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Perhaps the most magical of service experiences are those where Place, Process, and Performance come together so seamlessly that they seem inseparable to the customer, patron, client, and user. The ball-park without the teams, the game, the lights, the crowd, and the peanut vendor is only mildly interesting . . . even if it IS the house that Ruth built. The great resort destination without the easy check-in, simple room-charge system, and thoughtful service people is, at best, half a loaf—regardless of the beach, the vista, and the hammock. And the trek up the mountain of your dreams, without the knowledgeable guide, the fellow travelers to share the experience, and the evening campfire to reminisce around, is a greatly diminished adventure.

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That synergy is obvious at Midway Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota, home of the St. Paul Saints, a Northern League baseball team. Some fans of professional baseball consider the major leagues “the show,” but everyone in the packed stands at a Saints home game knows they’re watching a much more gloriously entertaining version of the national pastime—and their enjoyment has only a slight connection to the qual-ity of the baseball being played on the field.

The Saints have been drawing fans—more than 2.26 million of them since 1993—to this funky, old stadium by following a simple slo-gan: “Fun is good.” That’s a phrase that defines the organization’s mar-keting plan, that is written on the tops of dugouts, and that describes the philosophy of the team’s part owner and president Mike Veeck.⁷

Fun abounds at Saints games, and it keeps the fans coming. They come to get a haircut or a massage in the stands. They come to applaud as the team mascot, a pig, trots out to deliver balls to the umpire. They come to cheer the wisecracking announcer and jeer contestants in a multitude of dopey between-innings events from fans dressing in inflat-able costumes for sumo wrestling matches to blindfolded base-running competitions. They come to experience the magic of the tailgating, the contests, and the Saints’ quirky charm. They come because they never know quite what to expect—except fun.

The carnival atmosphere that seems effortless is the result of a dedi-cated staff of ten that spends the off-season coming up with goofy ideas and themes for each home game: Halloween in July, Irish night, Groundhog Day (a riff on the Bill Murray movie, not the holiday). “I hope it looks effortless because we work hard at it,” says Bill Fisher, assis-tant general manager. “It’s not as easy as just announcing a ‘Halloween Night.’ You’ve gotta know someone who has coffins.” Which Fisher did, as it turned out. A buddy, who is “into Halloween in a big way, let me know he had a whole yard full of coffins we could use.”

The Saints make a point of knowing their customers. Players show up before games to sign autographs. The staff works every home game.

Veeck, Fisher, and everyone who can, spend time in the stands, talking with the fans. The result: They deliver value to their mostly blue-collar, working-folk fans by keeping ticket, concession, and parking prices low so families can afford the night of live entertainment a Saints’ game provides.⁸

The 6,329-seat ballpark has no stadium seating. The aluminum bleachers are so uncomfortable that experienced Saints’ fans bring their own cushions, a habit the team encourages with regular giveaways.

The 2002 giveaway—cushions depicting Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig on one side and Major League Baseball’s Player

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Association representative Donald Fehr on the other—was a clever pro-motion that inspired sports writers to bad lines about turning the other cheek to both sides in the big league’s 2002 labor dispute.⁹

In 1998, the city of St. Paul proposed building a new stadium for the ball club, so the Saints surveyed their fans. They responded with a re-sounding “no,” and the team passed on it. But the stadium question hasn’t gone away: once again, there’s talk of building the Saints a new home on the Mississippi riverfront on the west side of St. Paul.

Most fans don’t like the idea of leaving the old stadium, Fisher ad-mits, but seem resigned to the idea that it might be time—especially after waiting in a long line at the inadequate restrooms or spending a butt-numbing night on cold, aluminum bleachers. “We’ve reached the point where we’re talking about a new stadium or a major update to this one,” he says. Fans, nonetheless, insist that there is a magic to the rick-ety, old, industrial-park venue. “Where else,” they ask, “can you go to a ball park with an active railroad track?” Somehow, a game without a passing train has become a disappointment. Perhaps the concierge that is being added next season will help overcome the loss.

Even so, the St. Paul Saints will continue to awe and delight because they’ve perfected their ability to deliver enchantment to customers. As general manager Bill Fanning says: “The fans are the magic. Our job is to provide a fun, fan-friendly, personalized atmosphere that encourages their collective personality to come out. Win or lose, we want the fans to leave with a smile on their faces.”¹⁰

AND FOR OUR NEXT TRICK . . .

What follows, further develops the three Ps of Service Magic—and the emerging technology for putting these magics to work. Whether your orientation is organization—that is, you’d like to put a little magic to work for your company, division, department, store, or association—

or your orientation is personal and you’d just like to spruce up your personal magic act—there is something here for you. Sections 2 and 3 of Service Magic expand on the practice of adding magic to Place and Process. And while the focus of these two sections is largely organiza-tional, there is guidance aplenty for the individual service magician as well. Section 4 explains in detail the philosophy and practice of Performance Magic. This section is dedicated to those who come face-to-face with customers every day. The four chapters of this section, plus the Service Magician’s Pocket Tool Kit found in Section 7, are

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full of tips, tricks, and ideas for putting a little more Performance Magic to work for those customers.

Section 5, is dedicated exclusively to those who practice service in the virtual realm and want to separate their province there from the mundane tone of Place, Process, and Performance that characterizes so much of what exists in the virtual space of the World Wide Web. Along the way we will introduce you to organizations—Section 6 showcases five of them—and individuals for whom Service Magic is a way of life and who can serve as role models for your organizational and individ-ual aspirations. If your desire is to elevate the service you deliver, to add a little magic to your customer encounters, to raise the experience above the din and beyond the humdrum, we invite you to turn the page, lift the curtain, and let us share with you the fascinating secrets of Service Magic.

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