A Park Owner Needs To Rant A Little

Life would be much easier wthout all of those pesky customers I guess. They do pay the bills though.

 

QUOTE(Lindsay Richards @ Sep 18 2008, 05:39 PM) [snapback]13248[/snapback]

Life would be much easier wthout all of those pesky customers I guess. They do pay the bills though.


If the definition of a customer includes someone who defecates on the floor, curses staff, abuses property, ignores rules and has no consideration for anyone other than themselves then perhaps I AM in the wrong business. Maybe in your world Lindsay, these type of people are acceptable, and maybe you are one of them yourself. In my world, they are unwanted and can stay as far away from my business as possible. Most other responses on this post are sympathetic to park owners. It appears, Lindsay, that you are not. You are certainly welcome to your opinion. As I stated at the beginning of this tread, I am considering selling out to developers. Responses like yours make that option all the more likely. Hope you like paying more and more every year for a site as parks like mine close down and the remaining parks take advantage of the falling supply of sites and raise their rates accordingly. Just for your information, the customers I referenced at the start cost me much more than I ever get in site fees. They don't pay the bills, they create them.

 

As I have stated before on this forum, I have been an RVer for about 20 years longer than I have been an RV Park owner. As an RVer I have visited parks that I will never visit again just because of the attitude of ownership or staff, even though the parks themselves may have been beautiful.

As a park owner, about 80% of our business is repeat business and word of mouth referrals. In order to be a repeat customer at our park, you must obey our rules or you will be blacklisted. This policy alone makes life much more enjoyable for the other 98% of our customers as well as our staff. We do not hold grudges against customers if they cause us problems; we simply bar them and never let them affect our attitude toward the vast majority of the RVing family. If I ever decide to sell our park, it will not be because customers irritate us; it will be because we are no longer profitable. I enjoy the business. I enjoy RVing. And I enjoy the people I meet (most of them).

Happy trails everyone!

Doug

PS: Lindsayrichards, from your previous posts, you are welcome at our park any time.

 

My wife and I were in the lodging business for over 10 years and had over 20,000 customers. I know very well how bad they can be. We saw it all. We also saw some of our competitors develop attitudes that shone through like a spot light no matter how hard they tried to cover it up. Customers are very perceptive as how they are welcomed. When I first read you original post, I told my wife that this guy was suffering from terminal burnout like so many others we had seen. When you open your door to the public, you can not control who walks thru the door. You must be prepared to accept the bad with the good. This is a fact of life. Like it or not. How you handle the bad customer can frequently mean the difference between red and black ink. If your customers are routinely driving you up the wall, then it is time to do something else. You health and well being depend on it. If this business is eating you up mentally, I would suggest doing something else. Life is too short to be unhappy in your work. We lived at our business as you probably do and it is a 24/7/365 business. Your cliental will probably not be changing. As far as there being a shortage of RV parks, this is just the opposite of what we see. I have stayed in probably a hundred RV parks in the last year or so and have not seen any real bad customers although I know you see them better than me and have not spent one night in a full park. All hundred had vacent sites. Rv’ing is certainly in a down turn and I think everybody will agree with that.

Thank You Parkview as I recall, you are in Texas. We missed you on our recent park. I had you on our map, but my navigator decided to go another way. We were in Texas for about 3 weeks and could have stayed a year without seeing anything twice.

 

QUOTE(Lindsay Richards @ Sep 19 2008, 09:24 PM) [snapback]13253[/snapback]

My wife and I were in the lodging business for over 10 years and had over 20,000 customers. I know very well how bad they can be. We saw it all. We also saw some of our competitors develop attitudes that shone through like a spot light no matter how hard they tried to cover it up. Customers are very perceptive as how they are welcomed. When I first read you original post, I told my wife that this guy was suffering from terminal burnout like so many others we had seen. When you open your door to the public, you can not control who walks thru the door. You must be prepared to accept the bad with the good. This is a fact of life. Like it or not. How you handle the bad customer can frequently mean the difference between red and black ink. If your customers are routinely driving you up the wall, then it is time to do something else. You health and well being depend on it. If this business is eating you up mentally, I would suggest doing something else. Life is too short to be unhappy in your work. We lived at our business as you probably do and it is a 24/7/365 business. Your cliental will probably not be changing. As far as there being a shortage of RV parks, this is just the opposite of what we see. I have stayed in probably a hundred RV parks in the last year or so and have not seen any real bad customers although I know you see them better than me and have not spent one night in a full park. All hundred had vacent sites. Rv’ing is certainly in a down turn and I think everybody will agree with that.

Thank You Parkview as I recall, you are in Texas. We missed you on our recent park. I had you on our map, but my navigator decided to go another way. We were in Texas for about 3 weeks and could have stayed a year without seeing anything twice.




Thanks for the long distance analysis, however I think you may be a little off base. I certainly am tired from a long season, but by no means am I burnt out. I am very happy with my business, but just wanted to get across to the people that read these posts that there are sometimes reasons a park owner may be a little short or, yes, even cranky at times. As for an overabundance of RV sites, it may be true where you have traveled, but it is not the case in my area. We keep detailed records and were completely full and turning away guests 93 days out of our 180 day season. This means ALL our sites were full, including the 15 smaller sites that only accomodate small camping vans and class C rigs. Our park is not small, 85 full hookup sites plus cabins. We also have no seasonal guests, the park is totally occupied by guests on vacation. We turned away larger rigs due to availability an additional 28 days meaning 121 days out of 180 we were somewhere close to full capacity. There are only 4 RV parks serving a 50 mile radius of my location and one has sold to developers for a luxury housing development. Inventory is dropping and there is a shortage of sites in our area. If you visit the national park I serve in June, July or August and do not have a reservation, be prepared to dry camp in a forest service campground well off the beaten path or drive 50 plus miles to find a vacancy.

 

QUOTE(westernrvparkowner @ Sep 20 2008, 12:13 PM) [snapback]13257[/snapback]

I am very happy with my business, but just wanted to get across to the people that read these posts that there are sometimes reasons a park owner may be a little short or, yes, even cranky at times.



I'm sure there's lots of reasons why you may be a little short or even cranky because of things that happen, but you also have to understand that you really shouldn't treat other customers in a cranky manner if they have nothing to do with the situation or are even privy to the situation that made you cranky to begin with.

 

You are welcome for the analysis. I usually charge big bucks for them. Glad you are bucking the national downward trend in the Rv’ing industry.

 

Wife and I run our housing rental business for 30 years and everything I read here was on our plate as well. Most people are happy most of the time but others will never be happy anytime. People would call you at 11:00 pm and tell you they need some small item fixed. We had ask two days before do you have any problems that I need to fix, answer = NO! A/C would stop and on Sat night you get a call that unit is hot (yes FL is Hot). What day did it stop, well I think it was couple days ago. So now you ask me to fix it on Sat. night, now that all the parts houses are closed and it is hard to work in the dark. It never got any better.

RV parks are much the same as our work. People move in and out all the time and you clean up the mess!

 

QUOTE(westernrvparkowner @ Sep 10 2008, 06:11 PM) [snapback]13148[/snapback]

My season is almost over and I need to vent off some steam.


GREAT rant! Hope it helped. I run a small business (not a park), and so have some understanding when I am talking to a park owner. More than once (when we arrive and are patient and polite while checking in) we have seen the owner / counter help give out a great sigh of relief and thank us for being patient, as they are having a crazy day. Usually it is late on a Friday, with everyone checking in for the weekend, and calling the office to complain about their site.

When we have had issues with our site, I don't freak out unless it is an emergency (and that would have be one heck of an issue!).

At one campground, when we pulled up to our site the firepit was just in completely the wrong spot for any kind of setup with a fire going. The fire pit was right next to the only place to put our TT (not sure what kind of setup the previous campers had). This campground has strict rules about moving the firepits. I contacted the office, told them that it was in NO way an emergency, but when they had a chance send someone over to look at the situation. Being (as usual) late on Friday, it took almost two hours, but a guy came over to see. He said it made no sense at all where the firepit was, and pointed out that the previous campers obviously had moved it from where it was supposed to be. He and I moved it back to it's proper place, and he thanked me for contacting the office before moving anything.

Another time at a different campground, the grey water drain at our site was loose in the ground. I wanted the office to have a staff member check it out before we used it, to see the condition it was in. I went to the office and told them it was NOT an emergency, but when they had the chance to send someone over (again, this was during busy checkin time on Friday, and our TT does have a grey tank so we would be fine for days if need be). About an hour or so later, a nice and polite gentleman came by, checked everything out, tightened the pipe, and said it would be fine. He thanked us for letting the office know and telling them that is was not an emergency.

Notice a trend? It seems that when we are polite and reasonable, the campground staff is polite and reasonable. Who would have thought that?

We just had someone threaten to report our dog for being aggressive at a campground. The person was walking their dog (on a leash), and when they passed close to our campsite (basically, their dog was IN our campsite, although on a leash), our dog lunged at them, but was held back inside our campsite by her stout collar and strong cable we use. No growling or barking involved, just our dog checking out the newcomer. We politely replied: "Go ahead, our dog is kept securely within our campsite". Campground staff did stop by later, saw how everything was setup, and said to please continue to enjoy our stay. And No, we did not "report" the other campers for allowing their dog into our campsite... to me it is all just part of camping at a busy campground.

Well, this went a little longer than I had expected. Anyways, see you on the road!

 

I use to be a repairman for a major appliance dealer. The public can be a pain in the back side. I also had many who were great people and they like the job or service I did. Try to remember the good people. In you urinals you should put the pictures of your pain in the butts. This may have the guys take better aim.

We aim to please so please aim!

 

Like any subject, there are two sides to this. I spent 32 years in customer service and have been spending most of my time as a resident volunteer on public facilities as a campground host, or interpretive staff in a great many locations. I have also been a fulltimer for more than 8 1/2 years so I have seen both sides in both RV park situations and in business. A major part of this thread is what you choose to remember and which customers.

I have learned that the larger the dog a camper owns, the more likely that the owner will not pick up what his dog deposits along the way. It also seems that the owners of the the most expensive and of the least expensive of RVs tend to give the most problems. Children seem to come in two forms, well behaved and terrorists. Very often the parents are of the same nature.

But in both my service career and in my current avocation, I have found that there are far more nice folks than there are nasty ones. To me, it only makes sense to stay in a service business as long as one can continue to believe this. In both my career and in my current life, it is the people that I have enjoyed most.

There will always be those who are demanding, arrogant, destructive and just plain jerks. But when we reach the point of becoming like them, we allow them to win. The owners have my empathy, but that does not make me willing to tolerate a bad attitude on their part.

 

Kudos to all of you who seem to have a little understanding of the issues that we park owners and other campers face from the less considerate among us. As stated well by others, the trick is to not let the misbehavers affect our attitude toward everyone else. Our motto - "When you wrestle with a pig, you both get muddy, but the pig likes it."

Hope to you down the road.

Doug

 

QUOTE
the trick is to not let the misbehavers affect our attitude toward everyone else.


Well said. This is the key to success in any "people" business. Having been in it forever and now being retired f0or several years, I miss the people the most and find the nasty types are the ones you forget the quickest. It is the funny things that tend to stick with me about my former guests and customers.

 

5) If there is a power outage throughout the campground due to a storm, I cannot make your power pedestal work no matter how much you yell.

As a park owner I would like to add a couple of additions to the list.

Addition to Item 5

Yes I know the power is off and No I don't know when it will be back on. Please don't run to to office to tell me.

Add one additional item.

READ the rules and READ the signs posted. I am sure most parks give you thier park rules at check in. READ THEM, and we will not have to come by and tell them to you. When it clearly says door mat size rugs outside because of the grass, and you carpet the entire site, you probably didn't read the rules. They may be a little different than the last park you stayed in.

Great posting, thank you

 

I LOOOOVE this!!!!

 

IT's raining! Make it stop! Oh, you can't do that? Well, what kind of an RV park is this? You obviously don't care about customer service if you can't make it stop raining. That's it, I'm giving you a ONE on campgroundreviews.com..........


JJ


( :lol: :lol: :lol: )

 

Thanks for the post. We got a real laugh out of it. Being in business presents some unique challenges.

I'm in construction estimating and have seen my share of similar experiences. In fact, today I had a good one. I provided a budget price for a job at $7 million. The drawings were little more than sketches. It turns out that a competitor bid $3 million and the contractor is awarding the job based on that price. Talk about risk! They could easily lose $4 million on their guess if they accept the contract. I've worked with this engineer for 28 years and I wouldn't touch the job for that price.

Sometimes it's better to just say "no thanks".

 

I LOVE THIS!!!!!!!!! It is sooo true!

 

QUOTE(beartoo @ Oct 2 2008, 09:59 AM) [snapback]13350[/snapback]

Try to remember the good people. In you urinals you should put the pictures of your pain in the butts. This may have the guys take better aim.

We aim to please so please aim!



In re-reading this thread, I just caught this! :lol: