Quote ="a.n Other"Ok Smokey again in your world they "may" do that. In the real world companies generally dont try and avoid customers. Mainly due to the fact that...well...they are customers and they are the reason why they are in business. Avoiding customers = Bad Resolving complaints for customers = Good Hope that helps.'" attracting the wrong type of customers, very very bad. You ask Burberry if your right. Whilst you are at it, you can ask Cartier why they pay truckloads to sponsor a Polo event yet wouldnt part with a few hundred thousand to reach hundreds of thousands of RL fans every week. (its ok i can tell you) www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/polo ... 92849.html

Quote ="a.n Other"Ok Smokey again in your world they "may" do that. In the real world companies generally dont try and avoid customers. Mainly due to the fact that...well...they are customers and they are the reason why they are in business. Avoiding customers = Bad Resolving complaints for customers = Good Hope that helps.'" attracting the wrong type of customers, very very bad. You ask Burberry if your right. Whilst you are at it, you can ask Cartier why they pay truckloads to sponsor a Polo event yet wouldnt part with a few hundred thousand to reach hundreds of thousands of RL fans every week. (its ok i can tell you) www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/polo ... 92849.html

Quote ="SmokeyTA"attracting the wrong type of customers, very very bad. You ask Burberry if your right. Whilst you are at it, you can ask Cartier why they pay truckloads to sponsor a Polo event yet wouldnt part with a few hundred thousand to reach hundreds of thousands of RL fans every week. (its ok i can tell you) www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/polo ... 92849.html'" So a chav couldnt by a Cartier watch? Have they stopped selling to people?

Quote ="SmokeyTA"attracting the wrong type of customers, very very bad. You ask Burberry if your right. Whilst you are at it, you can ask Cartier why they pay truckloads to sponsor a Polo event yet wouldnt part with a few hundred thousand to reach hundreds of thousands of RL fans every week. (its ok i can tell you) www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/polo ... 92849.html'" So a chav couldnt by a Cartier watch? Have they stopped selling to people?

no but if chavs can buy a Cartier watch rich people dont want them.

Cartier price their watches accordingly. If someone can afford one, they will sell them one.

Not sure where you've got then figures, and I aren't in a position to dispute them so I won't.
But...
Of the people that complained, how many had a legitimate complaint? And how many had their issue resolved and still complained? The effort used into resolving these issues (that ultimately don't get resolved anyway because the customer can't be made happy no matter what) isn't worth it to most companies.

That isn't me saying companies don't or shouldn't work on complaints. Just they shouldn't invest much time on insolvable issues for customers that probably won't spend that much anyway. If they concentrate on what makes the customers happy, then even if they do tell less people that they're happy, as long as there are MORE of them it doesn't matter.

I never said did.

Most big companies have massive customer care/complainst departments who try and resolve all complaints that are escalated to them Yes from time to time you may get customers such as Smokey who would not be happy regardless of what solution you proposed. But even if the complaint isnt justified, it will still be recorded and people will look at the reasons for the complaints and try to put meassures in place so they dont happen again. Most companies actually spend very little on their loyal customers. These are the type that are happy with their lot, dont want anymore than they already have.
But as this is a thread drift - back to the point - I would much rather Lewis was still in charge of the RFL rather than Woods and Rimmer. Sorry to see him go.

In 2001 the RFL lost 1. 9 million
In 2010, the RFL reporte the 8th straight year of Profit.

Regardless of what you think of him and his policies, he did a sound financial job with the sport.

I expect a reversal back to the "good old day" will make some on here happy, but it will be a brave replacement who tinkers with a profitable model........
I see London gone from SL by 2015.....and maybe another club as well, reverting back to 12, with TV money increased accordingly and then by 2016, HKA bitching again because they wasted money on a crocked Money Bill Williams and their fans keep on drifting away...

Is this fact or assumption? Because to me it is complete and utter rubbish. No big business is happy with their lot.

And again, you have confused "not investing as much time" as meaning "not investing any time". I never said that. Big businesses invest more time in getting their current happy customers to spend more, which is why they bring out more products and more expensive products. No customer is forever loyal, and any business that ignores them to concentrate on constantly complaining customers has built a poor business plan.

It's a fact. take sky for example. What offers do they provide to loyal customers compared to new ones? The only time they will offer any sort of deal is when you ring to cancel or complain. Then they will look at reducing costs etc. I haven't said that business ignores loyal customers for the ones that complain. But they do spend time and money trying to resolve complaints then they do keeping existing customers happy. They don't just "avoid" them as you or Smokey stated previously.

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although how the thread drifted this far without moderation is a mystery...

It's not fact, it's an assumption. You have nothing to back it up.

Taking Sky for instance, you have totally misunderstood offering new products to me giving out offers. Sky offer new products ALL THE TIME. Sky Anytime Plus is the latest. They aren't "happy with their lot" (a quote by you). I'd like you to quote anywhere I said "avoid customers" as it appears to be the basis of your argument. I have simply said they value certain customers differently. And they do. And that is how it makes it relevant to the topic about Richard Lewis.

Why do I feel like I'm back in the Sin Bin?

Where's Mintball?

During his reign best and worst:

Best:
Raised RFL income and kept it in the black
Got rid of P&R
Brought in 4 nations
Success in getting Govt support for the game

Worse:
Failed to expand the SL competition sustainably
Failed to lift the games media profile
CC lost its prestige
Changed GB to England and ditched the Ashes 3 test series

Overall I'd give him 7/10

Good example, I recon we should disband cas and move the whole club to Birmingham. Imagine the youth system, sponsors and attendances......

The real scary thing is fans of some clubs (Wigan, wire, saints, Leeds, hull) literally think that would be great

No, you've missed smokey's point entirely there. He's saying % of population attending games is irrelevant. There is therefore no follow-up point relating to locating teams only in big cities.

You are aware that #4 in your first list is directly linked to #4 in your second list aren't you?

The "government support" is from Sport England and not Sport GB, there's a rather big clue in the name.

The second part of point four in your second list is also rather spurious. The Antipodeans did not have the appetite for continuing with such a competition, the Four Nations is in my (not very) humble opinion, a far better substitute

They do, but it has nothing to do with a person complaining or not. It is more to do with what a person is worth to them financially. A club who has some paying £50 a game but moans is worth more than a person paying £18 but is happy. I agree.

Depends on the level of complaining.

But the second part I agree with and again have never disputed. Customers are often categorised in to four levels.
Cat D, being low paying high attention (the complainers that want something for nothing).
Cat C, being low paying low attention (the non-complainers that want something, have it and are happy).
Cat B, being high paying high attention (the complainers that want something, have something, but still want more for less).
Cat A, being high paying low attention (the non-complainers that want something, have it, and could potentially have more).

Someone who is paying more but moans is more valuable than someone who pays less and doesn't. But I never said anything different.
Someone said to me that someone that pays £20 a week to p*ss and moan is just as valuable as someone that pays the same and doesn't. That is a complete and utter lie, and anyone that runs their own business values (or should value) the ones that give them the least amount of hassle as these are the ones that are likely to grow your business.

And again, that does not mean you should ignore complaints (which you keep using as an argument even though I've never said it). It just means you should put more effort into your more valued customers as these are the ones that are going to help your business grow. Less effort doesn't mean no effort. The RFL have enough people working for them to be able to try and deal with complaints, but some complaints are undealable and quite frankly illogical. Perhaps the RFL should spend more time trying to educate certain groups of fans so that they understand the situation rather than trying to make them "happy", as the latter is an impossible feat.

As for the population argument, I don't particularly think the given size of a town/city, etc. is the be-all-and-end-all and definitely not as important as some are making out. London being in a population of about 8million is hardly helping. Castleford being in a population of less than 40k gives them a false impression that they've marketed to a good proportion of their town and nothing more.

What matters is that you reach the people within a certain radius of your club. It's easier to bring people in that are closer to the ground than it is further, so the further away you get from the ground, if you're still heavily populated you have a better chance of drawing people in (and by heavily populated, I don't mean "Leeds has 800k pop and Cas 37k so the further you go the better in Leeds, as there are also people from outside Castleford within the same radius as Leeds' size that would come to Wheldon Road, meaning you can increase that 37k catchment area massively).
One of the most important factors in this however is being attractive to the people in that radius. If more people in say Brentford are more connected to being from Brentford than being from London, then they are more likely to form that attachment with your club and come and support you. But at the same time that can shrink your potential from further afield. It's getting the balance right. It's why clubs don't just name themselves after the largest conurbation they're based in every time. We don't have Yorkshire Tigers, England Rhinos and GB Warriors for these reasons, and it's why I don't think Welsh Crusaders (as suggested in the past) was ever a good idea, and why I don't think New Zealand Warriors is the best idea (not to mention it could affect further potential for NZ based NRL teams IMO).

London might be a big place, but it doesn't mean that being called London is what they're attracted to. There aren't exactly many London-named football teams are there?

Reading through this thread shows one of the major problems Lewis and his future replacement had/have. You've got half your fan base wanting the game run in a modern way that fits 2012, and then you've got the other half who want it run like its still 1972.
IMO Lewis did well in terms of always trying new things and i think that is why he is disliked by some who hate change and want everything to be like it was back in the 'good old days', however i admit his execution on several of the things he tried was quite poor.
People placing the blame at his door for the financial messes at Bradford and Wakefield though need to have a look at a few other sports during these bad finanacial times of the last few years. In football a club as big as Rangers in turmoil, Liverpool 18 months ago were in a real mess before new owners came in, others such as West Ham, Southampton and Portsmouth (who only just won the FA Cup in 200icon_cool.gif all suffered all well as several more. In F1 teams like Toyota, Honda and BMW all pulled out and a budget cap was introduced to stop teams spending too much. In cricket, counties are suffering from spending money on improving grounds for Test matches and then not getting them. If all these bigger sports can suffer it was inevitable rugby league's time would come and if it wasn't for Lewis i bet at least half of Super League would be in similar positions to Bradford right now.

In time for 5 clubs to vote in favour of it according to press reports. Are you suggesting that these clubs voted in favour of a deal that hadn't even been put forward?

That modern?

Ah, there you are.

You Lewis defenders still don't get it,the other sports you talk of don't have his beloved franchise system which is suppose to stop clubs going bust as they don't have to fight to avoid relegation do they???

Thats his magical franchise the one were more clubs have gone bust since it started

So lets have a roll call step up celtic and london not forgetting wakefeild and bringing up the rear bradford.

So it seems this system you talk of is not working ah but its not his fault its the clubs for lying well if they broke the rules chuck them out? but no its carring on as normal