchat or pre sent in questions would help, while I would also keep two bi-yearly (pre-season, and January ish) with both him and McCabe would be very beneficial. We need to be able to set questions and them to feel comfortable saying "we can't/won't discuss the managers position" for obvious reasons.
Fans also need to re-adjust their expectations they can't tell us everything it just wouldn't be in the clubs interests but we need to feel that they are actually answering our questions and understand our concerns. Let them have the questions before hand that isn't an issue if you have the process to get the answer you are after but you need to be able to redirect back to them if they haven't covered what you want answering.
As i've discussed with you before I think sending in detailed questions to Birch via this web site would be a good start.

^^^^^What this man said^^^^^

UTB

 

[beightonblade]

Start tellin the truth.

 

[Bladesway]

A lot of people are sceptical about the fans forums but how could the club get a message to you that you would believe?

Is it the manner of delivery that is causing suspicion from some?

Is it what is being said?

Or is it the people saying it?

All three. Most people know what the club is going to say before they stand up and say it. Because we were run by shits for so long we thought McCabe was a breath of fresh air and in many ways he has been. Problem is, when you have power for so long you start to believe your own hype. I think McCabe believes all the Academy, Foreign Clubs and Hotels are the future. I think he believes that times are hard so we have to sell everyone. I think he believes it is for the better but for the fans while SUFC PLC might look ok, SUFC the club (and thats all I care about) is in tatters. Four years ago we were a well run club heading for the Premiership. The future was bright and even following relegation things looked half decent. We were recruiting the right sort of players although the choice of manager alarmed many.

Who would have thought that players like Rob Hulse, Matt Kilgallon, James Beattie and the rest are distant dreams? Even a player like Jon Stead is probably beyond us now. We spunk christ knows how much on Ched Evans and then the pot is empty. Not only that we have had to sell anyone decent to balance the books. The Kyles for £8m, Killer for £2m, BT for £2.5m surely thats enough to balance things out? But no, apparently we have players like Jordan Stewart on £20k plus per week! Has the world gone utterly mad?

I trust neither the board or the management who are dinosaurs from a bygone era. In fact I am sick to my back teeth of SUFC, I haven't been to a game this season and I won't be going near the place for the foreseeable. I was a season ticket holder for the best part of 20 years on and off. I am guessing there are many like me. Stop lying McCabe and perhaps the fans will come back. Keep up the spin and blowing smoke up peoples arses and you will see ticket sales decline.

 

[Come from away]

Bladesway you are so wrong it is sad. McCabe is commited as ever, but while he can fight and win the Tevez affair he can't stop the ball hitting the post and coming out. It seems to be the nature of our club that 'luck' rarely goes our way. We have been a successful Championship club for quite a while (compared to the good-old 4th Division days) but while we can aspire to the Prem it is foolish to expect it to be the outcome each season just because it is our goal. Sorry you're missing the games but you're chucking mud at the wrong target. UTB!

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I have some sympathy with football clubs on this - PR never used to be an issue - you published Blades News every now and again, put on some nights at the social club, sent the players to some functions, organised some charity events, printed the programme and that was that. The only source of news was the local rag and tin-pot radio station - or the chance meeting with a player in a club. Rumours started based on chance meetings with players / staff only got as far as chance meetings with people who had had chance meetings with players / staff could get to.

Now, any information about the club is dissected on forums and can get to a sizeable chunk of the support in minutes. Failure to cut off a rumour at it's outbreak leads to the rumour taking on mythical proportions (the cut of Chief's match fee going to Warnock anyone?). Most of the rumours are not worthy of a response - and any official comment would only lend them credibility, therefore running the risk of many people believing the rumour to be true. I reckon fans do more damage to their trust of their respective clubs than any amount of ham-fisted PR could ever achieve. I'm not knocking that they do it - merely making the point.

That said, United's PR is crap. The forums should be at the fore-front of an information sharing campaign - unfortunately they come across as an exercise in mess-clearing. I can't knock the forums at all - you have the 2 people who run the club taking questions directly and not managed by an internal PR expert who passes over to them for additional expert input (this would be very easy to arrange and manage, would make the event far more slick - but would ultimately detract from the feeling of involvement and honesty).

The reason that it feels like it is clearing up a mess is for precisely the reasons that people have stated already - the website is a mis-match of sales and marketing bollocks, cut with irrelevant news for most supporters. Couple this with some shocking PR moments from the coaching team this season and this is why we have people switching off. If I was looking after our PR I'd have nightmares watching and listening to Blackwell - he doesn't take a consistent line, alienates the interviewer and often delegates the stuff to another member of staff. This makes the message coming from the changing room inconsistent and often looks like we're hiding stuff or simply don't know what we're doing.

Where I'd start:
- Employ a strategy for web news - best done by talking with the users about what they want to know - and make sure that all of the information is relevant. If there is a need to push our foreign interests - don't mix them in with what users term as essential news, try to build it as a side-topic. Use twitter and forums like this to announce new content (this will quickly bring traffic back).
- Constantly keep tabs on the current issues and ensure that there is both an official line and immediate comment where appropriate. This involves monitoring forums like this, the news and listening to supporters. Possibly even comment within forums - as long as its not a Strap-on style
- Run monthly forums that are PR managed using senior staff but not the CEO and Owner - have the PR take the questions and manage the response, using people like Mick Rooker / Kevin Blackwell / Gary Speed / Chris Morgan and other key staff to provide expert input.
- Run beginning and end of season forums like those we've just had with McCabe and Birch as show-case events - where they are the top of an overall strategy of sharing information.
- Support the manager, coaching staff and playing staff with help and advice on managing the situation with the media - it won't make their performance on the pitch any better, but a strategy for dealing with problems can stop pressures getting worse. This might involve deciding that Blackwell doesn't speak to the media until a set time after the whistle to give him time to calm down. It might involve working some key messages into post-match briefings. It certainly won't involve falling out with the interviewer and building an increasingly antagonistic tone over the course of a season - it might instead mean lunching with journalists a couple of times a week and promising to share the odd tit-bit in return for an easier time on camera or microphone.

Setting out with an objective of keeping people happy or stopping people from being disappointed won't work - performance on the pitch will always get in the way of that. Clarity of message and clear communication objectives will ensure that what is being said is relevant. There is no need to share confidential information - if the questions / comments are getting close to this then the club has every right to put up a wall. Where there are genuine questions about the future direction of the club, opinions sought on whether performance is where it should be and plans to improve it they should be met head on, confidently, clearly and promptly.

 

[broomhillblade]

A lot of good commonsense there CC.
I think with the Club's website, they are contractually obliged to fill it with a certain amount of stuff every day, which probably explains why some of the stories are just trivia.

However, to get back to the question of 'What could the club do to improve communication?' I fear that there is a hard core of people that will moan whatever the club does, and one will never please them.

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

Well done for taking 1527 goes to work out what we already knew Bob....:fishy:

Nice one centurion