September 2009 Developments - 37

Resort Management Customer Service ur company hosts an annual managers’ retreat before which every manager is required to complete a pre-selected reading. Over the years, even though we’ve read a number of books, there always seems to be one underlying message: if you want to be the best, you must “think outside the box.” Of course, this phrase has become very popular in many corporate cultures and for a good reason. At Breckenridge Grand Vacations, we have actually taken this concept a step further by challenging one another to “get out of the box.” One of the books our management team was asked to read for a retreat years ago was Raving Fans by Kenneth Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles. In the book, Blanchard and Bowles enlighten the reader to the concept that it’s nearly impossible to grow your business through word of mouth or repeat business unless you are exceeding your customers’ expectations by 93% or more. Yikes! The world is not black and white, and so it doesn’t make sense to approach customer service as a black and white issue. We all know that the customer isn’t always right, but nonetheless, they are still the customer. That being said, each of us has, at some time or another, been faced with the challenge of trying to stick to a company policy while trying to turn an upset customer into a Raving Fan. After reading Raving Fans, it didn’t take long for our company to realize that we’d better start learning when to break a policy, so that we could keep our customers and earn the right to provide service to their friends and family as well. We developed ﬁve simple questions and distributed them to all of our frontline staff. We told our team that by asking themselves these questions, they could always determine when it would be best to break a policy on behalf of a customer. We also empowered each of them to start making all compensation decisions on behalf of a customer. We included compensation guidelines that outlined different customer service scenarios and suggested some possible K Kit Armour, RRP O ways to compensate our customers. The management team then gave the staff our commitment to always support their decision. Here are the ﬁve questions: Question #1: Can I verify the validity of the customer’s challenge? Question #2: If I was facing the same challenge that this customer is facing, what would I expect someone to do for me? Question #3: Are there any alternative solutions that I can use that will allow me not to break a policy? Question #4: Will breaking this policy have a negative impact on another customer? Question #5: Will breaking this policy create a Raving Fan? We now have a front line team of expert decision makers who can resolve a customer’s issue without having to pass the issue along. The staff enjoys the authority they have been given, but more importantly, they say they like being able to immediately solve every issue that comes their way. To ensure that no one would forget that the goal is to create Raving Fans, we created a “recipe” (see sidebar) and it hangs in our ofﬁce for all to see. Many of the compensation suggestions we included in our compensation guides are items that cost us very little money, and in some instances, nothing at all. In these challenging economic times, being creative with nocost and low-cost solutions has really helped us to still do right by the customer and exceed their expectations. Kit Armour, RRP, is general manager for Breckenridge Grand Vacations. Her e-mail is kit@breckenridgegrandvacations. com. Raving Fan Recipe Use this recipe for success as a quick ﬁx or for more challenging situations. Ingredients: ½ cup apologies 1 tsp. diffusion skills 2 lbs. patience 1 jar sympathy or empathy 1 lg pkg. respect 3 cans perception is reality 12 oz. tact 1 box consideration 2 tbsp. positive attitude 2 solutions (at least) 1 bottle outside-the-box thinking dash being the end of the line Pre-heat the customer to be a Raving Fan by ﬁrst apologizing for whatever their frustration is. Next, diffuse each challenge using 1 tsp. of customer service skills and listen carefully to what the customer is saying. Don’t bring the customer to a slow simmer. Instead, dice up and summarize what the customer has said to make sure you understand their challenge. Mix 2 lbs. of patience and 12 oz. of tact in a large bowl and try to make each customer contact positive. Roll out pkg. of respect on a ﬂat surface and add 3 cans of perception is reality. Combine 1 jar of sympathy or empathy with remembering how you feel when you are the customer who has a challenge, and set aside. Grease a 9 x 13 pan of putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and make sure the customer knows that you care. Add 2 tbsp. of positive attitude. In a large pot, bring outside-the-box thinking on behalf of the customer to a boil, and then spread trying to resolve every challenge immediately evenly into the pan. Treat each situation as unique as you pour the remaining mixtures in, and think before you speak. Next, layer each challenge’s special circumstances with consideration and try to avoid putting upset customer on hold. Top the dish with a dash of being the end of the line and always do everything on behalf of a customer. Use the compensation cheat sheets on the back of the box if you need help ﬁnding solutions. Remember that policies (recipes) are in place for the greater good, but aren’t always what you should follow – be creative! Serve at least two solutions for every challenge with education as a garnish. September 2009 • Developments 37

September 2009 Developments

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2009 Developments