Lessons from the Cruise Industry, specifically the Navigator of the Seas

Some lessons or reminders from Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas

1 - Service design - have you taken a good look at your tourism service (all tourism businesses are service businesses) from the guests' point of view?  That's what the cruise industry seems to be doing very well. My wife and I commented how Royal Caribbean had thought of everything on the cruise we took with the family during the Holidays (see below). To analyze and assess the quality of your service, take a walk in your potential guests' shoes, from the moment they arrive, to the moment they leave. How can you make their experience better? Where are the fail points, if there are any. From the friendliness of the concierge staff (if you manage a hotel) to the cleanliness of the facilities, to the quality and variety of the food, etc.

2 - Animation/Entertainment.  Not everyone thinks of their tourism business as an entertainment business, but almost any tourism business could be considered an entertainment business, even if the entertainment is provided by the guests themselves. If you provide the right environment, in say, a restaurant, the patrons will entertain themselves accordingly. The obvious example is a club. If the decor and facilities are right and the music and the sound system rock, the drinks are good and at the right price (according to the type of establishment), the guests should have a good time.  In the era of social media there has been a lot of talk and much has been written about being remarkable, about creating products and services that are outstanding, because those are the things that drive conversations in cyberspace. That's great. But the key reason to strive for the extraordinary is to succeed.

3 - Staff. As important as everything else, if not more. One of the amazing things we noticed and commented about the staff on the Navigator of the Seas is that everyone seemed to have the same critical competency for tourism: a genuine love for people and a relentless customer satisfaction orientation. Almost anyone can learn how to wait tables or serve drinks or register a guest or clean up a room, but to, at the very least, give the impression of genuine caring for a guest, that's not so easy to find.

4 - FUN At many a tourism conference in Canada over the last 10 years, I heard different people mentioning the word fun. We have to put fun back in our tourism offerings. This is obvious for some destinations or businesses (e.g. Niagara Falls, The CN Tower), but fun is not only delivered by an attraction (e.g. Niagara's Fury attraction), it can be delivered by the ticket takers, the waiters, and others. During the cruise we had a bit of fun with the assistant waiter, Tayfan, a young man from Turkey, who was quite adept at magic tricks. Think of where in the path of your guests you can inject some fun (it can be little things, but they can make a big difference).

Royal Caribbean - 1.2.3.4  From the design of the ship to the selection of the staff, the Navigator of the Seas is a great example of all of the above.  The ship is huge. There were 3,670 guests on the ship (full capacity) and, I believe, about 1,200 staff. But you never felt crowded. Much thought (and experience) has been put into making the cruise a great experience for the guests. My guess is that this is a constant focus from the company (is it yours?). From the theatre, to the pool, to the food establishments to the animation staff to all other areas and activities Royal Caribbean has thought of all the different types of guests they can attract. Remember Bertrand Cesvet's engines of conversational capital? Royal Caribbean is very good at many of them - Exclusive Product Offering, Over-Delivery, Relevant Sensory Oddity and Tribalism.

Finally, the cruise also reminded me of something I have mentioned in a past blog post: that tourism is driven by PPE, Price, Proximity and Ease of Entry. The price for the 6 night cruise on the Navigator of The Seas can be as low as approximately $600 CDN per person (it's very difficult for any destination to compete with that considering everything that's included in the price). Over 60% of people on this trip were American. There about 180 Canadians on board followed by 80 Mexican guests and 80 UK guests. The rest were guests from various countries. The majority of Americans on board were Florida residents (my daughter met a young man travelling with his family. They live 15 minutes from the port in Fort Lauderdale. So remember, your most likely customers are those who live close or relatively close by (within province, nearby province or nearby country).

Think of your tourism business as theatre. The "show" is what will make your guests have a good (or not so good time). The "show" is what the guests come in contact, what they see, who they see and interact with. They should never be aware of what goes on behind the scenes (training, logistics, etc.), but it is the behind the scenes planning and support that can make the difference between something remarkable and something mediocre.

Happy travels,

Jaime

A Twitter customer care experience from a brand that cares about its customers - IHG again

In my previous post I wrote about the great experience I had at the InterContinental Le Grand Paris. Speaking of IHG brands, on our last night in Paris we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Charles de Gaulle Airport in order to be at our departures gate with plenty of time to check in the next day. As I mentioned in the previous post, I usually look for IHG hotels whenever I travel, but especially when I am not very familiar with the destination. And so we booked a room at this Holiday Inn Express. But this experience did not meet my expectations. It felt short. However, the post-stay-Twitter-customer-care experience made up for it and it's a great example of how a global brand in hospitality is looking after the brand and its customers.

We arrived in the afternoon and checked in. The front desk attendant was very friendly, polite and professional and she gave us an upgrade to an executive room because of my loyalty card status, which was great. Only thing was, this executive room's bed is awful. I was not surprised that the room is very small (as they tend to be in many hotels in Europe), but my wife and I were surprised that the bed in this executive room is a Murphy bed (wall bed). The bed has two metal feet jutting out on either side which one can keep bumping into on account of very little space between the bed and the wall. But we took that in stride and even thought it was a funny thing since we kept bumping into them (as long as we didn't hit a toe, it would be alright). 

But then we tried the bed and this bed is very uncomfortable – uneven – like Murphy beds and pull out couches can be.  We decided to ask for a different room and – coincidentally at that point – there was a blackout at the hotel. All electricity went out. We went to the front desk and waited for Rommie, the front desk manager, to have a minute since she was really trying to do something about the blackout (she was on the mobile phone speaking to someone about it).  Once we were able to talk to her, she understandably told us that she couldn't tell if she had another room to do the switch because her computer was down.  Being close to dinner time – and not knowing if the electricity was coming back any time soon – we decided to go to Paris for supper and deal with the room upon our return to the hotel.  When we returned Rommie had gone home and we told the front desk person in charge about the bed and that we would like another room.  Unfortunately by then all he could offer was a regular smoking room. My wife thought that room could be worse than the exec room (because the smoking room might smell of smoking, which we don’t like at all).  So we kept the exec room and slept there as best we could.  When we checked out and the attendant asked us how our stay was, we said – ok, “but the bed in that room is terrible, really bad.” She did not know how to react and just gave us the bill for € 221.20. 

Before we left for the airport, I tweeted that the bed in question was the worst I had ever slept in at any hotel. We flew back home and several hours later when I checked my Twitter account I saw a reply by IHGCare "We would like to assist w/ your exp..." inviting me to email IHGCare to explain. So I did. Very soon after I sent the email, I got a very nice response and apology for the inconvenience from Global IHG care indicating that they would forward my comments to the appropriate people at the CDG HIE. They also said they would credit my loyalty program account with a few thousand points.  

As I said in the first paragraph, this experience is a great example of using Twitter strategically to protect and enhance a brand's reputation and of showing customers that they are important to the business. IHG is out there listening and responding to customers concerns and doing it in a timely fashion. This ensures that customers remain engaged with the brand and hopefully satisfied.  However, having said all this, I do think that in cases such as this one, it would be much better to empower front line workers to deal with issues like these. The front desk person in charge should have been able to apologize on the spot and to offer me the loyalty program points. If I wasn't a loyalty program member then she should have been able to offer a discount on the rate right there. Many customers are not on Twitter and might not be inclined to try and escalate the issue. You would just lose those customers.  So the moral of the story is: yes, use Twitter to listen, engage, respond and promote, but you should also empower your front line workers to do the same in person and on the spot.

Happy travels.

Jaime

www.cactusrock.com