Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2006-01-02 16:05:15 - Graham Ellis
I would rather fly with Virgin Atlantic than with British Airways, and I would rather ski at Mammoth than at Heavenly. That's not necessarily because Virgin have better timekeeping (we were mighty delayed last week, for example), nor that skiing is better at Mammoth than at Heavenly. It all comes down to accurate and full customer information.
At Mammoth, there's a clock on every ski lift to tell you the time; at Heavenly, timepieces are few and far between. Lift information at Mammoth has tended to be accurate ... but here at Heavenly, the online web site seems to tell us what they wish they could be running rather than what they are running. Yesterday, one of their few on-mountain report displays beside "Groove" chair told it was shut down ... no one had told the operators, and it was running!
"What shall we tell the customers?" was an often asked question at the place I used to train under contract when they were cancelling a course or had rescheduled dates. "What's wrong with telling them the truth?" was my reaction. Customers deserve the respect of full and honest information.
I'm off in a few minutes to Heavenly's Gondola station. Signage there is very limited, and the web site tells me that all the lifts (bar one) are open today. Sorry, I don't believe the web site. Experience over the last couple of days tell me that I need to seek out one of their staff and chat with him to find out what's really happening. What a silly system!
I would rather fly with Virgin Atlantic than with British Airways, and I would rather ski at Mammoth than at Heavenly. That's not necessarily because Virgin have better timekeeping (we were mighty delayed last week, for example), nor that skiing is better at Mammoth than at Heavenly. It all comes down to accurate and full customer information.