I don't have any issues like yours but I can tell you from the experience I have had with their merchandise shop that their customer is absolutely worthless. I had an issue with an order I placed sent an email to customer service and the person just sent back a canned reply. I could tell they didn't even read my email. So, I sent another email asking for specific answers to my questions and got back the exact same email I got the first time. Sent another email and said I better not get back the same email as the first two times and what did I get back the same freaking email. All three emails had a different persons name on them which I found funny. But, ya, your right, they do not care about their customers it is an amazing business model. They can do whatever they want and people will still flood in to pay for it.

Just an aside based on this quote from the article you linked to,

Quote:

I think it's fair to say that organizing an Ironman triathlon isn't nearly as personally challenging as training to compete in one.

Clearly written by someone who's never been a race director even at a local level.

I have race directed local events, and it's a brutal job. Way more personally challenging to me than training for an Ironman.

I think you are roughly correct that there is so much pent up demand that they don't need us now even though they NEED us overall.

But since you are in Utah, there are around 35IronCowboy distance events on deck and I think James will let you do them for free too!!!! (pink font is optional).

Seriously, you would think Ironman in this year would allow people to cancel with full refund and simply open up races that are filled with people who actually want to cancel and allow athletes in who want to do different events!

Yes.
Last event I directed I was up at 4am and there was always something to do until 7pm.
I could barely stand while drinking my shower beer after.
And that was just the work on the day of the race.

yeah, i think that's it. IM is sort of like coca-cola or something - they need customers generally, but they don't specifically need you. boycott their product and someone else will take your spot. (even if someone else doesn't, your lost business is such a drop in the bucket they don't feel it.) they've got a waiting list, and as long as demand for their product stays higher than the supply of it, they're in the driver's seat. . .

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

in my experience, almost nobody who races and IM race feels that the return on investment was anything other than exemplary. IM is, quite simply without peer, worldwide, when it comes to putting on multiples of mass participation endurance events. you have individual races that are the equal - roth, boston marathon, what have you - but when it comes to a brand that reproduces itself around the world, nobody can rival IM.

every single one of those BBB complaints is about race transfers. either none of the transfers work for the user, or IM hasn't gotten back to the user about a transfer.

but i hear you on the transfer thing. it's just that i always heard you on the transfer thing. before covid, it was the same thing. our sport has always suffered from the fact that an entry fee doesn't ever buy you equity in anything; it only buys you permission to race a race on that day. my one big regret of our nat gov body in the US is that it didn't push hard to produce a secondary buy/sell/transfer market for entries with its online reg partner (active for many years). it didn't need to mandate that its RD partners use it, just, make it available.

anyway, my main point is that IM does absolutely treat its customers right on race day. all the dissatisfaction is about that other thing.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Dev, don't get me started on IC. Although I thought his response to Ironman was hilarious. LOL

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http://dontletitdefeatyou.blogspot.com

I love this idea of a secondary market for entry fees. It would make so much of this heartache and complication just go away. I agree that when I have raced the experience has been great but only as long as everything goes perfectly prior to the race. Any little hiccup and IM has no clue how to help you and they are not incentivized at all to help you.

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http://dontletitdefeatyou.blogspot.com

I had to read the quote a few times as I was sure there was a typo.

Just like Ticketmaster and Stubhub, entries will appear for .000001 seconds before being purchased by bots and insiders and listed on a reseller site for a markup of 200%.

my main point is that IM does absolutely treat its customers right on race day.


I agree 100% with what Dan has stated here!

In terms of volume and when you add in Rock-n-Roll Marathons, IRONMAN is without peer in the world, delivering a very high level of Race Day Experience to it's participants. Sure there are other singular races/events that come close, and maybe even exceed, but IM does this multiple times every weekend, all around the world all year long (in normal times)

On the admin side - EVERY Endurance Sports Race/Event around the world that runs as a true business, has struggled and been challenged as to what to do during the pandemic. It's NOT been easy. Many have been pushed to the absolute brink. More than a few organizers have gone out of business.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

well, then, how about this. remember that i bemoan the fact that our NGB coulda shoulda done this but didn't. so, you have to be an annual member of the NGB in order to participate. or, you have to have paid some sort of annual fee, $19.99, whatever, to participate in the stubhubby like service.

bring the reasons why we can't do this as fast as you can, and i'll answer them as fast as i can.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

RD here. Totally agree. Is IM perfect? no. Few businesses are.

Minimally a 2021 secondary transfer market for already sold out races where the race entry was bought in 2020 or 2019 would remove the entire bot buying problem but deal with the post Covid19 lack of supply of race entries while simulataneouly deal with holders of race entries who don't want to do those races a means to dispose.

There are some infuriating things about Ironman (Andrew Messick, the quality of their merch, any online customer service you need, race transfer/deferral policies), but the events themselves are quite good.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

100% in agreement with Eric.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Bot operators will just pay the annual fee under multiple pseudonyms, cuz scalping just one race entry will pay for it.

Pretty much any process you design for resellers will be gamed. I don't really have a solution for how to make it fair though while keeping it cheap and uncomplicated.

See but this is the problem, you can't separate all that from the race experience you pay for. When I pay my entry fee I expect that at a minimum I will have good communication from the company on issues. Details that are relevant for me to plan to participate on the event are critical and are absolutely part of what I pay for. IM royally sucks at this. Kudos to all the race directors that are local to me since I have never felt disrespected or outright ignored by them.

I'm talking about minimum levels of customer service! IM is incapable of even answering one e-mail and in the oft chance they do it is with a form response that doesn't answer the question. I'm sorry but that is just as important as the race day experience.

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http://dontletitdefeatyou.blogspot.com

And let's not forget what the customer experiences as they cross the finish line with Mike Reilly shouting out, "You are an Ironman!". I have seen athletes come to tears once they hear those words as they cross the finish line. No other race that experience!

My last Ironman was in Germany and I was so thankful to NOT have Mike Reilly there with his tired schtick.
The German guy was far, far better.

Funny you should mention this. I just got on the forum this second to inquire if anyone else was having trouble with otherwise sensible re-transfers to races back close to home after prior transfers to other locations.

Further, my wife can't get an email back from them. Does anyone have an email address for IM where they can get a live person to respond back? My wife has emailed almost a dozen times regarding a transfer and registration question.

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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And another upvote here. I've organised local races, volunteered and referred for everything from the smallest club junior event to world cup races and several weeks (yes weeks as annual leave from work to volunteer for Ironman events setting up and pulling down), supported at everything and raced all distances.

And of the lot then I think volunteering is the most fatiguing, closely followed by supporting and after that racing (yep, I take longer to recover from supporting Ironman than racing), but Race Directing is the most thankless task and by far the most stressful for months before dealing with all the permissions, uncertainties and (I can say this now as I don't currently have any association with any event) the immense list of really dumb questions and expectations of athletes. Honestly, as athletes we are in general, the most irrationally self entitled bunch of dicks in race week/ race day. Don't get me wrong, the moment we flop over that finish line 99% of us revert back to the good humans we otherwise are, but whilst that 'red mist'/race face is on, we are not good people.

By example, the guy that spent 2 minutes screaming at my wife (who had got up at 5am on a Sunday to run registration whilst I built and set out transition) that he had to jump over 3 mesh fences to get from the swim into transition and then the layout was wrong as it meant that some people in his wave got an advantage and shorter run out. Was only after the race that I was able to discuss the logic that perhaps his route choice to add 3 sets of hurdles over fences could imply some degree of self responsibility for entering transition at the wrong end.

First time it really hit me how hard it was to put on an Ironman was volunteering (I'd already raced Ironman and put on some club races). But one morning I spent simply putting the drinks on the table ahead of the athlete briefing. The rest of the day I spent moving all teh unused bottles back to the store at one end of the tent.... Was over a tonne of bottles to put out and move. And then a friend spent over a day - full day of working hours worth, and then half a day of teh two of us to finish the next day, just flattening the cola for aid stations pouring into and out of buckets to de-fizz. That's the scale of organisation and resource needed that I never thought of when I wandered into the briefings or mumbled about the cup only being a third full not half full at the 31km aid station...

Heck, spectating an Ironman is way harder than an Ironman.

It goes:

Race director
Spectator
Ironman

E

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Totally agree with Eric Lambi and GMAN that race day is great; everything else is lacking.

The race is the core product and why we keep coming back.

The quality control just isn’t very good when it comes to:

Customer service
Merchandising
Website
Media strategy
Some other stuff I’m forgetting

I also ding them for not supporting the sport. Start with the predatory approach to all the independent races they squeezed out of business. They do something close to the minimum for pros. They don’t develop the sport at shorter distances, youth/college level, or in any other way.

I will give them credit for the covid deferral policy. I know many dislike it, but when the virus appeared, I expected the worst from them (I’d be out $1000s in fees). I’m happy with the options I have been given.