After today’s shit show from the whole operation, as documented by many fans, how many of us are now waking up to the apparent realisation that the club don’t care what we think really, and try to pay us a bit of lip service every now and then?
We’ve had many issues across the years, some more recent that others, that include (but are in no way limited to) the following:
- Rent and Upkeep of the Ground
- State of the Facilities inside the ground (Kiosks, etc)
- Investment in the playing side (perceived lack of)
- Communication from the club as a whole
- Fan Engagement
- The Fan Experience
The club must be laughing that some Walsall fans are getting on others backs, instead of directing their fume at them.
Take today as just one example. We’ve had around 18 MONTHS of not being able to go to the ground due to Covid-19. Our first game back at the stadium in that time, for many of the fans, and we didn’t build it up whatsoever to build a desire in fans to want to attend.
On top of that, we then hear and see countless people complaining that their tickets wouldn’t scan and were being rejected, leading to massive queues at the ticket office (that already struggles to cope on a matchday) that when coupled with a lack of turnstiles being open causes a massive issue. I’d love to know how ST’s and tickets that are paid for are then being rejected by scanners.
On the scanning of tickets, even that appears to be half arsed. We’ve got people scanning the tickets in the turnstiles, saving literally no time to them taking paper tickets. Why have we not implemented proper scanners that don’t require staff to scan? Much quicker, much easier.
Food - pictures of burnt food, stories of people queuing for 20 minutes for a bottle of Pepsi, stories of one person only being able to use the card machine and it stopping working. What kind of a shit show are we actually running here?
Beer - How can you run out of beer and then offer bottles and / or cans only, at HALF TIME! Not even after the game.
Communication - granted, this aspect is slightly better. We have communication from our chairman, and we gave a Supporter Liaison Officer to help deal with our queries. This sounds good, apart from stories of the SLO failing to respond in good time to people, or refusing to pass things on to people higher up. Let’s also not forget that for years people have wanted fan representation on the board, and now the SLO has been appointed to be the ‘fan representation’ on the board. Interesting considering within the last six months people have been told that due to commercially sensitive information they would never likely be accepted into that type of position.
We have a customer charter here - CUSTOMER CHARTER - News - Walsall FC - how are they doing in faring up to these standards, that they’ve set themselves 
. People need to start holding them to account, to their own standards that they’ve published.
I could go on and on for hours, speaking from my point of view, and I’d also suggest many other fans points of view, and I’d be interested to see everyone’s issues and additional things to what I’ve put.
For now, this is just from today, and this is just Twitter, I don’t use any other socials, and I’m sure there are far more across all the other platforms:
The old saying ‘The Customer is Always Right’ doesn’t seem to exist at WFC. The customer isn’t always right, but when so many people have so many issues, and many of them interlink and sit with each other, the customer cannot possibly be wrong.
In what other business where feedback is this bad, on a consistent basis, do heads not roll?
18 months away ladies and gentlemen, and nothing has been improved in terms of the fan experience.
PS. Hello Walsall FC, I know you’re lurking and check in. Start taking notice of your paying customers.
