Exceptional Customer Service can come in many forms.
As a tour guide or tour operator, you want to be taking care of your customers as much as possible, but how do you give amazing customer service? Well, it is an enormous topic, and one we will revisit many times here at Be a Better Guide!
In this video, I thought I would give you three concrete tips and examples, just to give you a sense of what great customer service can look like. Think of it as some inspiration as we continue to grapple with giving top notch service and incredible tours.
Share this video if you know someone who might appreciate it and have them join the conversation!
-Kelsey T
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I know so many of you are incredible guides – how do you deliver amazing customer service? Share your examples below to inspire the community!
Transcript:
Kelsey Tonner here from beabetterguide.com, and I have gathered you from far and wide this week to talk is about over-the-top service. I got three stories that will hopefully inspire you.
Tackle your guest’s frustrations before they even happen. I was leading a bicycle trip. I was actually here in Nova Scotia.
We’ve talked about the rain in Nova Scotia before on the site. What was happening was it was multiday trip, so their bike shoes and socks, everything, were wet when they got in.
So, as fellow guide, wasn’t my idea but super inspired him, came out with a big stack of newspapers. He got them from the reception.
As people arrived into the hotel, they biked into the hotel, he would collect their bike, and then give them this piece of newspaper, you know, a full newspaper and say, “Here’s what you need to do if you want dry shoes tomorrow. Stuff the newspaper in before dinner.
When you come back, take wet newspaper out, more dry newspaper in. And your shoes will be dry for tomorrow.” This is an example of incredible service because it shows that you are taking great care of them and you’re thinking about them and their future frustrations.
Use small acts of personal kindness whenever able to delight your guests. So an example was on a trip in France the group had gone in and done some shopping.
And one woman had missed out for some reason and everyone came back with these little artisanal mustard that was super delicious. She was really disappointed, “Oh, shoot. I wish I got one of those.”
There wasn’t any time before the trip was over and she just had to go back to Paris, I believe. So, like my fellow guide and I went and had that time to go to the store, just quickly buy a little something.
We wrapped it up, put a little note on it, and actually secretly slipped it into her suitcase as she was departing and heading back to Paris.
Now, of course, we got a really, really nice thank you notes from her, got rave reviews, she even wrote a note into our company saying how incredible we were.
know you can’t do this for every single guest, but those small acts of kindness will create the people who will be your biggest fans on Trip Advisory. It will be most likely treat for you to all their friends and family.
Try and take care of your clients even when they don’t know about it. So, this example comes from one forgetful guest when we were transferring hotels on a three- or four-day trip, and they’d forgotten some expensive jewelry actually and a sweater in the room.
So, the guest didn’t even know about it. But the hotel called us and we made some arrangements to get that stuff delivered to the next hotel. I think a staff member was coming through.
It was a fairly simple fix. But the key was then we were able just to show up and say, “Oh, hey, Julie. We just found your stuff. We’ve made all the arrangements to get it here and we just want to make sure it got back to you okay.”
That sort of stuff wins big points and it’s an example of incredible customer service because you’re taking care of them even when they don’t know it’s happening.
So those are three quick ways that you can give over-the-top service. There are so many out there and I know so many of you are incredible tour guides, tour operators.
Let me know in the comments what sort of things you’ve done for guests in the past that have scored you great, great brownie points, like the top of your service game. I want to hear about them. Share this video if you’re inspired and thanks for being here.
