A long-time St. Louis Blues ticket holder has spoken out about a disastrous customer support experience during the COVID-19 pandemic at the hands of the team’s sales manager.
The fan, who had been a St. Louis Blues season ticket holder for 7 years before the mistreatment, had prepaid for the 2020-2021 season which was put on hold due to the ongoing pandemic. He then decided to request a refund for the canceled season, intending to restart payments once the season was confirmed once again.
Unfortunately, what started as a simple refund request turned out to be a month-long wait and a multi-week battle that ended with the fan being insulted and aggressively questioned over the phone by Kyle Waymon, the St Louis Blues’ sales manager.
On March 22nd, 2021, the fan-made his first refund request to his designated support rep. This request went unanswered for two weeks, during which he reached out to two different customer support emails with no luck.
On April 5th, he reached out on the phone in order to get ahold of someone only to be told that a manager would call him back by the end of the day – he never heard back.
Three days later, he called back and was connected with Kyle Waymon, the manager whose disrespect and aggression resulted in the fan cutting ties with the organization and canceling his recurring season tickets.
According to the fan, Waymon began to speak in a condescending tone, accusing the fan of having “financial troubles” for requesting a refund of his unused $22,000. He then received a follow-up call the next day from Waymon, who claimed that the fan would be forfeiting his seats if he requested a refund for the season that did not happen. This claim was later proven to be false by a different manager who got in touch towards the end of the debacle.
The call ended with the fan being promised that his refund would be issued quickly, however, no refund or follow-up call was received.
At this point, the fan reached out once again outlining the month he had been forced to wait only to be insulted once he was finally put in touch with a representative. Soon, a different representative got in contact to resolve the situation that had arisen due to Waymon’s unprofessional behavior.
After reiterating the treatment that he had received, the fan was connected with an additional representative who attempted to resolve the matter and issued a refund, but by this point, the damage had been done.
It took a month of unanswered emails and unreturned phone calls before this now ex-fan of the St Louis Blues received his refund and was contacted by a representative of the team, only for him to receive an email three months later confirming that his card was still on file and was scheduled to be charged.
According to the fan, this wasn’t the first time he experienced bad customer service from the St. Louis Blues:
“This is just one story, I’ve had nothing but horrible experiences anytime I have had any customer support needs in the past. To me, this was not that complex, I was asking for a refund for a season that did not happen and intended to pick back up next season when they have things figured out and payments begin.”
This fan had been a loyal supporter of the St. Louis Blues for the past 7 years and was expecting to continue his support regardless of the team’s performance.
Unfortunately, the disrespect and aggression that he received from the Blues’ sales manager, Kyle Waymon, changed all of that.
In writing this, we discovered that the St. Louis Blues’ customer support team leaves much to be desired – not only from this fan’s experience but from the experience of other superfans who have experienced mistreatment or outright fraud at the hands of the team, such as with the recent lawsuit filed by Aaron Stock against the St. Louis Blues, for selling him over $30,000 of alleged mislabeled and fraudulent merchandise – a situation that he brought to the attention of the customer support team, only to be ignored.
With so much on the line for fans, especially in the face of the pandemic, many companies have upped their game when it comes to customer support, going above and beyond to ease the blow of canceled seasons and an unpredictable future. Unfortunately, the management behind the St. Louis Blues hasn’t followed suit and only time will tell how many loyal fans this will cost them.
You can view the original article HERE.
