Rink

The Knife just found some black mystery pucks on his pretend rink in his fantasy viral world and wants to share them with his adult drop-in guys. Why, you ask? Maybe because I charge them $8 to play and I'm trying to take the whole cus- tomer service thing to the next level. Or maybe, just maybe, if I'm giving them up freely, they might stop stealing them from me. Who knows? Either way, I think we all have some sort of customer service obligation to the guys that pay the least amount of money to use our ice, and create the most work and headaches. Perhaps I'm too much of a pessimist (I've been called worse), but is anyone else hit- ting the end of their season and really, and I mean really, looking forward to it? I'm all about making money and keeping the rink filled, but something lately actually makes me look forward to the end of the season and having to dig through the trash for recyclables just to scrape up enough scratch to pay the bills. The Knife is kidding. Seriously boss, I'm only kidding. Not about digging through the trash, through; about looking forward to the end of the season. How many of our regular customers are coming back to the rink for next fall? What have we done to make them want to come back? I just put out a satisfaction survey to our core customers. The results were encouraging. My staff did a lot of good things this year. We received some great feedback on what we need to do to raise the bar even higher next year. It's up to me to steer the ship and make things happen. We've got four months to get a plan and execute. Who else is up for it? The Knife took the quiz, Which kind of Care Bear are you? Answer: The one with the rain cloud on his stomach, which indicates The Knife has a subconscious bed-wetting fear. Bummer, especially because I can think of a whole lot of other things that keep me awake at night. What am I doing right, that I can do better? What am I doing wrong that I could be doing right? I try to lead by example. Not everything I do or say is going to win me a humanitarian award, but I like to think that I figured out a few things and lucky you, I'm going to tell you what they are (and for the PMPers in the group, you've already heard it). Words hit harder than fists. Not just with customers but with staff. As managers, we are responsible to both. For customers, we have an obligation to treat them fairly and honestly. Same deal with our staff. They may not like what we have to say, but if we say it right and say it truthfully, we're serving them well. Don't be bitter, be better. We're not always right (but we are most of the time)! If we're wrong, we're wrong, and whether it's a customer or a staff member that musters up the courage to tell us, we need to listen. If it's important to them, it should be important to us. As long as no one dies, we can fix it. If you're like me, you proba- bly spend a lot of time training staff. The meeting thing only works for the first 15 minutes, and then they seem to zone out. I found that if I spend the time working a shift with them, they get the benefit of actually seeing how it's done, particularly with customer service. There has been no better training tool than an angry hockey dad two inches from my nose calling me every name in the book. The Knife has a new hero. My good friend Rick Ninko forwarded an e-mail that he sent to his skaters and coaches about throwing their snot rags (he said tissues, but this is my creative liberty on the story in effect) on the floor NEAR the trash can, not in it. Close only counts in horseshoes, right? He's held accountable by his staff and cus- tomers to provide a high-quality product. My hat's off to Rick for holding his cus- tomers accountable for their actions too. All's fair in love and Freestyle. The Knife wants to personally invite you to attend NARCE. Check it out online. Plenty of classes, great hotel and an opportunity to network with a bunch of people that know exactly what your everyday challenges are. You can't afford to miss it! ★ John Monteleone requests that you do not read this column in the bathroom and guarantees he can drink more Red Bull than you. the final cut 62 R INK MAGAZ INE March/April 2010 by Johnny "The Knife" Monteleone STARrinks.com ■ Just livin' the rink life.

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