Stadium workers win customer satisfaction game

Marcia Heroux Pounds
Business Strategies

September 14, 2006

To say I am a fair-weather sports fan is an exaggeration. But when I made my annual appearance with a friend at a Marlins game recently, I appreciated the competitiveness on and off the baseball field.

Giving their best pitch with Dr. Seuss-like hats and bellowing voices, the beer hawkers were as engaging to watch as the action on the field. They were having fun and so was I.

Stadium workers are special kinds of workers, explains Kathleen Davis, chief executive of Fort Lauderdale-based Sport Management Research Institute. "They're competitive, fun-loving. They enjoy gaming. They love people."

Davis is in New Orleans working on a special challenge this week: helping to train 1,000 workers -- 70 percent of them new -- for the not-quite-refurbished Superdome. The workers are being prepared for the season beginning Sept. 25 when the New Orleans Saints come home for their first football game since last year's devastating Hurricane Katrina.

An academic who once worked at New Orleans' Tulane University, Davis did research on the dynamic of the sports fan before founding her business.
Today her firm trains staff and performs assessment programs for many of the NFL teams and baseball franchises including the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox.

SMRI was hired to tweak the customer service program of SMG, a Philadelphia-based stadium operator that manages 200 sports and entertainment venues worldwide.

Together the firms developed "K-nekt," described as a 360-degree customer service program. The program draws on continuous feedback and data to help identify areas where a venue needs to "raise the bar," says Davis, author of the textbook, Sport Management: Private Sector Business Strategies.

The Superdome workers will work around the continued renovation of the arena, not expected to be finished until next spring. "That's a challenge, but we've faced far greater challenges in the past," says Glenn Mon, who oversees SMG's operations for stadiums and who once managed what was then known as Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami.

Here are some elements of the K-nekt training that could be adapted to any
workplace:

Make it fun. After teaching at universities including Tulane, Rice, Northeastern and Florida Atlantic, Davis knows students pay more attention when a lesson is engaging. She applies the same principle to training workers.

"We keep it light and entertaining and purposeful; the whole accelerated learning works best when people are enjoying themselves," Davis says.

Involve workers. Superdome employees will be asked to help SMRI create a protocol for welcoming fans to the stadium. "The keys to success are getting the staff to buy into it," Davis explains.

Know your workers. Stadium workers tend to be competitive, Davis says, so she incorporates that into her training.

This week's training will culminate with the "Superdome of Service Game,"
for example. Team members will compete to come up with responses to questions. "It reinforces the principles," Davis says.

The ultimate goal is to make sure workers are knowledgeable about the new features of the Superdome so they can "give an answer or find a way to give you the answer." Fans want to know where to find the ATM, the restroom or the food, so they can get to their seats as quickly as possible to see the game.

Do continual follow-up. Service at the stadium will be checked through SMRI's "mystery shopper" program. Stadium management receives detailed reports that offer construction criticism and recommended action plans based on the mystery shoppers' feedback.

Davis says employee training also has to be sensitive to the events of last year. The world's view of the New Orleans icon was one surrounded by flooding waters with stranded residents inside. Now the Superdome is part of New Orleans' rebirth.

"We're stronger. We're better. We're back. ... This is the Big Easy. This is what we're all about," Davis says.

Marcia Heroux Pounds can be reached at mpounds@sun-sentinel.com or
561-243-6650.

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