UN-CUSTOMER-CENTRIC

The problem for me with horseracing is that is has almost always been un-customer-centric - that's my my new term to sum it up.

Management has these occasional stabs at PR and marketing but their hearts never really seem to have been in it.

I believe they still fundamentally believe that racing and its accompanying betting operation is an addiction. The addicts will always be there so it is not crucial that you necessarily feed the addicition in an orderly and customer centric fashion. Certainly few of the 'managers' that I have met have ever ventured out of their offices to interact with their customers - unlike a famous racecourse manager in the USA ( whose name I have regrettably forgotten ) who always spent his afternoons armed with a clipboard amongst the punters enquiring about the facilities, experience etc., and asking them what they would want to further enhance their enjoyment OF HIS BUSINESS.

Of course - once the train derails it appears from an outsiders point of view that managers are hard to find. And finding one that can take hold of a problem by the scruff of its neck is nigh impossible. You sometimes have to wonder where exactly management is in these circumstances.

Furthermore I see a distrubing trend towards a 'good old boy' and nepostistic approach to the filling of key posts. Tellytrack has quietly morphed into a sheltered employment oppportunity for retired sportsmen when it is actually a broadcasting operation. I have, for example, raised the problem of poor ( or no! ) broadcasting skills often in the past but it continues apace.

But the worst issue seems to be that of poor communication. 'Stonewall and it will go away' remains the preferred approach.

The 'it' in that statement appears to be rapidly becoming the customer base.

We are not alone.
I have this wonderful quote from an article in The Guardian some time ago.

Circling the wagons is a standard tactic for businesses and public bodies at times of crisis. It allows those in charge to feel they are doing something to defend themselves and draws a clear line between the good guys on the inside and the outlaws beyond. And of course, for as long as they have an enemy outside to preoccupy them, the waggoners are unlikely to ask too many difficult questions about the leaders who steered them into bandit country in the first place.
The British Horseracing Authority, though, added an interesting twist to the process on Friday evening when it circled the wagons and then expelled one of the very few people in the convoy who could be trusted to point the business end of a rifle in the right direction.