The best paid, well-trained, ski area employees can blow their cool under the stress of a holiday rush, a lift down, screwed up lodge reservations or simply an unreasonable customer up tight over his own personal problems. Vail, a model of good customer relations; has nevertheless trained over a 1,000, of their employees (and volunteers from Vail Village) in a program called “I WIN—YOU WIN” as developed by Larry Wilson Learning Corporation of Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Dick Peterson, the president of Vail Associates said, “We are blessed with a fabulous mountain, first-class lifts and trails, snow in abundance, but we’ve neglected our people potential—aren’t they a measurable asset? Of all the assets and resources of Vail, our people offer the greatest potential bottom line reward from a cost benefit stand point.” So Vail hired Wilson Learning Corporation,—specialists in interpersonal skills training in banking, insurance, and sales—to develop a related program for ski resorts.
Vail recognized that equally as important as mechanical task skills is the ability of employees to get along with customers and with each other and with management. Initially, the I WIN-YOU WIN program teaches employees how to deal with unhappy, angry, and irritated customer whose expectations (reasonable or not) have not been met and whose response is to dump his bucket of emotional tension all over the first employee he meets.
The training leader from Wilson Learning Corporation teaches ski area employees how to recognize defensive behavior in customers and themselves, how to reduce defensive behavior resulting from stress situations so that communication is possible and both parties are left with a feeling of I WIN-YOU WIN.
During a seminar the employees participate with the leader in a course based on Eric Berne’s theory on Transactional Analysis, using training concepts and learning models relating to the ski business as developed by Larry Wilson. The employee actively participates in the discussions which are vividly illustrated by special videotape vignettes depicting friction points at ski areas during peak loads. Class participation in the course is vocal and enthusiastic. At Copper Mountain’s seminar in February, an electrician contributed the most to class discussion; at Keystone it was a real estate salesman; at Aspen Highlands, the ski school director.
The immediate result of the program is an awareness by the employees of their “people responsibilities,” and a pride in being good at human relations. “And what is really exciting,” Dick Peterson says, “is that the customers are more conscious than ever that our employees really seem to care and go out of their way to make others feel good.”
The end result for the employee is that he has improved his human relations skills, his self-confidence, and self-image. He is better able to deal with customer conflicts. He has better understanding and communications with management and fellow employees. The result is an atmosphere of good service, courtesy, and employees with awareness of the skier’s needs.
As Whip Jones of Aspen Highlands said, “all of my employees are over educated for their jobs and at the top of feasible pay scales. This program offers my people the reward that the younger generation values of improved human relation skills and self-fulfillment.
Those attending the NSAA Convention will hear a three-hour seminar conducted by Larry Wilson on the Vail program.
