Why StubHub Is Still Relevant

Last week a friend offered me a ticket to Sunday’s 49ers game as a congratulations for starting PandoDaily.

Like a true West-Coast bandwagon sports fan, I was thrilled. My friend was a bit of a bandwagoner too and in true bandwagon style, he bought the tickets on Stubhub.

Years ago when StubHub started, it was a revelation: A marketplace for legally buying seats that fans won’t use. The ultimate high-dollar perishable good. The kind of thing the Web was made for. Brilliant. Unfortunately it was a market thousands of ticket brokers rushed into as well, causing a lot of customer confusion. And then Stubhub sold to eBay– frequently the kiss of death for any cool company.

Since then, the options have expanded even more– with the NFL and TicketMaster even offering fans a marketplace to exchange tickets. Watching ads for that exchange during the Patriots game, I thought, “I wonder if anyone even goes to StubHub anymore? What’s their edge?”

An hour later, I got my answer: Customer service. The tickets for our insanely good seats wouldn’t scan. Who knows why? After standing in the long line to get in, we were told to go stand in the Will Call line. When we got to the front of that line, we were told to go stand in the customer service line, aka the fifth circle of hell.

I actually worried for my safety in the customer service line. Angry fans whose tickets also wouldn’t scan had been standing there for hours waiting to talk to someone– missing the first quarter of the game. They were mostly half drunk and just barely containing their rage.

I couldn’t really blame them. These weren’t people with counterfeited tickets. Standing behind us was a seven-year season ticket holder who had paper tickets that just wouldn’t scan. It was a technology failure on the 49ers part and in their operational wisdom, they decided to open only two windows for all these problems– while eight windows were open for Will Call tickets. Nevermind, by the time the game started no one was in that line. When I heard the guy in front of us say he’d been in line for two hours already, my hopes for getting in before half-time waned.

My friend called Stubhub customer service– something I probably wouldn’t have done because I’ve lived on Earth long enough to know that calling customer service typically only makes you more pissed off. Not this time. The first thing the representative said when he picked up the phone: “Give me your number now, in case we get cut off.”

Within 15 minutes, a representative from StubHub came to meet us in line with replacement tickets that were only two rows behind the ones that wouldn’t scan. We got in immediately. They were not only smart enough to buy up last minute replacement tickets in case there was a problem– they knew to park a van right behind this awful customer service window. I felt guilty skipping out of the line, while all the other people– including a lot of life-long fans– who didn’t use StubHub had to miss more of the game.

The fact that StubHub offered better customer service than the 49ers did to season ticket holders is stunning. And it was another example of that golden rule of business: Even a horrible customer service failure can be turned into a massive customer service win if you respond the right way. We all know this: Why don’t more companies get it?

If someone on your team didn’t hit a ball with his knee and is actually going to the Super Ball, and you’re thinking about dropping some serious bank on a ticket, go with StubHub. Just in case.

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Quora

What is the most reliable website to find cheap seats for NBA and NHL?... Of the ticket resellers, the two which are the most reliable to use are: 1. Stubhub. If the tickets sold through them are counterfiet, or if there's an issue, they will do their best to give you alternative seats. Sarah Lacy (formerly of Techcrunch, n...

Lael

I love this story and it exemplifies why we built unseat.me as a social layer that plays nicely with StubHub rather than as a replacement for StubHub. StubHub works extremely well and deserves the market share they have achieved.

Chris Wallace

I always buy tickets through StubHub when possible. It's easy, secure, reliable, and a lot of times much cheaper. In addition, you can access tickets that aren't available through the stadium or ticketmaster sales. This is a really cool story about customer service too. Thanks for sharing.

StubHubECC

Hey there Seth! You bring up a great question here, and we'd love to offer some clarification. Though it is rare that a venue will encounter technical errors, it does occur. This can affect customers from Season Ticket Holders to individual buyers from the venue, as well as secondary markets such as StubHub. Though venue and Ticketmaster errors do occur causing invalid tickets, not at the fault of either customer, we want do everything we can to ensure buyers gain entrance to their event. Any time a buyer calls us to file a claim of invalid tickets, our #1 priority at that moment is to make it right for our fan, and get them into the event. Though we do not buy any tickets prior to an event, we can reach out to sellers and try to obtain unsold tickets. Once we have gotten our fan into the event, the order is then fully investigated with both the buyer, as well as the seller to ensure a fair and reasonable resolution is met with both parties. Should StubHub determine an invalid claim from the buyer, we will further investigate this issue to take any necessary corrective action. We hope this helps clarify any confusion. If you have any additional questions or concerns, we're happy to reach out to you directly. Just send an email to yourfeedbackmatters@stubhub.com with your best contact information, and we will be sure to reach out to you ASAP. Thanks, Seth! Emilee Executive Customer Care www.StubHub.com

Seth

I am all for customer service but I don't understand something: I have never seen a "technological" issue with tickets...either they are fake, double scanned, or they scan. They have barcode numbers just in case they didn't print properly and you are telling me StubHub assumed the tickets were bad and gave you a free pair in 15 minutes? What stops someone from going into the stadium with a second copy of your tickets and then you can just call in for another pair? This sounds like a perfect world story and we definitely don't live in one. StubHub would have to buy 100 tickets for every game to cover these risks and that is definitely not covered by their profits.

Becca

Tony, StubHub is a ticket marketplace and don't own the tickets. If you go to their site and do a bit of research you'll see this; not to mention she stated that there were a TON of people having issues with their tickets scanning and not all the tickets were purchased on StubHub.

Tony

But didn't Stubhub sell the invalid ticket in the first place?

Tackling The Importance Of Customer Service &amp;laquo

[...] Here’s how Sarah described the scene at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park: My friend called Stubhub customer service– something I probably wouldn’t have done because I’ve lived on Earth long enough to know that calling customer service typically only makes you more pissed off. Not this time. The first thing the representative said when he picked up the phone: “Give me your number now, in case we get cut off.” [...]

Joe McMackin (@joemcmackin)

That is a great story. Perfect example of why companies like zappos and stubhub win.

Justin Cener (@crowdseats)

Great post! Glad to see SH standing behind their customer service promise and aggressively create solutions for their customers. Definitely a big loss for the team/venue being more or less upstaged in their own park by secondary market support, but it just points out the need for advanced support for live event ticketing.

Chris Tsakalakis

Sarah, Thank you for this very kind article. I am so very sorry you had issues with your original tickets but very happy to see we were able to fix things for you. Thank you for buying on StubHub and for this very kind blog post. Chris Tsakalakis President, StubHub

Alex

Great article, however I think you mean super bowl, not ball. Love the new site, keep the great startup news coming.

David Martinez

Didn't she mean arrow?

Darren Herman

This is much less about Stubhub, but about customer service and marketing. Stubhub has a very solid program but it's a much larger topic that you're covering - and nicely done illustrating Stubhub here.

James

Not trying to be a pessimist, but I wonder if the name "Sarah Lacy" meant anything to Stubhub?

Joshua Bolin

This post alone is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing. Brilliant! I am printing this for my customer service reps.

Manish Chandra

It's great to hear this story. I've had similar experience with StubHub. I do think that marketplaces that take full ownership of the buyer experience are much more likely to succeed over the long term.