Pete Winemiller: The little things mean a lot

It looks like a recipe for a customer-service nightmare: A company offers a product that is inconsistent, the frontline employees are mostly part-timers who don't work directly for the organization, and many of the customers have been drinking alcohol. Welcome to the world of the Seattle SuperSonics and the Seattle Storm. Pete Winemiller, the organization's vice president of guest relations, was a featured speaker at the Center for Service Leadership's 18th Annual "Compete Through Service: Set the Pace" symposium, which is the subject of an up-coming Special Report from Knowledge @ W. P. Carey. Winemiller said achieving success in customer relations means setting big goals and meeting them through little acts.

This looks like a recipe for a customer-service nightmare. A company offers a product that is inconsistent — and there's no way to change that. The frontline employees are mostly part-timers who don't work directly for the organization. Many of the customers have been drinking alcohol. Welcome to the world of the Seattle SuperSonics of the National Basketball Association and the Seattle Storm of the Women's National Basketball Association.

Keeping fans happy and retaining them as customers is a tall order, but the Seattle teams do it well. NBA Commissioner David Stern has called the Sonics/Storm "the gold standard" for customer relations in the sport. "I can't guarantee when you buy a ticket that your favorite team is going to win," said Pete Winemiller, the organization's vice president of guest relations and a featured speaker at the Center for Service Leadership's 18th Annual "Compete Through Service: Set the Pace" symposium. "Basketball is a drama."

But in addition to putting the best teams they can on the court, the Sonics and Storm find other ways to ensure a positive experience for paying customers. Winemiller said achieving success in customer relations means setting big goals and meeting them through little acts. "People don't remember days, they remember moments," Winemiller said.

A person won't rate a day as being bad or good because every waking hour was miserable or pleasurable. They decide if a day or an experience is good or bad based on a few key moments. When it comes to customers, the negative outweighs the positive, research done in the retail industry shows. "It takes nine to 12 positive events, situations to make up for the one negative interaction," Winemiller said.

The real VIPs

Winemiller said because each interaction is so crucial, people in suits who set policy are not the most important people in the organization. "We believe the frontline staff in our business represents the bottom line," Winemiller said. Winemiller cited a study by the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, which showed that more than two-thirds of customers who quit doing business with a company did so because of perceived indifference on the part of employees.

The Sonics need 510 employees to host an NBA basketball game. About 30 are full-time employees of the teams. The rest are either part-timers or work for one of seven other companies. For example, ushers are the employees of the City of Seattle, which owns Key Arena, the building the teams lease for games. The concessionaires work for Aramark.

But in the eyes of fans who come to the games, every one of those people works for the Sonics or the Storm. If the beer is warm or the hot dog is cold, it's the team's fault. "I've never gotten a phone call in the time I've been with the Sonics from someone asking for the number of Aramark." he said.

Productive environment

"You can't provide consistent, great service unless you take care of the most important customer — yourself," he said. The frontline employees need to feel good about themselves and the decision they made to join the organization. To reinforce that idea, the Sonics and Storm have an acronym, R.A.V.E., which stands for respect and value everyone.

"For the true success of any company, you have to have that in the background of who you are," he said. The Seattle teams demand that staff apply the "respect and value everyone" doctrine to all customers — and that customers give it back. "It has to happen in a 360-degree manner," he said. If that's not happening, staffers are required to let management know.

"We don't just want you to tell somebody. You must tell somebody," Winemiller said. It's important for credibility that someone who can make a difference finds out when the work environment does live up to the company's stated principles. "If you don't have that, it becomes viral," he said.

Empowerment

Research shows 70 percent of customers will do business with a company again if a problem is resolved in their favor, Winemiller said, and if the problem is resolved in their favor on the spot, 95 percent would do business with a company again. To that end, the Sonics and Storm have empowered all the frontline employees at Key Arena to solve problems on the spot.

For example, a few nights before the symposium, someone spilled food on a fan's jacket at a Sonics game. He was too cold to sit comfortably without a jacket. An usher went to the team shop and came back with a Sonics jacket for the fan. "Now mind you, these are employees from different work groups, so there's a trust issue here," Winemiller said.

The usher could have sent the fan to the restroom or retrieved some paper towels. But he decided this was the best way to solve the problem, Winemiller said. "On top of it, we lost the game," he said. "Now you tell me, does this [the usher's action] help me or hurt me?"

In a three-hour training session before each NBA season, frontline employees are clearly told they have the green light to solve problems like this. They are taught to listen, to learn what the problem is and to go with their gut instincts in finding solutions. When an employee is given the OK to resolve situations he has a sense of power and pride.

"It's fun to solve problems," Winemiller said. It's good for the customer and good for the business. "It's a win-win-win. I'm surprised more businesses don't do it." Winemiller said there's a common-sense limit to what frontline employees should do to keep the customer happy. It's OK to offer someone a free dinner to make up for some mishap. It's not OK to offer 43 dinners. "We want to retain guests profitably," he said.

Delivering consistent service is the key, Winemiller said. "If you can't deliver it consistently, you never really get ahead." That said, Winemiller observed that some guests make outrageous or dishonest demands, such as demanding tickets to which they are not entitled. The organization has no interest in keeping those customers happy.

The Sonics and Storm don't have a customer relations department. It's called guest relations. Winemiller says his No. 1 concern is safety rather than customer retention. No matter how courteous the staff is, it does little good if the guest leaves Key Arena injured.

“It’s not always the case that customer is right and the employee is always wrong,’’ he said. “It has to be a two-way street.” Alcohol drives many guest behavior problems, Winemiller said. "Either it's the majority or it's a high number," he said. "In our city, with the Mariners at Safeco, the Seahawks at Qwest and the Sonics at Key Arena, those are the three biggest bars in town," he said.

On the move

The Sonics may not be in Key Arena much longer. In early November, the ownership group headed by Clay Bennett told the NBA that the group intends to relocate the team to Oklahoma City as soon as it can get out of its lease at Key Arena. Bennett's group has been holding out the possibility of a move in an effort to get the city or the state of Washington to build a new arena. Bennett has said the Storm might stay in Seattle.

Key Arena is a building that dates to 1962, when it was built as the Seattle Coliseum as part of the World's Fair. The building was extensively remodeled in 1995. With that uncertainty in the background, customer service becomes even more important, Winemiller said. "This whole message of service really gets tremendous momentum when you are in challenging times," he said.

Bottom line

• Pro sports create a challenging environment for keeping customers happy because the product is inconsistent by nature.
• People gauge experiences by a few moments they remember. Customers judge a company by relatively short interactions with frontline employees. It takes numerous positive experiences to overcome a single negative interaction.
• To deliver good service on a consistent basis employees must feel good about themselves. The Sonics/ Storm organization practices what it calls, R.A.V.E., Respect And Value Everyone.
• Quick, positive resolution of customer problems all but guarantees the customer will be retained. Empowering employee decisions on the spot is in the company's best interest.