This weekend I took my kids to see The Hard Nut at BAM. It’s a great version of the Nutcracker and we all enjoyed it. I recommend seeing it.
I also strongly recommend never using StubHub to buy tickets. That’s where we bought our tickets. The seats were listed in a section we were excited about, but when we received them on the day of the show, they were in a different section than advertised. When we got to the venue, one of the tickets had already been scanned by someone else. Fortunately, we finagled our way in, and someone was sitting in one of our seats. She had been sold the same ticket on StubHub and was similarly duped into a bait-and-switch section.
We were lucky enough to all get in and have seats and enjoy the show so don't cry for me. But when we got home, I called StubHub customer support to let them know that all of this had happened. They said they would try to understand why two different customers received the same ticket but that they'd do nothing about it. There was nothing I could do about it either.
I hate when companies treat their customers like shit just because they can. That’s what StubHub did. That's what a lot of companies do. And I’d bet against every single one of them. It’s a sign of a garbage culture, an abuse of market power, and a harbinger of its gradual and inevitable demise. Many brands in the banking, travel, and healthcare industries are notorious for this. They assume a market position that enables them to take advantage of customers, and they do this to maximize short-term rewards over long-term growth and customer satisfaction.
The whole experience was infuriating. But it did make me appreciate that startups and companies that stand out and thrive over the long term differentiate with customer experience. And when you’re up against competitors who treat people like trash just because they can, you’re fighting the good fight. That’s the team I root for and want to support. You may not always win in the short term, but you’re still on the winning team.
Jared Hecht
Over 500 subscribers
Unfortunately, it’s not just StubHub—ticketing overall, both primary and secondary, is broken for all stakeholders. I saw this firsthand while building an NCAA fan engagement platform with an integration to a major ticketing system. My research into both Web2 and Web3 (NFT ticketing) platforms has shown it's a massive challenge but also a massive opportunity to reimagine how ticketing can work for everyone involved.
I had a similar situation last spring at the Big Ten Women's Basketball tournament. I had my niece and her friends with me and we had purchased tickets and they had driven several hours to go to the game. The tickets wouldn't scan and it took over an hour to get to a support rep on the phone. They believed the best resolution was a refund instead of finding us seats. They were unable to comprehend why a refund minutes before the game was about to start was unacceptable. Kids in tears, I'm losing my patience and begging for any seat just to get in the stadium. For sure a first world problem, but it was oddly emotionally upsetting to feel that powerless with several people depending on me and have no control over the resolution. When the company doesn't understand the consequences of their mistakes and they refuse to do all they can, the damage done to the brand is immense. The playbook must have been to ride it out and take the hit. I imagine it happens frequently and the protocol is calculated. My mantra across all the business I have started is customer service is everyone's job. The customer might not always be right, but everyone at our company should be empowered to do as much as possible to make it right.
A story about companies that treat their customers like trash just because they can. https://jared.xyz/just-because-you-can