The most important thing you can do for your campground is ensuring your team provides exceptional customer service to your guests. This customer service should start from your first contact with that guest and continue through their stay. Sadly, many campgrounds struggle with this due to the RV and outdoor recreation industry boom. Where are the most common areas where customer service is lacking, and how can you resolve these problem areas?
Your Website!
A camper’s first interaction with your park is often through your website. This is your billboard, your spot of the first impression, and your place to pitch to the potential guest why they need to book a stay at your campground. Campground owners should invest in making their website as eye-catching as possible.
Pictures
Invest in having professional pictures taken of your park and keep them updated. Today’s campers respond best to visual information. Making sure you have great pictures will give them confidence that you provide excellent service, and they will enjoy their time with you. Doug Parker was on a recent episode of Modern Campground Fire Side Chats and discussed how he chose a campsite just off the pictures available to him. Doug said, “There were two parks to choose from. Campground A had photos of the campground and the amenities, and campground B had none. I quickly chose campsite A because I didn’t want to try and do more research. Campground B could have blown away campground A, but I decided based on the pictures and information on campground A’s website.”
If you don’t want to invest the money into professional photography, invest time in teaching yourself how to shoot and edit photos. This can be easy to do with the technology available from your phone and native apps.
Virtual Tours
Virtual tours are a fantastic way to engage your guests and provide a wealth of visual information that makes the decision easy for the guest. Campground virtual tours provide graphic details to guests on all amenities and campsites. This alone will help to answer the questions guests ask.
Campground Virtual tours can take the pictures on your website to an entirely new level. Typically a website has a few images of campsites and amenities but doesn’t provide any additional contextual information. A campground virtual tour can provide a wealth of information, including the layout of your park, positioning of sites, and locations of hookups and foliage. An additional benefit of a campground virtual tour is inviting your potential guests to interact with your park. You build an emotional connection between the guest and your campground by encouraging the guest to click around and view your park. Virtual tours can complement your website, providing information that helps attract guests and answer their questions when looking for a campground.
Text
Text is processed slower than images and is not as effective at grabbing the attention of the website visitor. Knowing this text should be used to provide supplemental information. Providing site details and answers to your most common questions will help keep your phone lines free and give extra time for you to provide a high level of customer service to the people in the office. The easier you make it for guests to find the answers to the questions they have, the more comfortable they are with staying with you.
Summary
Your website is your first impression and should be looked at with a high priority. Campgrounds with beautifully designed websites, photos, pertinent information, and a campground virtual tour will command higher nightly rates and have better occupancy rates than those that don’t. In part 2 of our series, we will discuss tactics you can use to provide exceptional customer service over the phone.
Be sure to check out Part 2!
About CampSite 360
CampSite 360 is an industry-leading company that helps campground owners attract new guests and increase revenue through 360° virtual tours. Site-level virtual tours allow guests to see your campsites and amenities in high definition and provide them confidence when booking their getaway. Each virtual tour lives on your website and integrates with Google Street View, helping you capture guests’ attention where they start their search for their next camping destination.