Loose Cannon: Six Strikes — And Counting
An article that ran in last week’s Direct Newsline described Dale A. Petroskey, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, as having the best job in direct marketing. And there are a lot of neat elements about Petroskey’s position — as the piece pointed out, he spend his days thinking about baseball and meeting some of the sport’s greatest heroes.
He may well have the best job in DM, but is he doing the best job? A personal experience with the Hall shows that in many ways, Petroskey is still in the minors.
During a recent visit, I found a perfect gift for a friend who is a huge fan of the 1975 and 1976 Cincinnati Reds teams, both of which won the World Series. The hall had mugs commemorating every year’s championship team.
That is, they allegedly had them. Because the store stocked plenty from the 1961 Yankees, and the 2002 Angels, but none from the era of the Big Red Machine (as those Cincinnati teams were known).
A clerk handed me a catalog and told me I could order them. And indeed I could have, had they been listed. But the catalog also contained the shop’s Web site URL (shop.baseballhalloffame.org/), and I figured that ordering them online would be a snap.
It was more like a bad hop on Astroturf.
The online shop is a mess. Merchandise categories such as “Hall of Fame Game tickets” or “Bookstore” are straightforward. But listings such as “Gifts” or “Miscellaneous” aren’t. One could even argue that for old-time players like Babe Ruth or Tris Speaker, a beer mug was an integral part of their equipment and should therefore be listed under “Apparel and Accessories.”
The mugs weren’t under Gifts, even though that’s what they were intended for. And they weren’t under Miscellaneous, either. I then turned to the site’s search function, which I would have used first, had it not been hidden below the shop’s welcome screen.
They weren’t anywhere to be found on the Web site.
But there was an e-mail contact option ([email protected]). I sent a note describing the mugs and asking how I could purchase them.
A day later, an e-mail popped up in my inbox. I almost deleted it without reading it. Wouldn’t you, if you got an e-mail from sender “Shop” with the subject line “Re: Comment from Website”?
Good thing I didn’t. It was what passed for a response from the Hall. The e-mail read, in total, “Hello. These are items that can be ordered via the phone. They are not on the online shop. Thank you, Hall of Fame Mail Order 888-425-5633 option 2 for Mail Order.”
Option 2 yielded a helpful sales associate, who immediately knew the mugs — and even the years that the Big Red Machine won the World Series, without looking them up. “They’re one of our biggest sellers,” she said. So much so that the Hall is apparently discouraging people from buying them.
The mail order side didn’t have them in stock. But the mail order operations and the retail shop operations keep two separate merchandise databases. My helpful sales associate took my telephone number and said she would check the store and call me back. That was several days ago.
I’m licked, folks. I’ve struck out in my attempt to buy these mugs from the man with the best job in direct marketing despite using a catalog, a Web site, e-mail, inbound telemarketing, outbound telemarketing, and an on-site visit. Anyone got any suggestions?
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