Speaker 1: What's up everybody, my name is Reno Falvo and welcome to a series dedicated to all tour operators. Now, over the course of this series, my goal is to give you different tips and tricks in terms of how to run your business. So, what is on today's topic? Managing customer expectations. Let's get started. Welcome, everybody, to my favorite part of this park. What do you think my expectations are when I come to the park? Well, what I like, what I normally expect, is this. It's a creek, sounds of the birds, just the sound of nature and peace and calm. But every once in a while, there are too many people, too loud, cars are not far away, planes fly over the park, and that experience is tainted a bit. So, you probably were thinking, well, of course, there are bound to be people in a park. I mean, it is a public park after all. And you know what? You're totally right. But that's the whole point, are my expectations are different than the average person. And so that's why today we're going to talk about managing customer expectations. Let me ask you, how many of you think your customer complaints is a direct correlation to not meeting customers' expectations? The truth is, most of it. Now, I know you want to freak out and say, it's not my fault. No, it's not your fault. It's not the customer's fault. Information is completely subjective. Okay? Yes, there's some things that are very clear. 8 a.m. start means 8 a.m. start. But there are other ways that you could interpret information differently. And I'm going to tell you right now, one of my favorite saying is, there is nothing common about sense. Now I know as tour operators, we do give out the information, especially on things like on our website. You, you know, you put it on your itinerary, you put pricing information, you put terms and conditions, you know, you even put photos. But the thing is, like I said earlier, all of that, most of it is subjective. Before you roll your eyes, let me, let me give you some examples. Let's use whale watching. Let's say you run a whale watching company. Let me think of some examples of complaints. First one I can think of is customer complains about not being close enough to whales. I'm like, why would customer do that? Well, you know what? I bet you when you're promoting a whale watching company, you're going to show the best photos of whales, especially up close. But I know out here in BC, there's a massive strict rule that you can't be close to whales. When the average person is taking photos of whales with their iPhone, they might think they'll be able to get that beautiful front cover photo. So it's important for us to have a disclaimer so that the average person knows, hey, you know what? No, we're not going to be next to a whale. What else? Let's continue with whale watching. Let's do another one. I could see people complain about weather. People go out there and it starts raining. I know cheesy sound effects and you're thinking, well, yeah, you know, you have no control over weather. It's not your fault, but the customer is still complaining about it. Well, again, it comes down to managing expectations. Do you have information saying, you know what? We're going out there, rain or shine, so be prepared. And these are the things that I want you to think about and reflecting back with your stuff is that when you're putting things where anytime you think something's common sense, that is when you actually have to reevaluate and think, do I need to put some additional information? Welcome back to the studio, everyone. So as we wrap things up, I'd like you to like, look back over the course of the last year or two years and look at the feedback that you've got from your customers. Look for consistent complaints, you know, things like, oh, uh, my tour rained, you know, I know you're thinking, well, that's out of my control, but it's all about their expectations. Maybe we need to add a disclaimer and on your website or in documents, let's say you run a wildlife tour. I, all wildlife tours need to have the disclaimer, wildlife, not guaranteed. So just look at it, think outside of the box and think, okay, what are some things that I can make a bit clear? Because I know as operators, you just want to say the words, well, yeah, it's just common sense, but guess what? There is nothing common about sense. Thanks for watching everyone smash that like button and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Take care guys. Ciao.