Great customer service—the kind that builds customer loyalty—depends on knowledgeable, cheerful, friendly employees. It’s not easy to find and keep folks who can keep a cool head and cheery attitude through the holiday crunch, and it may be just as hard to equip them with the product knowledge they need to be helpful.
That job just got easier, at least for a segment of resort employees. A start-up company called Integrated Training Solutions has just shipped its first product—a set of four educational modules aimed at ski shop employees—and it’s a winner.
ITS is the creation of Dave Bertoni and Jackson Hogen, two very experienced hardgoods marketing executives. Bertoni, who started his career with the Winter Park Ski School, spent some decades with Salomon, where, among other things, he supervised the development of training programs for shop personnel worldwide. Hogen was a product manager at Salomon, then wrote for Snow Country magazine, then was marketing director for Head/Tyrolia USA. They know their stuff. Their Desperate Measures package—a collection of videotapes, CD-ROMs, workbooks and tests—claims to “turn protoplasm into expert sales help.” It’s an effective tool for retail shop managers, but should also be useful in the rental shop and ski school sales office. Even veteran ski instructors could learn a thing or two about the equipment that hobbles their clients, and that could help to steer more business into your resort’s shops.
The $1,600 package is built around four 90-minute videotapes shot by ski video ace Bruce Benedict. Each tape has an accompanying slide show (on CD-ROM) and a book of exercises and tests. Module one, Basic Selling Skills, is a convincing argument for bringing a positive attitude and great listening skills to the sales floor. It focuses on customer psychology and communication style, and breaks the selling process down into four easy-to-follow stages.
The shorthand method for qualifying customers into three psychographic groups—tourists (they want comfort and fun), players (they want to improve) and addicts (they want a life-style commitment)—is worth the price of admission. It can help anyone in a sales position—especially someone selling ski school products or rental gear—to steer customers quickly to the right products. The module also offers some great advice on how to develop and maintain a positive, customer-friendly work attitude—and every ski resort has a department or two that could stand a smile upgrade.
Module two, Product Knowledge, is a thorough brand-neutral introduction to today’s skis, boots and bindings. It’s beautifully done—it should be shown to anyone in the ski business who may have an opportunity to provide hardgoods advice, and that includes ski instructors. The tape dispels myths, shoots down marketing hype and eschews engineering double-talk.
Two more modules take sales skills to advanced levels and provide exercises in tailoring sales to meet specific customer problems. While most of this stuff is very retail-specific, the advice on dealing with the angry customer is golden, and can be adapted for use at any sales desk. An 88-page manual shows managers exactly how to use the tapes and slides to focus on the shop’s personnel issues and inventory.
The package is actually engaging, even entertaining. New hires should have no trouble sitting through it and absorbing the content. Using the program is easy: Sit a group of new hires down in front of a TV set and turn it on for 90 minutes. They could eat lunch while watching. When the tape is done, discuss.
You don’t have to buy the whole package—ITS is happy to sell individual modules a la carte.
Down the road, the company plans to add modules on skiwear sales, snowboard hardgoods, rental operations and, hopefully, resort customer relations.
Contact info for ITS: John Kirschner in Vail at (970) 476-0550; Merre Gregory in Reno at (775) 787-8456; Maria Wilkins in Beverly, Mass. at (978)-921-2097. Or, email: [email protected].
