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Everybody Sells
by Tom Goetschius, RRP
President
Tom Goetschius Associates Seminars
At a vacation ownership resort, everybody sells! People at a resort are hired to do many things; organize the front desk, maintain the equipment, trim the shrubbery, move furniture, deliver mail, cook, clean rooms, or a host of other tasks. One may think that the job of a housekeeper is to clean rooms and the gardener to plant trees and the wait person to take orders and serve food. The pool person may think he or she has been hired to clean the pool.
These are tasks that must be performed in a well run resort organization, but to what end? What is it that a resort seeks to accomplish? All of the activities of a resort, the jobs, are designed, crafted and executed for one purpose and one purpose only, to provide a valuable and memorable resort experience for the guests. It’s all about the guest experience. Taking care of the customer is the number one job of every employee. Taking care of the customer and creating the best experience means selling the experience to those visiting for the first time, who contemplate a purchase, and con-tinuing to sell the experience each and every time a customer returns.
Resort management would be well advised to take a few insights and practices from the Disney guest experience philosophy. In questionnaires conducted, over a number of years, with theme park and resort guests, the question has been asked…
“What is it that makes the most striking impression on you besides Walt Disney World itself, the attractions, the buildings and the amenities?”
The most frequent answer is “The people.”
“What about the people?” Disney queries.
“They are so nice, so helpful and so friendly,” is the response.
“How does that make you feel?”
“Special…Important….Happy”
Disney reports that a guest spending three days at Walt Disney World in Orlando has over 75 contacts with cast members. Those 75 contacts are an opportunity to sell the experience and they take advantage of the opportunity. One of the most dramatic components of the Disney guest service philosophy is the concept of Magic Moments. Disney acknowledges that every transaction between a cast member and customer has two parts, the mechanical, and the personal. The mechanical part is the what the cast member is trained to be able to perform. It is technical effectiveness. Operating a cash register, cooking a hamburger or trimming a tree are examples of mechanical tasks. Cast members are expected to be able to perform these functions flawlessly and sufficient training is administered until they can. Ostensibly it is why, initially, they were hired. Some-one is needed to perform those tasks.
Personal contact is the second and much more important component of a cast member’s responsibility. This is where a cast member connects with the customer, while performing the mechanical task, thus establishing a quick relationship. The personal contact is called the Magic Moment and cast members are accountable for creating Magic Moments. It accomplishes two purposes. It diverts the customer from the necessary mechanical part of an employee’s job and makes the customer feel important, special and happy. It occurs when the monorail travels from The Magic Kingdom to the Contemporary Hotel and the landscape people stop performing the task at hand to wave to the guests passing by. It occurs when the reservation person on the phone inquires about the weather in Omaha and remarks that they spent a pleasant weekend there once. It occurs when the cashier notices that a customer is boasting a logo from his hometown fire department and commends him for his service to the community. It occurs when every employee makes eye contact, offers a smile and a pleasant greeting to each and every guest while passing in a corridor or an encounter on the grounds. It occurs when attention to the guest is always more important than the mechanical task. Too often we forget what a resort is and why we are there. We are there to serve the guest and create a distinctive guest experience. Walt Disney said, “We don’t want the public to see the world they live in while they’re at the resort. We want them to feel like they’re in another world.”
Creating Magic Moments sells the guest experience over and over again, thus creating Guest Service Synergy. This simply means that the cumulative effect of the guest experiences from all employee contacts and all departments is greater than the sum of each individual experience. The service performance of each individual in each department has a profound cumulative effect on overall guest experience. When all individuals and departments come together in a total service commitment to each other and the customer, the guest experience exceeds expectations. When guest experience exceeds expectations, prospects buy and customers buy more.
Who would not agree that creating Magic Moments with customers is a good idea? But, we said “Everybody sells!” What about all those employees who never have contact with the resort guests? What about the people in the laundry, the back room accountants and all the others who make a valuable contribution to the running of a resort, who never see the resort guest? The Disney guest service philosophy also says, “We treat each other the way we expect the front line cast members to treat the guests.” Disney asks us to reconsider who customers are. The definition of customer is, “a person with whom you have dealings.” Everyone at a resort has people with whom they “have dealings.” Everyone at a resort, regardless of their position, has customers. The front line employees have “External Customers,” those resort guests that they deal with face to face or over the phone who purchase their goods and services. Others have “Internal Customers.” These are the people within a resort who need the goods and services the back of the house employees provide. The contract processor may never deal with the guest face to face. His or her customer is the sales person. When the contract processor creates Magic Moments and transfers a pleasant and effective experience to the sales person, he or she is actually selling the experience to the sales person who, in turn, sells a pleasant and effective experience to the customer. We don’t usually think of our colleagues and co-workers as customers, but they need all of the concern and care of a resort’s External Customers. Creating Magic Moments for Internal Customers is just as important as creating them for External Customers. Selling the guest experience within each department and among all employees is the ultimate in Guest Service Synergy.
The purpose of a vacation ownership resort is to secure new owner/members and to keep the ones they already have. First, last, and always, resorts are sales organizations. They sell the resort experience every day and to each person, one at a time. The best way to sell the resort is to exceed guest expectations. You exceed guest expectations by creating experiences that are greater than the sum of individual efforts. Guest Service Synergy occurs when everyone sells.
NEXT ISSUE: In the next edition of Resort Trades’ Management & Operations, Tom will write about how to create employees who want to deliver exemplary guest service. He will provide the management formula for creating Pride.