Tech View: Reimagining Customer Experiences On and Off the Field

Some of the most impactful experiences of my career involve two industries colliding: sports and technology. I’ve spent more than two decades playing on both sides—working in technology to solve customer pain points and helping bring the Seattle Seahawks’ mascot Blitz to life. Both are lifelong passions.

As Blitz, my job was to bring the excitement of the game into the stands. Each game meant building special moments with fans in different ways: T-shirt cannons, posing for photos, dancing or running into the end zone.

Customer experience sits at the intersection of sports and technology. As a technology executive, first at Microsoft and now at Lumen, making magic happen at every customer—and fan—interaction is critical to the total experience. Using technology to create a superior game day for fans starts at the gates. The ease of entering the event, ordering food and drinks, and even vacating tens of thousands of people safely in minutes has me in awe of the people and processes that enable it.

Connected technologies are redefining the fan experience—from the moment a ticket is purchased to the end of the fourth quarter or encore performance. It’s that last-mile execution that determines success. How companies leverage their data and technology to empower employees bridges technology and data insights to make that magical experience possible.

Reinventing The Customer Experience

If there’s one transferable skill between being a mascot and working in technology, it’s putting the customer first. Embedding the customer in the DNA of company culture creates connective tissue across the business, from marketing to supply chain to sales and service.

Creating an amazing experience doesn’t happen by accident. It’s what happens behind the scenes that helps make customer memories.

It starts with creating a shared mission, from the top down.

Historically, experience has been somebody’s job—and really, it should be everybody’s job. It requires a shared vision as well as shared accountability across the C-suite. Today, customer relationships and loyalty are the result of deeply human, personal, unique experiences that need to go beyond the moment of transaction. It needs to be more than advertising. It’s the ability to understand and deliver these experiences that differentiates brands and helps them capture market share.

Defining your data strategy is a must.

An end-to-end data strategy is there to unify customer insights and should be accessible to every employee that impacts the consumer. Success depends on the ability to understand data, attract new customers and keep existing ones happy. Despite the abundance of data, a Gartner survey shows only 14% of organizations have achieved a 360-degree view of their customers.² Leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning can help by analyzing real-time data to offer insights.

Fostering organizational agility to meet dynamic customer needs is key.

Exceptional, human-centered experiences require leaders that are adept at cultivating organization-wide agility and foster the ability to pivot in response to changing employee and customer needs. Our customers, like us, live incredibly fast-paced lives and the ability to react sooner to intent signals is what helps us win. Coupled with data-powered insights, businesses need the ability to dial services up or down to deliver what customers need, when they need it.

Putting A Customer Experience Strategy Into Action

Football game days are some of my favorite times of year—whether I’m watching at home or in person. Regardless of whether a fan is watching the game, everyone wants an entertaining and flawless experience.

I’ve seen this in action at Raymond James Stadium, home to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Buccaneers know that creating an amazing digital experience for their fans means ensuring today’s technology and connectivity work flawlessly behind the scenes. Otherwise, too many devices and not enough bandwidth can leave fans feeling frustrated. So, it makes sense it’s a top priority for the stadium.

With digital ticket access, mobile food and drink orders, and real-time text and social media updates on game days, the Buccaneers’ network is as busy as their offensive line. It’s an experience that extends beyond the field to the staff and players. Needing to transfer data seamlessly from headquarters to their office and the practice field, they needed a solution that would improve network capacity while lowering network costs.

By investing in a modern network, the Buccaneers’ ROI improved by reducing day-to-day maintenance and system downtime.

These innovative ways to harness data offer applications far beyond the football field and the stadium experience. Your business may not deal in touchdowns and field goals, but mastering agility, risk management and informed decision-making is critical for a smart strategy, no matter the field of play.

Explore powerful solutions designed to help you create more memorable experiences for your customers.

¹Forbes, 50 Stats That Prove The Value Of Customer Experience, September 2019.
²Gartner, Cross-Functional Customer Data Survey, January 2022.

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