fans really were getting calls from management

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Fans complain to Panthers, get a call back

Posted: Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2010

COLUMNISTS »

Scott Fowler

Scott Fowler

Scott Fowler is a national award-winning sports columnist for The Charlotte Observer.

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Some fans angry about the Carolina Panthers' 0-5 start have e-mailed the team - and have been surprised to get a response from team President Danny Morrison and others. DAVID T. FOSTER III - [email protected]

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* Scott Says: More on Panthers' customer service

Greg Baer was mad.

The Charlotte resident had plunked down close to $5,000 before the 2010 Carolina Panthers season for two permanent seat licenses in the upper deck and a year's worth of season tickets.

And the Panthers just kept losing.

When they fell to 0-5, Baer - like so many Panthers fans this season - had had it. He came home from Carolina's 23-6 home loss to the Chicago Bears on Oct. 10 angry enough to go to the Panthers' official website and e-mail the team.

"As a fan, I know that a winning team is not my right nor is it something that is guaranteed every season," Baer wrote in the lengthy e-mail. "However, while sitting in my home team's stadium getting laughed at by Bears fans that outnumber me 2 to 1, it causes one to reflect on the current situation."

Later that day, Baer's phone rang.

It was Danny Morrison, the Panthers' team president. He was attending some NFL meetings in Chicago, had seen Baer's e-mail and decided to call him during a break.

For the next 20 minutes, Morrison chatted with Baer about the Panthers. Baer was floored. He later wrote me an e-mail about the conversation.

"In a nutshell," Baer wrote, "he (Morrison) said that the Panthers did not anticipate the season to unfold the way it has. They felt the younger players would perform better.

"He said the lack of spending this season is not going to be the norm moving forward after this year. He said the team is committed to the city and the fans and will work its hardest to get back to placing a winning product on the field....I challenge you to find a professional sports organization where the team president will respond with a personal phone call within two hours of receiving an e-mail from an upper-deck customer."

I talked to Baer about this later. "In the scheme of things, I'm a tiny fish," Baer said. "I don't have a luxury suite. I have two seats in Section 529, and I'm hoping one day to buy two more."

Baer, 35, was upset in the way many Panthers fans are upset these days. "This whole year feels like a gut shot," Baer said.

The Panthers have never been worse than 7-9 in the nine-year John Fox era. But this NFL season has careered out of control for Carolina - undone by a front office doing things on the cheap, a team too dependent on youth and an offense that simply can't score. The Panthers also provoked the ire of their fans by raising ticket prices before the 2010 season.

Morrison makes business decisions, not football personnel ones, so only the ticket-price decision falls on his doorstep among those controversial calls. But like his boss, Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, he's heavy on customer service.

The phone call to Baer was one of several he makes every week to fans who write in, said Morrison, who was hired 13 months ago as team president after Richardson basically fired his two sons, Mark and Jon. Morrison was Texas Christian University's athletic director at the time.

Morrison said he also walks the parking lots starting four hours before every home game and talks to tailgating fans. In that way Morrison is similar to Richardson, who has long made a habit of driving his golf cart up to fans at pre-game tailgates.

"I've pretty much done that sort of thing my whole career," Morrison said. "I did it when I was coaching high school basketball in Burlington - making phone calls and things like that. But it's not just me. We divide those calls out. A lot of different people do that sort of thing here, starting with Mr. Richardson. I'm not saying we get to everyone, because we don't. But I think trying to follow up when people have a complaint is very important."

A natural extrovert, Morrison would often grab a stack of rosters or schedules and hand them out to fans attending training camp in Spartanburg.

This June, Panthers fan David McClelland was watching what was technically a "closed-to-the-public" Panthers practice in Charlotte from outside the practice-field fence behind Bank of America Stadium. A handful of other fans had sneaked over to watch, too.

Someone in a crisp shirt and tie walked briskly toward them.

Uh-oh, McClelland thought. We're about to get busted.

Instead, it was Morrison.

Morrison had a handful of rosters with him, said hello to everyone and handed the rosters through the fence.

McClelland, 38 and a Charlotte resident, doesn't own any PSLs. He prefers to buy tickets from scalpers whenever he wants to go to a game - especially this year, when the Panthers are so bad that the tickets are cheap. For the Sept. 26 home game against Cincinnati, he got four tickets with a face value of $63 each for $25 apiece.

It didn't feel like much of a bargain when the Panthers lost, though. McClelland went to the Bears game, too, and was again disappointed. So he e-mailed the Panthers one night at 2 a.m.

Morrison responded to that one, too, several days later. He called McClelland - Morrison prefers the phone to e-mail because of the personal connection - and they talked.

McClelland said afterward of Morrison: "You just want to like the guy. Although I don't like the way this year is turning out, the phone call definitely moved the needle for me in terms of my admiration of the franchise as far as their approach to fans."

It's a small thing, yes. Just a phone call.

I'm not saying the Panthers are perfect at customer service. I've heard stories that go the other way, too, about fans feeling mistreated.

But I will say this for the Panthers in terms of their fans - at least they are trying. And given the way this season is going, it's a good thing they are.

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/10/20/1773826/fans-complain-to-panthers-get.html#storylink=omni_popular#ixzz12vFjpy5g

[Jackofalltrades]

No poo, haven't you seen the other posts regarding this here?