November 10, 2017

How We’re Always Striving to Improve Savage Race Based on YOUR Feedback

Hey Savages! Today we’d like to give you an inside look at how we’re committed to continually improving your experience at Savage Race.

You already know we have the best obstacles, and that our race is the perfect distance. But did you know that we have an internal focus on always making Savage Race better?

We work hard to connect with you, our growing Savage community, and then put on an amazing event that you just can’t stop talking about. Then, we review a number of metrics to measure the success of each event. We consider what worked well and what we could do better next time. After that we make adjustments (sometimes big ones!) and repeat the process.

The end result is a better Savage experience each time you come out to one of our events, and we’re darned proud of that.

One of the biggest ways we learn about needed improvements is by conducting surveys to get feedback from you. We also track our Net Promoter Score (NPS) after each event, which is a simple way to measure customer loyalty over time. This information is really useful for us because it gives us a clear picture of our strengths, our weaknesses, and if we’re improving our relationship with you.

(Spoiler alert – we are! Our average NPS score has improved a ton this year.)

Our whole team strives to hit high NPS numbers and we all feel a great sense of accomplishment when we have a highly rated event. In addition, our surveys track some important metrics that we know you care about. Things like your favorite obstacles, the course length, what you thought of the race venue, how your photos turned out, how reasonable the lines at the obstacles were, your satisfaction with unique programs like Savage Syndicate, and more.

The information we learn gives us a chance to make company-wide improvements, and it also gives our team members an opportunity to go above and beyond on a case-by-case basis depending on unique situations we’re presented with.

As a relatively small team putting on a growing number of events each year, we have to have certain policies and standards in place. That’s one of the things that keeps our events running smoothly for you. But that doesn’t mean we don’t make exceptions to our rules from time to time. In fact, we love having the opportunity to do something out of the ordinary for you every once in awhile.

For example, we don’t typically offer military discounts for SavageJR registrations, but recently one of our team members stepped up and gave a discount to a military woman who was registering four kids on race day for the Junior race. We were happy to say “thank you” to this Savage woman for her service to our country!

There are lots of other unique things we’ve done (and continue to do) that show our commitment to the customer experience. Here are just a few more examples that you might find interesting:

We’ve hosted engagement proposals and even weddings at our events. We bring in extra water and have tents with cool water misters for extremely hot race days. We send divers into the water obstacles after every event to retrieve lost GoPros and then we work hard to track down their owners. We give refunds to active duty service members who can’t make it on race day due to their military responsibilities.

We’ve also offered discounted or even free registrations to people who have bought tickets to other OCR races that have gone out of business. We have plans in place to make things right in case an event gets rained out. And if someone gets injured at the race and has to leave early, we mail their medals and shirts to them afterwards.

In addition to these unique above-and-beyond things we do, there are a ton of other race-wide improvements we’ve made based on your feedback.

Here are some examples:

  • course distance – we’ve adjusted our course distance over the years to find the best distance for our Savage community
  • obstacle quality – we review obstacle rankings and replace lower rated obstacles each year with something new
  • obstacle sizing – we strive to eliminate line backups by building the obstacles based on throughput calculations (in other words, we change the size of the obstacles based on how many people will be at the event)
  • free spectator pass with SavageJR registration – we added a free spectator pass to every Junior registration based on feedback from parents and grandparents who accompany their young ones to the race
  • build crew size – we’ve added more people to our build crew in order to limit the number of hours worked and to keep morale extremely high
  • VIP Parking – we were asked for VIP parking and added more parking crew members to handle parking options at multiple lots at the same time
  • merchandise – we constantly make adjustments based on feedback about designs, colors, and quality
  • customer service – our customer service team takes care of many unique needs and requests; recently, we waived the transfer fees for people who couldn’t come to one of our races due to the hurricanes in Texas and Florida

As you can see, we mean it when we say we take your feedback and turn it into positive changes for the company!

We LOVE hearing from you, and it’s messages like this one that show us we’re on the right track:

What’s up Savage Race,

I just got done volunteering and running in Maryland and I have a few things to say:

1) All the staff members I encountered and worked with were laid back and professional.

2) I watched each zone leader look after their volunteers ensuring they had plenty of food and water.

3) The course itself was amazing. Savage obstacles set the bar for OCR a little higher in the best way possible.

Thank you so much for putting on a great event. I seriously wish I had gotten involved in your series earlier. Keep up the great work!!

Travis W.

So what can you do to help us improve even more in the coming months and years?

Fill out those surveys! If you get a survey in your inbox, please take a few minutes to give us your thoughts and suggestions. We promise to review every single response, and turn those responses into improvements that you’ll see for yourself at your next race.

We hope this inside look at our improvement process has been interesting to you, and that you see how much we care. As always, thanks so much for your support and for helping us make Savage Race what it is today – we wouldn’t be here without you!

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