Emotional Intelligence in Customer Service: Assume Good Intent

It was the Monday after a really busy holiday weekend.  We had spent most of the day Friday and Saturday directing the overflow traffic from the Crystal Lake Trailhead toward the overflow parking – and away from our campground.  While most were polite, we did get a few that pushed back.  “We bought a recreation pass.  We should be able to park anywhere in the canyon.”

So when we discovered the lone Toyota occupying a lakeside double site with a recreation pass posted to the site marker, we had had enough.  We wrote a note on the recreation pass that it was not valid in the campground and put it on her windshield.  We moved some belongings to the windshield as well.  Then we noticed that the car’s occupant was asleep in the back seat.  We knocked on the window, waking her up, and proceeded to advise her that she could not park in our $40-a-night campsite.

“I understand that,” she said.  “I stayed up all night and drove here at 3:00 AM so I could get a campsite for my family.  We come here every year, and I wanted to be early enough to get a double site.”  She continued, “It says on the recreation pass envelope to post it on the site post if you are camping.”

We looked.  Sure enough, that’s what it said.  The envelopes were dated 2009; and while the requirement to have a recreation pass in the concessionaire-managed campgrounds was lifted two years ago, the envelopes had not been changed.

We felt terrible.  We apologized profusely and accepted her payment for the campsite.  When she asked about firewood, we went to a campsite that had left a box and brought it to her – free of charge.  We believe we made it right with her.

The bad weekend may have explained our emotional reaction to her presence in the campground, but it was clearly no excuse.  We know better.  How much better it would have been to assume that she planned to camp and to wait for her to wake up before charging in with guns blazing.  If she hadn’t planned on camping, we could have then asked her politely to move. 

A good lesson learned as we proceed to manage this very busy campground.

Are We There Yet?

It’s June 12.  I should be well into the summer routine of blogging weekly about our adventures in camp. The trailer is clean, the generator is gassed up and the propane tanks are full.  The hitch is installed in the truck.  The bedding is washed.  The pantry food is packed.  So why aren’t we in camp yet?

We knew when we requested Washington Lake that it usually didn’t open until mid-June at the earliest.  But with the mild winter we had this year we were sure we’d get in earlier, and planned accordingly.  Then May hit, and single-handedly brought our water year up to normal.  Rain in the valleys has always equaled snow in the mountains.  We just didn’t think it would be that much snow.

The US Forest Service policy is to open campgrounds only when the snow has melted naturally.  As of last Wednesday, this process was happening at an accelerated rate now that the snow has (finally) stopped falling.  But there’s another snag – a couple of trees were uprooted by strong wings and need to be cleared out before the Forest Service will deem the campground safe for campers.  When they will do this is anybody’s guess.

So we wait – not exactly patiently.  I’m sure that has a lot to do with managing our own expectations, combined with minimal communication from our new area managers.  In their defense, the area is new to them and there’s a lot of work to open the lower campgrounds.  And they have no more control over the weather and the Forest Service than we do. 

Our current planned departure date is Wednesday, June 17.  Will we make it?  Keep tuned.

Turn the Radio On

We did not have television service in our campground this summer – primarily because we didn't have electricity.  However, last summer, when we did have electricity, we made the conscious decision not to hook up the satellite dish (which still sits on the top of our trailer).  We didn't think we’d spend enough time watching it to make it worth the cost.

We did, however, have Sirius satellite radio installed in our trailer when we first bought it.  And the radio has been our source of outside news and entertainment all three summers we've spent in camp.

We found our favorite music stations from the variety of stations available.  Classic Vinyl and Classic Rewind reminded us of our high school and college days and kept us singing along.  Deep Tracks, which played obscure cuts from albums throughout the decades, challenged our music knowledge, as they always played a series of songs with a theme.  And occasionally we would have that ‘aha’ moment when we actually recognized a ‘deep track.’  We have (or at least – had) that album!!!

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed listening to both the World Cup and to baseball games on the radio.  I am totally impressed by the radio announcers’ ability to paint a picture with their words so that I could see clearly what was happening.  I realize that as a writer, I attempt to do that, but these radio announcers are doing it on the fly.  And in baseball, which has a lot of dead time, they manage to come up with trivia and statistics that would give Ken Jennings a run for his money.  Did you know they keep track of how many players have hit home runs on their birthdays?

I thought I would enjoy NPR more than I did.  I guess I missed the local flavor our KCPW is so well-known for.  The same went for any news station – while it was good to hear the national news I missed knowing what was happening in Utah.  Although one of our friends, when asked what was happening in the news, summed it up pretty well mid-summer:  “Same stuff – gay marriage, John Swallow, Susan Powell.”  Ouch.

Maybe not having 100% access to the news 100% of the time is not such a bad thing after all.

Emotional Intelligence in Camp Hosting

I was surprised to learn from our area managers that they hire about 1/3 more hosts each year than they actually need.  Why?  Apparently some would-be hosts quit before they are scheduled to report, and others quit after a couple of weeks when they find out it’s just not for them.  The part of the job that usually results in early departures is not cleaning toilets or shoveling ashes out of fire pits.  It’s dealing with the public.

In our experience, camp hosting is 75% customer service, and only 25% cleaning the campground.  The people who visit our campgrounds are our customers.  As such, we want to treat them with courtesy as we share our little corner of the mountains.  I've found that when approaching a customer, whether it’s to collect a fee or to enforce a rule, I keep the following two assumptions in mind.  I assume:

1.  They want to do what I’m asking, whether it is to pay the fee or to comply with a rule.

2.  They are honest.

For example:  we had several people over the summer come into camp late at night with no cash and no checks, asking the next morning if we take cards.  We don’t.  So they've basically already used our campground and have no means to pay.  It would be really easy to get angry with these people and chew them out for theft of services, but that just makes them angry and much less likely to make arrangements to get the fees paid.  I found that if I told them they could go into town, get the cash and bring it back, over half did.  I had a few others tell me they would mail their payment to the office.  I have no way of knowing whether or not they did, but the fact that I did not yell at them or embarrass them in front of their families likely increased the chances that they did.

In our experience, 95% of the people who come to a campground respect the forest and respect other people.  Yes, there will always be the 5% that will be less than respectful.  The emotional intelligence skills will always help in dealing with difficult customers.

1.  Self-Awareness:  (The ability to accurately perceive your own emotions in the moment and to understand your own tendencies in different situations.)  I don’t like being yelled at or talked down to.  That said, I am aware that as a camp host, I am only the messenger in most cases, and it is the message – not me – that they are reacting to. 

2.  Self-Management:  (The ability to act – or not to act – on your own emotions.)  Since I couldn’t change the message, I learned not to take a customer’s reaction as a personal attack. 

3. Social Awareness:  (The ability to accurately pick up on emotions of other people and to understand what is really going on with them.)  Every time a visitor pushed back on a fee collection it was because they perceived that they had already paid – either through the Mirror Lake Highway Rec fee, a National Parks Pass, or even their income taxes.  Being able to empathize with them usually lightened the mood and eased into the solution.  And when it didn’t, I was able to fall back on my self-awareness and realize that the amount of money involved just wasn’t worth a conflict.

4.  Relationship Management:  (The ability to use your awareness of your own emotions and those of others to manage interactions successfully.)  Most people will calm down once given the chance to express their anger or disappointment.  

I'm Givin' it all She's Got, Cap'n!

The portable vacuum just didn’t sound right, and worse, it just wasn’t picking up the dirt.  Damn!  I hate it when the vacuum doesn’t suck.  I guessed that we probably had a math problem – the generator could only put through enough power to either a) run the water heater, or b) run the vacuum.  “c – both of the above” was apparently the wrong answer. 

Last year, our campsite at Warm River had electricity.  Shady Dell does not.  So we’re back to lighting up our nights, heating the water, and controlling the thermostat using battery power charged by solar panels and an occasional boost from the gas-powered generator.  We’re back to heating water to wash dishes, and we’re back to stovetop coffee.  Warp engines offline – it’s strictly impulse power for us this year.

This is as designed.  Most systems in the trailer run off the 12-volt battery.  For the past couple of weeks, however, we’ve been struggling to keep the battery charged.  We replaced the battery.  Twice.  Both times the battery discharged and wouldn’t ever come up to a full charge – no matter how sunny the day or how long we ran the generator.  And last Tuesday, as we watched the snow level rise and the battery charge level fall, we knew we were in trouble.  We didn’t have enough battery to run the furnace. 

Being the ever-prepared campers that we are, we put our zero-degree sleeping bags between the sheets of our bed and hunkered down for a cold night.  We woke to 33 degrees outside and 37 degrees inside.  Brrrhhhh!  A portable propane heater and lots of hot coffee came to our rescue. 

We tested the inverter.  It was OK.  We tested the wiring.  It was OK.  Must be the battery – again.  So while Paul took the battery into town to be tested / charged, I decided I’d break out the vacuum.  I started the generator.  I plugged the vacuum in and turned it on.  Nothing happened.  I tried every outlet in the trailer.  No power.  I guess I should have paid more attention the last time the vacuum didn’t suck.  Apparently, for the past two weeks, all our generator has been generating is noise and fumes.

Last weekend’s challenge was to keep the battery above 50% so the solar panels could keep it with enough charge to run the lights and the refrigerator’s electronics.  Running the furnace was out of the question.  Thankfully the snow melted in favor of more temperate evenings.

Today’s mission – to boldly go and buy a new generator.

 

Frank’s Tour

Hi, I’m Frank.  If you haven’t met me yet, you can read my story at The Story of Frank.  I’m guest posting on Cheri’s blog today to give you a grand tour of Shady Dell and Cobblerest campgrounds.

Spring Runoff through Shady Dell

Let’s start with Shady Dell, which is where Paul and Cheri are staying this year. The campground is situated on the Provo River in a pine and aspen forest. It has twenty sites.  All are paved, and many are large enough to accommodate large trailers and large family groups.  They even have five pull-through sites.  Fees are $18 a night with an $8 charge per night for extra vehicles.

Moving east – and up – to Cobblerest.  Cobblerest is also on the Provo River.  It has 18 paved sites.  The sites in Cobblerest are smaller and located closer together.  There are two pull-throughs.  The campground is covered in dense pine forest.  Many of the sites have great river access.  I think Cobblerest is the prettier of the two campgrounds.  The downside of Cobblerest is that there is no potable water available.  Bring your own – or you can fill your RV tanks at Soapstone, which is located about 2 miles west of Shady Dell.  Shady Dell has water, but the water system was built in the 1940s and just isn’t robust enough to handle a hose connection without the risk of backflow contamination.   Fees at Cobblerest are the same as at Shady Dell.

Provo River at Cobblerest

On the Mirror Lake Highway the rule is: the lower the elevation, the lower the fees.  Shady Dell and Cobblerest are among the lower elevation campgrounds.  The lower elevation campgrounds open earlier in the season; in fact, Cobblerest was the highest elevation campground open over Memorial Day weekend.  The high mountain lakes, Trial Lake, Moosehorn Lake, and Mirror Lake, still have several feet of snow. 

The snow is melting now – and you can see it coming through in the height and rush of the river running through Cobblerest and Shady Dell.  It’s beautiful this time of year.  Come up and see us, and don’t forget to ask for Frank.

Welcome to the Mirror Lake Highway

Our campgrounds – Shady Dell and Cobblerest – are two of the sixteen improved campgrounds on the Mirror Lake Scenic Byway (SR 150).  The Mirror Lake Highway runs from Kamas, Utah, to Evanston, Wyoming, up and over the Uinta Mountains.

One of the most beautiful highways in Utah, it boasts scenic viewpoints and picnic areas, access to over 400 lakes, many hiking, biking and ATV trails, and opportunities for improved camping as well as dispersed camping. Much of the highway parallels the Provo River.  The road is the highest paved road in Utah when it crosses Bald Mountain Pass at an altitude of 10,715 feet before descending past its namesake, Mirror Lake. 

Visitors are required to purchase a recreation pass to use facilities in this area.  A $6 pass is available and good for 3 days; a $12 pass is good for 7 days; there is also a $45 annual pass available.  The pass allows access to the picnic areas, fishing areas, and trailheads.  The pass is also required for camping outside of the improved campgrounds, which have their own fees.

So how do these fees work together?  The short answer is they don’t.  If you want to camp in an improved campground and don’t plan to use any of the other Mirror Lake Highway facilities, all you need to pay is the campground fee.  If you want to camp in an improved campground and then drive to a trailhead or a lake, you’ll also need to purchase the Mirror Lake Highway recreation pass.

For our fellow retirees – your Senior Pass allows you full access to the Mirror Lake Highway AND gives you half off your camping fees.  The Senior Pass is available to anyone 62 or older; the fee is $10 for a lifetime pass.  Find out more about obtaining a senior pass at http://store.usgs.gov/pass/senior.html

See you in the mountains!

Heading up the Mountain

My kitchen table is loaded down with dishes, pots and pans, canned and boxed goods, recipe files, and the occasional note pad and bag of rubber bands.  This can mean only one thing – we’re getting ready to head up the mountain to our summer of 2014 camp hosting assignment:  Shady Dell Campground on the Mirror Lake Highway.  Next step, load it all into totes and boxes and stack it in the back of the truck.

The trailer is already in camp, courtesy of my husband and my son.  They needed a guy’s camping weekend, and since it’s still winter in the Uinta Mountains, it made sense to take the trailer.  I am exceedingly grateful.  Parking the trailer is my least favorite part of the camping experience.  I either need a lot more spatial aptitude or a lot more emotional intelligence to be truly helpful in parking this or any trailer.

The good news is we’re a lot closer to home this year than we were last year.  So we’ll be able to come down the mountain every week on our days off – instead of every other week.  More time to keep the house in good shape and to keep the rentals running.   And we’re looking forward to being able to take advantage of some of the good stuff that we’ve had to miss while we’re in camp because we’re too far away. 

So…Murphy is alive and well and living in the Salt Lake Valley.  In addition to getting the house and yard ready (where did all these weeds come from, anyway?), and packing for camp, we also have an empty apartment that we need to get ready to rent.  This particular tenant had lived in the apartment for 12 years when we bought it.  That was 12 years ago.  Why did she have to pick May 16 to move?  Arghhhh! 

But we were on it – or so we thought.  While the boys were setting up the trailer in camp, I was in the apartment washing walls.  We had a painter hired by Sunday.  He told us he’d be done by Tuesday.  Silly us – we thought he meant Tuesday morning.  Turns out he planned to finish the job on Tuesday night.  But wait – at 9:00 PM we got a call – he’s run out of paint.  Add a trip to Home Depot to the list of things we need to do before we leave today.  And this means the apartment ready to rent until next Tuesday.  Oh, well. 

Meanwhile, the stuff on the table still needs to be boxed; a cooler still needs to be packed, and the last minute personal items still need to be stuffed in duffel bags.  Whew!  Looking forward to going up the mountain so I can rest!