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By
Molly Petrilla
Most
visitors to your facility
won’t remember eating an undercooked burger, but they will remember the
employee who went out of his way to find them a new, well-done burger and
threw in a free Coke as an apology. While facilities are often in close
competition, one surefire way to put yourself ahead of the pack is through
excellent customer service. In fact, customer service “is probably the
biggest thing that contributes to our success,” says Larry Gawronski, vice
president and
executive director
of the Vicksburg Convention Center and Auditorium in Vicksburg, Miss.
“We have to be competitive on price point and have the
best equipment, the best amenities, the best meeting space, the tastiest
food — but when it all comes down to it, if we don’t have great customer
service, we’re out of business.”
While intuitive in many ways, great customer service is far from effortless;
it requires well-trained, carefully selected staffers and a conscious
commitment to superior service. It’s also critical to making sure your
facility not only survives, but also thrives.
Why It
Matters
“If we’re giving great service, it’s not just making the fans happy, it’s
also making us, the employees, happy as well,” says Stacey Gregg, guest
services manager at PETCO Park, home of the San Diego Padres baseball team.
While happy staff members and attendees are, to quote a
well-known commercial, priceless, superior customer service also yields more
tangible results. For example, Gregg says that when a Padres season-ticket
holder who sits behind the home plate heard an event staffer had been
leading kid-friendly games like Simon Says for sections near right field, he
began to buy tickets to additional games so he could bring his sons and sit
with them in the exuberant staffer’s section.
As in the case of that Padres fan, excellent customer
service is the key to bringing customers back and to making sure their
experiences in your facility are memorable ones. As Gawronski puts it, “We
have found that the vast majority of our customers come back because they
feel like they’re coming home and they’re treated well.”
It Starts
with Your Staff
“I can teach anyone on my team the skill sets for the job,” Gawronski says.
“What I can’t teach them is how to love a customer. I think that is
inherent, and it’s something I look for in my team. In fact, I have this
motto: ‘Hire for attitude, train for skills.’” Ideally, he says, prospective
employees will exhibit excellent listening skills, a knack for remembering
names, and an inborn sincerity and desire to help.
When interviewing prospective employees, keep your
facility’s fundamental service philosophy in mind. For example, if you pride
your facility on being friendly and easy to understand, make sure
prospective staff members embody those qualities.
Once you’ve chosen your team, make sure to train them specifically in
customer service as well as other aspects of the job. To that end, Gregg and
her colleagues have developed Major League Memories — an annual every Padres
event staffer (more than 2,200 in all) an opportunity to “recommit to our
vision and our four core values: safety, ser-vice, smiles and success,”
Gregg explains.
This past year, in celebration of the team’s fifth
season at PETCO Park, organizers moved the training from its usual indoor
classroom setting to the facility’s field and seating bowl. Gregg and her
colleagues presented a lively, nine-inning customer service training that
included treats from the concession stand, a live band and a 100-foot-long
red carpet with managers on each side applauding their employees.
“The feedback was overwhelming,” Gregg says. “Our staff
members were saying how special they felt that the Padres invest this time
and training in them. Based on their comments, it was clear that they were
excited to go make the difference for guests.”
The Padres event staff managers also hold smaller
monthly versions of Major League Memories for new staff members. These
sessions rely heavily on role-play, and as new staff members move from
classroom to classroom, they often come across supervisors acting out
scenarios and asking how to resolve the situation.
For facilities with small staffs or tight budgets,
there are still numerous ways to train and reinforce customer service
practices in employees. Gawronski, who leads a team of nine, says he
encourages his employees to explore the written resources provided by his
facility’s management firm, which include tips on customer service and
attitude.
Luther Villagomez, general manager of the George R.
Brown Convention Center in Houston, uses retreats as a way to review staff
members’ accomplishments and discuss any customer service issues. His team
also gathers on a weekly basis to talk about the customers they’ve
encountered.
The Power
to Say Yes
Empowering your employees is also crucial to successful customer service.
“We want our event staff to know that they can resolve any issue within
their own rights, no questions asked,” Gregg says. “That way, they’re able
to take ownership of the situations themselves and [thereby] make a
difference in someone’s day.”
For example, she says, if a guest spills his soda and a
staff member sees it, that staff member will automatically go up to the
guest, walk him to the concession stand, and get him a replacement. “They
don’t have to get a manager or supervisor,” she adds. “Nobody had to wait,
and they weren’t given a hard time at the concession stand about why they
needed an extra Coke.”
Padres event staffers are also taught to go straight to
a guest service center and grab a “recovery bag” — a bag filled with Padres
goodies, including shirts, hats and balls — if a guest has had to deal with
an unpleasant situation, such as a nearby customer using foul language. “The
employee goes and gets that on their own, brings it back to the seats, and
says, ‘Hey, thank you for working with us today,’” Gregg says.
Recognizing your employees for providing excellent
customer service is also an important way to keep customer service at the
front of their minds. Villagomez awards an Employee of the Month based on
staff members’ contributions (including guest service) that month, and
winners receive gift cards and special parking assignments.
Whenever a PETCO Park employee is commended by a guest,
he or she receives a pin and a letter, and is introduced at an all- staff
meeting. The Padres staff managers also hand out Star Cards whenever they
notice an event staffer providing excellent service, and those cards are
entered into frequent prize drawings.
In his facility, Gawronski has instituted a program
called You Caught My Eye, through which employees who are “caught in the
act” of providing outstanding customer service are recognized with their
photo posted in the staff office. The concept has since been picked up by
the city’s Chamber of Commerce. “Employee recognition can be something as
simple as that,” Gawronski adds. “There doesn’t have to be a dollar in it.
[Your staff members] just need to know that somebody else recognized what
they did and called them out for it.”
Going the
Extra Mile
When training his team, Gawronski tells them to imagine that guests are
“coming into our home,” and to treat each as if they were a personal
visitor. “We want customers to be comfortable and feel relaxed,” he adds.
For Villagomez, providing that level of customer
comfort means helping show organizers and attendees with needs they may not
even anticipate, including calling taxis, recommending the best local
restaurants, helping make restaurant r eservations,
and providing free Wi-Fi and an in-house FedEx/Kinko’s service. The George
R. Brown Convention Center also has an on-site visitor center that offers
guests a “Top 25” list of places to visit while they are in town. And your
customer service efforts shouldn’t end when guests leave your facility.
Gawronski says keeping in close contact with customers
is key, whether it’s checking in with a phone call or e-mail, or sending a
holiday greeting card or a note. “I can’t tell you what that means when I
get one, and it’s something I’ve done as a habit for years, and have imbued
to the team here,” he adds. “We take every opportunity to recognize somebody
and communicate with them.”
Gathering
Feedback
To ensure that PETCO Park offers the best possible service, event staffers
encourage attendees to leave comments on the facility’s Web site, while
managers hold two-hour roundtable discussions with randomly selected guests.
“We’ve found that more people take the time to write us
on their experience when they can simply use the Web site at their
convenience,” Gregg explains. “The roundtables are also helpful, because
they allow us to reach out to the diverse areas of our clientele and
understand how we can make their experience better.”
Villagomez’s facility sends out evaluation forms after
each event and also holds meetings with clients, and Gawronski also solicits
input through written surveys that can either be anonymous or include names.
However, Gawronski feels the best customer service
feedback is also the most obvious: “We have a lot of rebookings,” he says,
“and that, to me, is the proof in the
pudding.”
fm
Molly Petrilla is
a Philadelphia-based freelance writer whose work has been featured in
newspapers and magazines throughout the country. She has written on a
variety of topics, including health, food, business and travel.
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