As I reflect back on my vacation with my wife last week, the biggest thing that sticks out to me were the numerous service issues we had along with many others we met on the trip. It seems that not just during our vacation, but many times here in our home town we have had many “service related issues” or have heard about them from family and friends.
I remember my first part time job (I’d like to think it was only a few years ago, but realize it was much longer 
). Service was a huge part of my job and not only did I try to help every customer that came through the door, I’d like to think I did a good job at it. During our vacation in Jamaica (Sandals – Negril), we had a few specular people that went well beyond their call of duty and they will stick out in our minds as truly awesome people. You could see they loved their jobs and meeting new people; always going beyond what they needed to do to help their guests. Truly awesome people.
It amazed me the stories of others that we met sitting in the airport waiting to come home on the horrible service they had at other resorts around Jamaica including Sandals Negril. One friend said, he simply asked for a towel so he could jump in the pool and was told that they had none and he should use his room towels. There were many differences from our first stay in Jamaica last year (Sandals – Dunn River) to our stay now at Sandals Negril. Service was a huge one. All the staff at Dunn’s River went beyond the call of duty, but only a few did that at Negril. At Dunn’s River, you could tell they all loved their jobs, maybe it came from upper management, maybe their just happy to have a job (unemployment is extremely high in Jamaica) or whatever the case may be, it just got me thinking.
I won’t go much more into our vacation, as it was not the best we have ever had, but it did get me thinking about other service issues that we have had here in our home town over the last few months. Not just us, but many of our other friends and family as well. Is it just me, or have you noticed that the quality of service has been going down over the past few years? Many times over it feels like people working at the service type jobs don’t even want to be at their jobs. It amazes me.
I hope as social media evolves that many more organizations will start using social media to help with their quality of service. I had some great discussions about social media while on vacation and over the past few months. Some people I met have never even heard about social media and don’t know how they could use it to improve their service for their own companies.
Do you think social media will help improve company’s service over time? I would love to hear your thoughts.
