Shortly before Christmas my family and I had a short break at the Longleat Forest, CenterParc.
It wasn’t my idea. I wasn’t overjoyed at the prospect of going and certainly didn’t look forward to it. But my wife wanted to go and as she rightly pointed out there’s not many holidays that meet all our needs now that our family includes a toddler and bouncy boxer dog. So off we went.
Much to my surprise it was brilliant. We all really enjoyed ourselves. But this isn’t a holiday review blog, it’s a business blog. So what can Centerparcs teach you as a business owner, or a soon-to-be business owner?
Well there’s one clear lesson: it pays to look after your customers.
And they do look after their customers. Whilst British businesses typically treat their customers badly (for example the pub I wrote about in We Don’t Serve Chips – Customer Service With An Insult), Centerparcs treats their customers excellently. All the staff were cheerful, helpful and made every effort to be friendly and helpful.
The results were clear too, just about everyone we spoke to was a regular customer, many of them visiting for the same week every year, some having done so for the last 10 years.
In short, by looking after their customers Centerparcs, like Spyderco, has been turning it’s customers into fans. You should be trying to do the same.
This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
Personal relationships are very much part of the deal if you wish for repeat business, and your experience, along with the testimonials of the people who return to Center Parcs year after year tells us that we’vew got a great example here. Is there anything specific that really stood out for you John, and that would turn your feelings if that single thing was absent?
Customer services is a long forgotten art. too many companies treat their customers as a commodity and think they will just take what ever they get. Now with the financial situation the way it is more an more people are being more choosier of where to put their money and customer service is probably one of the top things on peoples list.