Be Our Guest, the Great Bend Convention and Visitors Bureau joint customer service training project with Barton Community College, is almost ready to go, CVB Director Christina Hayes said, speaking to the City Council Monday night.
“It’s our easy, accessible online customer service and Great Bend attractions training,” she said. They are hoping to kick this off through a partnership with BCC by the end of this month.
“We needed this to combat the ‘there’s nothing to do in Great Bend mind set,” she said. She recalled a couple she met at the Denver Trade Show that was excited about coming to the area to see birds at Cheyenne Bottoms, but was disappointed by the lack of customer service.
“We were able to make that one situation right by giving them Great Bend goodie bags and saying ‘hey, thank you for coming,” she said. “But how many of those are going through the cracks?”
Enter Be Our Guest.
“This training is paid for by the CVB, and it’s so easy because businesses can sign up all their employees that would work on the frontline,” she said. This includes anybody who deals with the public, such as medical receptionists, gas station clerks and hotel clerks.
“I’m hoping that you all will support the fact that we would want everyone who works for the city who talks to the public to take this,” she said.
It is free and all online, Hayes said. If done in one setting it would take about three hours to complete, but participants have three months to finish. “It’s really quick and easy,” she said.
For a baseline, Hayes said they sent “secret shoppers” into businesses to gauge the customer service. Of the 11 comments, five were negative when they asked what there is to do in Great Bend.
“Some people said nothing, but some people said really great things,” she said. “So at bare minimum, we want them to say we have a great free little zoo, but there’s so much more to say – we all know that.”
They hope to have 500 people take this in the first year, she said. After they see how the first year goes they will look at expanding it.
Barton has finished its part of the initiative, so things are just about ready to go, Hayes said.
“All it takes is a registration via email and then a special link gets sent to each person and they have three months to take it,” she said.
As an added incentive, the CVB board is offering a Frontlines Person of the Year Award. Everyone who takes the course will be in the running for this future award.
