Nicki and Rich work for the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy in San Francisco. They covered four core service strategies, with terrific visuals, examples, and audience participation. They are:
- Reliability
- Surprise
- Recovery
- Quality
Surprise means providing unexpected, unusual, non-traditional, and personal aspects to experiences. I liked Nicki's mantra of shifting from "no, can't, don't" to "yes, how, will."
(Meaning, instead of your first reaction being "no, we can't or don't do that"—to shift to an attitude of "yes, let me figure out how we will make that happen for you."
For the Recovery discussion, Nicki brought in a hotel staffer who had been particularly helpful to her the day prior. I loved that she made it personal to herself, topical to the event, recognized an actual person, and gave him a thank-you gift in front of all of us. You can train for Recovery by teaching staff members to:
- Listen
- Repeat
- Problem-solve together
- Act
- Follow up
We also talked about how truly great service comes from a long-term perspective, wanting to have customers for life. And in national parks (as well as museums), our visitors/customers are also constituents, often voting for tax increases or bond measures to support these public resources.
Last, Quality involves creating a seamless, branded environment with exhibits, uniforms, and products that reflect how you want people to view your institution or site.
