When was the last time you had a truly remarkable experience as either a guest or client? Take a moment and think about it. 

The last time I raved about an experience came in the aftermath of a frustrating interaction with the same organization. Sounds odd, doesn’t it? I’ll explain. 

My family and I were on a warm-weather holiday traveling with multiple generations—from toddlers to grandparents—and we wanted to make memories together. In that vein, we booked a safari tour assuming the activity was accommodating for both our youngest family member (my son, age 2) and our oldest (my grandma, age 92). Prior to booking, we may have failed to read the small print because, upon check-in, we were informed that due to liability concerns, neither my son nor my grandma was eligible to participate—thus, by default, neither was I. 

At that moment, I was frustrated. The young staff member working check-in apologized politely and, per their training instructions, stated that we had missed the cancellation window and the company had a no refund or exchange policy.

Having grown up in the hospitality industry, I knew the team member was performing their job as they had been instructed. Instead of raising my voice or pushing back on what I believed to be an archaic operating policy, I expressed my understanding before asking if I could have the manager’s contact information. Equipped with the name and email, I promptly strapped my son into his stroller and fired off an email explaining my frustrations while enviously watching the rest of my family board the open-air safari vehicle. 

I immediately received a reply from a guest service manager apologizing for the frustrating experience. As an act of goodwill, the manager offered me three dinner vouchers and three complimentary all-ages island train ride tickets. 

Having felt heard, my anger and frustration melted away. The simple gesture shifted my overall satisfaction with the company. To this day, I consider myself a promoter of the attraction, praising the guest experience. 

Going from Foe to Fan

The shift in brand affinity I experienced is called the “service recovery paradox.” This is the idea that a guest who experiences an issue with a business (brand, product, or service) will become a promoter of the business if they feel that the business has solved their issue. In other words, when a guest complains to a business about its service going awry, the company can use it as an opportunity to thoughtfully rectify the situation and win the guest as a lifelong fan.

Why is it important for ski areas to prioritize customer recovery? As ski resorts, we grow participation in our sport by keeping our current guests engaged and by welcoming newer participants who are more likely to have a less than perfect impression. From a number’s perspective, the cost of losing a customer far exceeds the cost of recovering the experience. We all know the most effective form of marketing is word of mouth, and through the act of a thoughtful and timely recovery of a dissatisfied customer we can transform dissatisfied customers into ardent supporters. 

In my day job as the vice president of marketing, brand, and communications for Banff Sunshine Village in Alberta, I am often the recipient of guest complaint emails. I believe that when guests choose to reach out, they’re seeking a proverbial olive branch. Most complaints are rooted in a solvable issue, and how a company chooses to respond can either create a lifelong advocate of the business or a lifelong detractor.

For our industry, an example of the service recovery paradox in action could be a family of new skiers missing their group lesson because they underestimated the amount of time required to travel to the mountain on a busy Saturday, get their winter gear situated, and organize rentals. Upon arriving at the meet-up location, they’re informed they’ve missed their lesson. 

Worst-case scenario: The family is told that they have missed their lesson, and no refunds will be provided, but they can book a private lesson for an upcharge if they’d still like a lesson. 

The result: Even if the family pays extra for the private and likes the instructor, the bad taste lingers since no effort was made by staff to resolve their issue. They either don’t return to skiing or, if they do, they go elsewhere. Either way, they’re now detractors for your resort.

Better-case scenario: An apologetic agent explains that they have missed their lesson. The agent says she’ll try to contact the instructor to see if the family can meet up with the group and gives the family a phone number and email address to reach out to the ski school director to find a solution. 

The result: The family doesn’t feel completely dejected because staff tried to help, but their issue isn’t completely resolved in a timely manner and they are required to do some legwork. The resort did not immediately recover them as fans.

Best-case scenario: The agent understands the circumstances and apologizes for their frustrations. Before escalating the scenario, the agent checks the lesson availability. If an instructor is available for the remainder of the morning lesson or there’s space in an afternoon lesson, the agent rebooks the family for the same day without question.

The result: Feeling heard and having been guided through a resolution quickly and without much effort on their part, the family went from being frustrated to delighted and are now promoters for your resort.

Failure Recovery Framework

The best-case scenario in successfully recovering a dissatisfied customer only happens consistently when a team is trained and empowered to understand how to handle different scenarios with the goal of righting wrongs. To accomplish this, your ski area should develop a failure recovery framework, which lays out a variety of steps to follow—and train to—in the event of different customer complaints.

When creating a failure recovery framework, there are five key areas to focus on:

1. Proactive Recovery: In your business unit, what can go wrong, and how can it be addressed if experienced by a guest? With your team, brainstorm potential issues for your department. Once you have those, identify a fair recovery.
     For example: 

Complaint: A chairlift drips oil on a guest’s new coat. 

Recovery: Offer to pay for dry cleaning or offer a discount to use at the retail store. 

2. Personalized Recovery: Invest in the guest relationship and understand the guest and their frustration. Through active listening, you can tailor the recovery efforts to individual guests. For example: A family with small children is due to check-in at your hotel. Unfortunately, the room is not ready when they arrive. Knowing they have kids, you order cookies for the room and provide coloring sheets for the kids to play with while they wait. 

3. Timely Recovery: Timeliness is crucial for service recovery. The quicker you connect with the guest, the easier the recovery will be. All guests are people, and all people like to be heard. 

4. Empathetic Recovery: Adopt the platinum rule when responding to guests, i.e., treat your guests how they want to be treated. Listen, seek to understand, show respect, apologize sincerely, and be accountable. 

5. Follow-up Recovery: After an on-mountain issue and subsequent resolution, follow-up with the guest. If they shared their contact information with you, send them an email or give them a call to check-in and see how they are feeling. A great example is a post-incident follow-up from ski patrol. 

Service Recovery Checklist

Turning would-be detractors into enthusiastic promoters doesn’t happen overnight. Even after the framework is in place and staff are trained and empowered to rectify guest issues, service recovery is an ongoing process that your resort can benefit from in several ways. 

• Invest In Recovery Processes: In the ski world, we’re all familiar with Murphy’s Law—anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Mountain resorts that benefit from the service recovery paradox have consciously invested in a resort-wide recovery process, i.e., a failure recovery framework. For guests experiencing issues, make it easy for them to provide feedback by sharing posters with QR codes to the comments webpage or by having comment boxes on mountain. Educate team members on guest recovery responses, and teach them when it is appropriate to elevate the complaint. At Sunshine, our guest service team will share email complaints with the proper manager. 
• Empower Staff: Most of the issues guests complain about are minor and can be resolved quickly. However, staff must be trained to resolve problems empathetically and efficiently for resorts to benefit. Timeliness is important in customer recovery, and staff need to be equipped with the tools to quickly make things right.
• Measure Recovery Success: For guests who have experienced a service recovery, track the recovery process through repeat purchases and visitation using their guest profile on your resort’s point of sale software. This tracking may be available through hotel bookings, ski school lessons, rentals, or pass renewal sales. Make a spreadsheet and track the recovery process using metrics important to your resort (online reviews, repeat visitation, Net Promoter Score).
• Seek Guest Feedback: Often, the answers to issues facing our guests can be found in guest comments (think comment cards, social media comments, web comments, direct emails, Reddit, etc.). Make it easy for guests to provide feedback, asking for both the good and the ugly. Without guest feedback, we may be blind to areas needing improvement.  
• Relationships Matter: Throughout your organization and within each business unit, make it a priority to get to know your guests. Take time to get to know these folks and invest in the relationship through direct interaction (of course, this is easier for some, including, say, a ski instructor who is interacting directly with the guest for periods of time). The better the relationship you develop, the better you can create clear trails for honest and constructive guest feedback through client connections. 

As much as we may wish to eliminate guest issues at our resort, that will always be just a wish. To win lifelong fans, guests need to feel like they matter. Through investing in and implementing strong service recovery protocols, your business will benefit from increased customer loyalty and retention, stronger online reviews and word-of-mouth marketing, improved brand reputation, increased opportunities for upselling and cross-selling, and a measurable competitive advantage earned through peak customer service.