How do you fix a bad rafting trip?

This one is for the raft guides in the group. Trips that suck sometimes happen, there are a variety of reasons for it, but it’s going to happen. Its not that it happens but what you do about it that makes the difference between a professional river guide and a mid-tier river trip. You need to have a system for how you recover the experience for your guests and you need a company that will have your back. Fortunately, most rafting outfitters are family affairs and they place a huge emphasis on people having a good time. But how do you as a guide respond to a bad river trip and how to you measure if your efforts are having success?

LAST Model

Listen – Start by listening to the guest’s concerns and complaints. Another element is to try to approach the situation using curiosity first to understand how the situation led to the guest being unhappy. It is also important to understand the guest’s expectations for their experience and what they paid for.

Apologize – The magic words of guest service “This is not the experience I want you to have” can help to calm down angry guests quickly, as well as apologizing to the guest that the trip hasn’t met their expectations. Many companies may want to disavow any liability for what happened and different companies have different policies especially regarding particularly explosive issues such as major injuries. Regardless of specific company policies though, approaching the situation with empathy and acknowledgement that the guest expectations did not meet the reality of the trip can go a long way to deescalating the situation.

Solve – Try to create a solution that will satisfy the guest needs while also trying to provide the guest with the value they paid for their experience. Another factor to consider is are you providing the guest with similar value that they paid for their trip. In some cases, this could be a refund, however you can go beyond Fix the problem and invite gusts to return.

Thank – Thank your guest for bringing the issue to your attention. This step often gets overlooked and it is actually the most important of the 4 steps. May guests on rafting trips feel like they are part of the family and part of the adventure. If they see something that does not sit right with them, they want to help fix it, but they also want to know that you are listening. So, thanking your guests is a great way to let the guest know that you care about their opinions.

Net Promoters

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a guest satisfaction metric that measures the likelihood of guests to recommend a company's products or services to others. It's based on a single question: "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?"

Guests who respond with a score of 9 or 10 are considered "promoters" and are thought to be loyal and likely to generate positive word-of-mouth for the company. Those who respond with a score of 0 to 6 are considered "detractors" and are likely to have negative experiences and may discourage others from using the company's products or services. Guests who respond with a score of 7 or 8 are considered "passive" and are less likely to recommend the company or be vocal about their experiences.

To calculate the NPS, the percentage of detractors is subtracted from the percentage of promoters. The resulting score can range from -100 to 100 and is used to measure guest loyalty, satisfaction, and overall guest experience. A high NPS score indicates that a company has a strong base of satisfied guests who are likely to spread positive word-of-mouth and return for future purchases.

Utilizing the LAST model can yield spectacular results for your guests and help drive your net promoter score. This helps individual guides with repeat guests and it also helps get better tips because guests feel like you are listening to them. LAST is just one tool you can use to help make your trips not only run smoother, but make people feel appreciated. Also, this isn’t something that works well for the big issues, it is an awesome technique to use on even small issues so guests feel that you are detail oriented in troubleshooting even minor problems which further increases trust in you as a guide.

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