The people priority
We recently had the pleasure of spending a week in Vail, Colorado. And we use the word “pleasure” not in an off-hand sense, but in earnest, because in all ways the visit was just that . . . pleasurable. Sure, the sun shone every day and, yes, the trails, as always, were packed-and-powder perfect. But what really made the difference were the people—the people who served up breakfast at the base lodge, the people at the lift-ticket windows, the people at the ski school desk, at the rental shops, at the desk at the lodge where we stayed. Without exception, they were cheerful, helpful . . . and thanks to Vail’s Jack Mills and an idea he calls Smile School, a short course in which the resort’s employees this season learned some real customer savvy (see page 16), they smiled. They smiled a lot.
When you come to think of it, your area is your lift loader, your ski patrolman, your instructor, your cashier. Your vertical may be the highest, your terrain the testiest, but if your people can’t turn the skier on rather than away, you can’t expect the skier to turn revenues for you.
There’s probably nothing more frustrating than giving your skiers the newest, the safest, the best, then allowing someone’s “Who needs your business?” attitude to scare them away. But it happens. And especially at this point in the season, a down time when your people are badly in need of a second wind.
For a variety of reasons—the modern ego kick, the equal rights ethic, increasing affluence, higher education, name it—service industry work has plain become demeaning, the last-chance, part-time alternative to a more “fulfilling” job. In other fields, the problem might be understandable. On the mountain, it isn’t. First, most of your seasonal help just plain get a kick out of skiing, and barring the often-heard gripe that work is time taken from skiing, it’s only natural for your people to transfer their excitement about the area, and the skiing sport, to your guests. Secondly, and this is the nub of it, if your employees were skiing as guests at your area, what kind of treatment would they expect?
People, as in any other field, are a vital resource. Depending on the care you use in selecting, and training them, they can turn your mountain into a bonanza—or a bomb. Areas which understand this have a leg up. Those that don’t—well, they’ve no one else to blame for the results.
