In this latest edition of 'SLO in the Spotlight' the EFL spoke to Richard Knight regarding his 13 years as Supporter Liaison Officer of Exeter City as well as the introduction of the Club's new Supporter Experience Roundtables.
Q. Over your years of experience at Exeter City, what achievements are you most proud in relation to your work as SLO at the Club?
A. It has to be the introduction of the Ambassador programme in 2012. Inspired by the welcoming 2012 Olympic “Games Makers” outside the stadium and the subsequent F1 “Race Makers”, we felt it was an initiative worth looking at.
We had a few false starts along the way, for example we initially tried using students wearing big rubber hands and megaphones similar to the Olympic “Games Makers”. However this did not have the same impact where our attendances were circa 3000 and supporters drifted towards the stadium rather than arriving ‘en masse’.
We soon hit on a totally different format which has worked ever since. The idea was based on Ambassadors greeting supporters, not just giving directions but taking supporters to their destination and engaging with them on the history of the Club. We hadn’t really realised how intimidating being in a mass crowd activity could be and could make new supporters nervous when they weren’t sure of where to go and how things were done. So, our Ambassadors idea soon caught on and proved extremely popular with first time visitors.
Q. We know at Exeter you place a lot of emphasis on the EFL’s Family Excellence Scheme and the reports you receive. What have been the biggest areas of improvement at Exeter as a result of your visit feedback?
A. We certainly do, and by sharing reports, it has enabled better buy-in and enabled colleagues, middle management and volunteers to develop fresh ideas. The hardest aspect is to maintain momentum and keep things fresh and invigorating. What’s useful is the assessors provide recommendations, which we always take away and see if we can adopt them.
We also believe the Family Excellence approach has contributed to a noticeable increase in the attendance of families at SJP. This has had a contributory knock-on effect year on year of increased Junior Grecian Membership and junior support in general. Parents sharing their experiences has also helped with my “cradle to grave” support philosophy. Exeter City are not alone in this growth as the whole of the EFL has shown a market-leading marked increase.
Thinking back, when the Club Chair at the time and CEO asked me to see what I could do following the receipt of disappointing feedback in our Family assessment report. Following discussion, we agreed that to improve the situation we would have to work with what we had, and it would have to be a long-term approach to improvement.
We decided to start with a “who cares wins” customer service initiative, with the aim of changing attitudes to create a better, responsive, supporter (customer) focus, that demonstrated to fans that we wanted them to come back. The transformation of Club stewards towards an engaging, rather than stand-off attitude, was an early success.
Allied to this has been mapping the matchday experience and in particular key touch points between the supporter and the Club. This has allowed across the board improvement as we have been able to identify gaps and areas to enhance more easily.
Q. How important is it that the senior Club representatives are tuned-in to the feedback from the Family Excellence reports, and empower you to act on this feedback?
A. The support of the Chair and CEO at the start of the recovery programme was immense. Progress would have been much more pedestrian had they not initiated the change of emphasis.
Middle management remain extremely engaged with the programme e.g. ticket staff responding to first time visitors, media team allowing me to produce a match day Family Fun website feature, retail staff creating competitions to encourage visits. It is important that the whole Club is onboard and plays their part in improving each aspect of the visit.
Q. The supporter experience roundtables at Exeter are a relatively new initiative, how did this idea come about? what is your role in organising and facilitating these meetings, and what do you hope they achieve?
A. The Supporter Experience Roundtable is an initiative of the Club Director responsible for Supporter Engagement, Clive Harrison. The roundtable is deliberately formed of volunteer supporters from every stand and demographic, to ensure all aspects of the matchday experience are covered.
The emergence of the Roundtable has supplemented and built-on four ongoing activities:
- Annual public review of the Club Charter (10th year);
- Annual consultation on Supporter Experience at start of season (11th year);
- Extension of the Grecian (40) Groups Forums (3/4 times a year since 2003);
- Fans Forums (which preceded EFL Regulation 128).
In my role as SLO, I attend and engage with supporters and sit on one of the discussion/feedback tables.
The meetings have given the Club the opportunity to say, ‘we’re listening to fans and we will do our best to enhance your experience’. As a result, it has provided evidence that what is good for fans is good for the Club and vice-versa.
Q. What piece of advice would you give to other SLOs who may be new to the role or looking to build closer relationships with their supporter groups?
A. A great place to start is to simply ask the EFL Fan Engagement team for help. I would also ensure as SLO you are across the EFL Family Excellence Reports, as they are something to really help you move forward and give you a direction of travel. Contact with other SLOs from across the network who might have helpful solutions is also recommended, for example, a Club local to us has spent a match with us to see what we do, why we do it and the benefits of our approach.
Should any SLO wish to get in contact with Richard regarding any element discussed here or otherwise, you can do so via richard.knight@ecfc.co.uk.