You've got to give them credit...These guys are obsessed with the customer experience.
Lexus turns to Four Seasons Aviara for lessons in customer service
CARLSBAD ---- When more than 200 Lexus dealership owners and managers converged upon the posh Four Seasons Resort Aviara, they weren't on just another sales incentives vacation. They were there to learn ---- even when enjoying the amenities of the five-star resort.
Lexus paid the dealers' way, flying them in from all around the United States in April to see and experience customer service at the very highest end. They attended seminars. They took behind-the-scenes tours to see how every employee, even those who rarely or never directly deal with guests, keeps the customers' needs in mind.
"They wanted to impress on the dealers this is the treatment that your Lexus customers are looking for," said Gene Manganiello, general manager for Lexus Carlsbad, who attended the training
Lexus and Four Seasons held a pilot program a year ago with three dealerships, Manganiello said, and decided it was worth expanding nationwide.
Manganiello said he was impressed to see people of great importance and wealth, such as an owner of a sports team, studiously taking notes.
The goal is to prevent complacency and reinvigorate Lexus dealerships with the company's goals, Manganiello said, because luxury car dealerships such as Lexus are really in the customer service business.
Dealers don't make the cars they sell, he said, and rivals such as BMW also offer quality cars. So service is where Lexus has the best chance of winning over customers. Lexus and Four Seasons are really in the same business and have much the same customer base, Manganiello said, although they don't compete with each other.
Lexus Carlsbad shows the Four Seasons influence in a palpable way: its plush customer lounge. Furnished like a living room in an affluent home, the lounge has a flat-screen television and snacks such as fruits and pastries. Two employees serve coffee prepared with a specialty brewing system.
The lounge's design and materials, such as $120,000 in cherrywood furnishings, were derived from observing amenities at the Four Seasons Resort Aviara, Manganiello said.
Making it tangible
Four Seasons is in the same position as Lexus is against its rivals. Both are luxury brands competing against other luxury brands. Both have to deal with some factors they can't alter: With Lexus, it's the car; with Four Seasons, it's the geographical location. The only factor totally under their control is how they deal with customers.
"How do you make it tangible? How do you touch it and feel it?" are the big questions, said Nance Trevithick, director of sales at the Four Seasons Resort Aviara.
Like Manganiello, Trevithick repeated the biggest question of all: "Why should people choose us over our competitors?"
Little gestures, "the small things you really can't put into a hotel brochure," are one key, Trevithick said. These can be anticipating what a customer is likely to ask for or quickly thinking to solve a problem ---- anything that makes a customer feel welcome, even if it's done so inconspicuously that the customer scarcely notices when it's done.
"Four Seasons University," a comprehensive training program for employees, is another one of the answers. Employees (and in this case, the Lexus dealers) are guided through the hotel's various departments, from offices to laundry and housekeeping.
Four Seasons University helps makes the drive for customer service tangible, she said, because employees see firsthand how their jobs affect other employees, and ultimately customer satisfaction.
"They're talking to the people who are actually doing the jobs," Trevithick said.
After the program, participants are debriefed, to explain and share what they have learned.
A passion to serve
Manganiello said he especially admires Four Season's "crunch teams," ad hoc working teams that employees form whenever there is some bottleneck in serving customers. Lexus Carlsbad has adopted the practice.
Everyone pitches in on a crunch team, Trevithick said, without regard for what their regular job is supposed to be. If there is a large influx of guests and rooms need to be cleaned, she said, "the general manager will be stripping beds alongside the housekeepers."
To get this kind of performance, Trevithick said Four Seasons screens applicants to see if they have a "passion for service."
Four Seasons examines new employee applicants first for attitude, and then for knowledge and the ability to learn. The screening is intense: Before hiring, every employee has an interview with the general manager, along with his or her other supervisors.
"We're not looking for the most qualified," Trevithick said. "We're looking for people with a passion to do the right thing."
Source: North County Times