My wife and I just got back from a seven day Caribbean cruise, which was our first cruising experience. I had always heard that cruises were for “newlyweds and nearly deads”, and had avoided the watery adventure until last week. My friend, Steve Rice, the Cruise Butler had taken care of everything and all I had to do was to climb aboard and set sail. As we cleared security and prepared to board, I had a very strange thing happen. After I had thanked the officer inspecting my documents, he looked me right in the eye and said, “my pleasure”.
It was his pleasure to be courteous, professional, friendly and prompt. It was his pleasure to make sure that my experience was the best it could possibly be. It was his pleasure to put his own personal wants and needs on hold, right behind mine. It was his pleasure to see what he could do to make an unbelievable memory out of my cruise. I had to stop and think about it a while. I knew I had experienced this before, somewhere, sometime before. It had been awhile. And then it came back to me, oh yeah, that’s customer service!
Customer service is what some people do when they want you to come back and do business with them again. It all must have started somewhere in the South. It’s really nothing special, just being friendly and courteous. But the staff of the Rhapsody of the Sea has taken it to a new level for me. It seemed nearly every time I asked for anything, I was met with a “my pleasure”. It’s a mindset that had permeated the entire ship. It was their pleasure to make sure I felt like a King. And they treated every passenger that way. It was great; I loved every minute of it. We both loved it so much that we booked another cruise while we were still on-board the ship.
Could you just imagine what it would be like to shop in a store in town where your treatment and experience was their pleasure? Holy mackerel! That would surely float my boat!
It's funny you mention finding that level of service in you own city. My 13 year old asked me the same thing after his first cruise experience. "Why don't we get this service at home?"
Posted by: Shari | March 02, 2006 at 10:22 AM