As part of my 50th year I decided to try cruising for the first time with my family.
It was a four-day adventure to the Whitsundays on Princess Cruises
One of the things that I walked away with that I was most impressed about was the service on this cruise.
Anyone that’s done a cruise, I’m sure that you can relate to this.
It was spectacular.
There was so much that we can learn from it.
There was no mundane interaction.
There is no routine and habitual interaction.
Everything is a show.
They are enrolled and have a vision of understanding it is their job in every interaction to perform for their clients, their customers, the guests on the ship.
That is how I felt in every interaction.
Right from the chef who’s standing behind the food counter at the smorgasbord, who’s singing as we walk in and having a joke with everybody. Now he’s cooked the food.
His job could be done, which it seems to be how many people see it, but he adds more of himself into that moment, which creates a connection with the guests around him, which has me telling a story about him.
There was no just giving you a cocktail menu.
You are presented with a menu, and then a performance as they’ll let you know which ones they recommend or ask you a question about which sort of cocktails you like.
Then they perform and present with passion and enthusiasm what they would like to make for you.
Then we’re making the cocktail.
Then that is also a performance.
Every interaction, the minute you walk out of your cabin, they …
The gentleman that looks after your cabin or the lady knows your name, and instantly greets you with your name.
Everywhere you go, it is a performance.
Everywhere you go there is no playing small on this.
They make sure that … and they all have different personalities, and they all have different ways of engaging.
But they do engage.
That happens at every moment.
So I ask ourselves, “What can we learn from this?”
Well, we can learn so much from this.
Because why would we not take that and put it into our interactions in the customer service.
Why aren’t we doing that?
Why weren’t we inspiring our teams to have a vision that is so much more that they’re just serving a customer.
It’s so much more. It is … I think this is what we’re focusing on.
We’re focusing on that your procedure is to know how to do the till.
Let’s teach our new staff how to work our system with the computer.
But that’s not what your job is.
Your job is to connect with your customers.
Princess Cruises do this so well.
They have engaged their staff to own the vision of what they do.
The way the till works is just simply a procedure as part of the job.
Your job here is to delight, entertain, engage, and connect with our guests and have them raving about us.
Here I am on a podcast raving about Princess Cruises and raving about it in every conversation I have with somebody.
So don’t you want people talking about your business like that?
Because that is the way you will build a business, is through that word of mouth.
You don’t put spending money on marketing and promoting your business for social media or marketing and spending, having a big marketing budget. When I walk in, your people did not connect with me, and inspire me, and make my interaction magical with them in some way, that has me walking out being in awe.
Now these interactions on Princess Cruises, which is normal interactions is just in coffee shop.
We all have coffee shops around us everywhere.
It was in the restaurants.
So it was in bus.
It was at the clubs.
It was serving drinks. T
hey were just normal jobs that we have all around us, but they didn’t see it as a job.
They saw it as a show.
They were their actors and actresses in the show, called Princess Cruises.
So what’s your show.
When the curtain goes up, remember, that they are our audience, our guests are our audience.
Our customers, our clients are our audience, and we have to perform for them in a way that has them giving us a standing ovation at the end.
So let us reinvent customer service.
Let us look at all of those seemingly small interactions and ask ourselves, “Are we inspiring our team members to turn those moments, those mundane moments, into magical moments?
Are we putting the personality back into the policy and the procedures in our business?”
I am passionate about this, and I know it is the businesses that do that.
That will be the ongoing success the customer and the focus on the customer is coming back and it is all about that this year.
So I would love to help you with that.
I would love to help you inspire your team to own that vision.
If I can help you do that by coming in and talking to your team, contact me.
This is part of what I’m about and what I do.
I’d love to do that with you.
Talk about your vision and inspiring your team to own that vision and inspire your customers to buy from you, but go a step further and tell everybody else about you.
That’s what success is built on.
That’s the foundation.
We need to have the foundation strong.
