Last week my wife, another couple, and I went on a 4 day vacation to celebrate some birthdays. We stayed at a very nice hotel, the ladies did spa treatments, we ate some nice meals, and played some golf. We do this every October, it is a good time.
The hotel taught me two lessons.
Service was great. Every employee we came in contact with cared about our experience. They took ownership of what they were doing. Someone having pride in their job always makes me happy. My friend used to work for this hotel chain. He explained that every employee has the opportunity to make a career in the company. Every bell hop, maid, valet, everyone can work hard and rise through the company. He said that the people in the higher paying jobs all came from the lower ranks and this drives everyone to believe being better will pay off. The way people worked and cared, obviously they had bought into the idea. I hope Windmill employees will always show this level of caring. This re-enforces the idea of everyone knowing our success will be their success. Raises, stock options, taking ownership, these are the things that make service happen, not speeches or quality meetings.
The second lesson was one of value. The hotel was expensive, we knew this ahead of time and were prepared. Paying for something nice is understandable, but getting gouged for the little items puts a bad taste in your mouth. $24 for one omelet and coffee in the restaurant? $4.50 for a $1.50 bottle of water? Go ahead and charge me for the room, I can accept that. Getting stuck for an extra $100 of little over charges just turns the whole experience a bit sour. If the hotel wanted that extra $100, they should have put it into the room rate for the 4 nights instead of gouging it out of me chunk at a time. Windmill’s lesson from this is we put all of our charges into the purchase or subscription. No hidden fees, no “Oh you want to run on Xen instead of VMware, that will be extra” charges, none of that.
So what I learned on my vacation.....
Don’t have employees that do not have a good reason to care about the customers. If they have a reason to care, they will and the customers will be happier.
Hidden fees are not really hidden but are really annoying. Show customers more respect.
The hotel taught me two lessons.
Service was great. Every employee we came in contact with cared about our experience. They took ownership of what they were doing. Someone having pride in their job always makes me happy. My friend used to work for this hotel chain. He explained that every employee has the opportunity to make a career in the company. Every bell hop, maid, valet, everyone can work hard and rise through the company. He said that the people in the higher paying jobs all came from the lower ranks and this drives everyone to believe being better will pay off. The way people worked and cared, obviously they had bought into the idea. I hope Windmill employees will always show this level of caring. This re-enforces the idea of everyone knowing our success will be their success. Raises, stock options, taking ownership, these are the things that make service happen, not speeches or quality meetings.
The second lesson was one of value. The hotel was expensive, we knew this ahead of time and were prepared. Paying for something nice is understandable, but getting gouged for the little items puts a bad taste in your mouth. $24 for one omelet and coffee in the restaurant? $4.50 for a $1.50 bottle of water? Go ahead and charge me for the room, I can accept that. Getting stuck for an extra $100 of little over charges just turns the whole experience a bit sour. If the hotel wanted that extra $100, they should have put it into the room rate for the 4 nights instead of gouging it out of me chunk at a time. Windmill’s lesson from this is we put all of our charges into the purchase or subscription. No hidden fees, no “Oh you want to run on Xen instead of VMware, that will be extra” charges, none of that.
So what I learned on my vacation.....
Don’t have employees that do not have a good reason to care about the customers. If they have a reason to care, they will and the customers will be happier.
Hidden fees are not really hidden but are really annoying. Show customers more respect.
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