Puke
The tail end of last week my family drove to the Hyatt Lake Tahoe for the wedding of our oldest son, Luke. After 4 hours of driving I walked the two youngest of our four foster children into the lobby of the Hyatt Grand Vacations resort.
As I introduced myself to Sonia at the desk, our 2.5 year old threw-up on the stone floor. I apologized in shock. Sonia said kindly, "No problem," as though people puke in their lobby 2-3 times daily.
Then I walked the toddler to the bathroom across the foyer where she threw-up two more times on a throw carpet. Emerging from the bathroom, I apologized again profusely as our daughter cried. Again, Sonia just waived it off as a common occurrence. Although it had only been 2-3 minutes, already someone was cleaning the floor. He also said with a big smile, "No problem."
QUESTION: Have you planned for and trained your people how to handle common problems, but are unprepared for the ugly ones?
Sonia and her associate were awesome. They deserve a 100% score or a gold medal (I tipped them, which of course she tried to turn down). Sonia is fully engaged as an employee. She took ownership for my experience.
Now consider an employee at the adjoining Hyatt Lake Tahoe resort (not the timeshare organization). At the pool area there was a plastic cup and two straws which a guest had dropped on the walkway between two pools.
At least two young ladies who were working at the pool walked right by the cup and straws on the otherwise perfectly clean pool area multiple times without picking them up. An owner would pick them up and dispose of them properly.
Are your employees thinking like owners (Sonia and her associate) or like employees (the young women serving guests at the pool)?
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| MEETING IDEAS |
Any company can handle a happy customer well, or a typical situation or minor problem. Is everyone in your organization prepared to respond calmly, patiently, and with a smile when your clients "puke" on your company? Here are some ideas to discuss problems your people may face less often, but which are still very important to your clients: 1. What are five (or up to 10) situations that could occur where a client "pukes" on our company? 2. If we were our client, how would we want our company to respond so that we retained our dignity, our embarrassment was removed, our problem solved, and our needs met? 3. Two days later I went back into the lobby and Sonia asked me, "How is your little girl feeling?" How can we follow-up after a "pukey situation" to confirm our client has recovered from the disaster? 4. How can we train and role-play these type of events so our people expect them rather than become shocked and part of the problem? If you need help, contact me. |
