Watch the video above. It was written and produced by Dave Carroll after an unpleasant experience with United Airlines. As of this writing, the video has been viewed 433,294 times on YouTube, had 3,274 comments and appeared in the Wall Street Journal web site, the Huffington Post, LA Times, the Consumerist and various other news sites.. We’ve also sent out the link to a lot of our clients and friends who are in the customer experience business every day. You can read the back story here.

Dave Carrroll may have just written the next United Airlines jingle that will be chasing through travelers’ heads when they see the United Airlines logo in any airport anywhere. Nothing worms into the brain more effectively than music or scent. And country music is really, really sticky. I know it is in my head right now!

Our Advice: Don’t design team satisfaction systems that require levels and level of approvals for the purpose of frustrating the team. Resolve issues quickly and don’t let them fester. Answer emails quickly. Recognize the difference between the coach’s need to blow off steam at a simple frustration and a legitimate concern for which your soccer tournament may be liable. And buy Dave Carroll’s album, Perfect Blue on iTunes. 🙂

Kids are clever and you don’t want a negative “playground chant” or derogatory description about your tournament to get viral. (Northworst, US Scare, etc… )

Right after you release the game schedules, no matter how much work you have put into seeding the teams, researching, trying to minimize conflicts, etc. you will get a rash of emails from coaches acknowledging that scheduling is hard, but that you screwed it all up for them.

Among the more popular complaints are:
– You seeded my team wrong and my kids are going to get killed/not challenged
– You have my games too early/late/too much time/not enough time between
– I coach multiple teams and there are conflicts
– I don’t want to play this team/club

And on and on. The more you try to make someone happy, the less happy someone else is going to be because while coach A thought you did a thoroughly crappy job, coach B in the same division thinks you are a genius. When you mess with coach A’s schedule, you have to mess with coach B’s as well. Now, you have two coaches mad at you.

Our advice: Adjusting a schedule for all but the most egregious oversights is a zero-sum game and best to not do it. State early and often that coaching conflicts are the team’s responsibility to resolve, not the tournament. It was the club/team/coach who decided that multiple-team coaching was a good approach for whatever reason, not your tournament. The team needs to live with the impact of their decision.

There will always be some ranking system that one coach likes better than another. Take these with a grain of salt as teams change, even in mid-season. If you decide to use a ranking system, make sure that you publish this and that everyone is held to the same standard, even if they decide that the system is weighted incorrectly.

Above all, be courteous, but firm. Don’t expect that coaches will understand, but keep in mind they are looking to position their team best while you have the overall brand and reputation of the tournament to consider.

Don’t allow yourself to be bullied by one coach or club. Other coaches will notice and steer clear from you next year.

Sunrise over Ohio Soccer field

Margaret Workman went to a soccer tournament on Saturday, April 25 to watch a soccer game. But she saw so much more than the busy parking lots, the soccer uniforms, the hassle of getting her kids to the field on time, the misprints in the program, the unfair referee calls, the elbow shoves, the bad coffee, the horrible maps, the fact that her team had a 7:30am game, and ______________ (fill in the blank).

She saw a sunrise. She saw an opportunity to share nature’s beauty with those around her. She took a moment to enjoy something that none of us could ever make regardless of how much time, volunteers and other resources we were given.

Thank you, Margaret, for keeping us humble and reminding us all of what is truly important.

View the rest of the game photos here.