You’ve ensured you’ve got all the essentials on board, like a fresh set of fluffy bathroom towels and basic cookware, flatware, and dishes.
You’ve even added comforting extras like throw pillows and blankets to help your customers cozy up while they’re calling your rig their home away from home.
But as an RVshare renter, how can you really ensure that your customers will be happy campers? After all, given the site’s rating system, customer satisfaction is key to your continued business.
As it turns out, the question of how to be a happy camper — and therefore how to make sure your renters are, too — has less to do with pots and pans and more to do with good customer service. When your renters feel confident in your ability to answer questions and solve problems in a quick, efficient, and friendly manner, everything else is surmountable. After all, if they do encounter any problems, they know you’ll be there to make it right.
But for those of us who haven’t made a career out of it, delivering good customer service isn’t necessarily second nature. It’s a skill that requires practice, like any other.
So, ready to transform your run-of-the-mill camper rental business into a happy camper factory?
Here are some surefire steps and tips for happier camper rental experiences.
Advantages of Good Customer Service
So, what’s the importance of customer service in the first place? Understanding why great customer service matters to you (and your business!) is the first step in learning how to provide it.
Well, put simply, good customer service is a boon to your business, and bad customer service could ruin it. When it comes to your livelihood or a significant auxiliary revenue stream, it doesn’t get much more important to that!
Good customer service also helps you create real human connections and earn money in ethical ways you can feel good about. In short, it’s the right thing to do. So… how do you do it?
Of course, you may have heard old adages like “the customer is always right” or have held down a customer service job for a stint during high school or college. But simply yessing your clients to death isn’t all there is to it if you want to offer the very best in customer service.
Good Customer Service Habits
Customer service is important because it helps build trust between you and your client — and trust is a key factor in maintaining and increasing your business. People are smart; they can tell when you’re simply placating them or just offering an endless stream of “yeah, sure” without any actual engagement. To truly deliver awesome customer service that’ll have your renters leaving five-star reviews, recommending your service to their friends, and coming back again for their next vacation, you have to be personally committed to ensuring their comfort, safety, and fun.
That takes a whole lot more than simply nodding along with every statement your client makes. It means putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and predicting as many of their needs as possible before they become problems — which not only require extra energy to solve, but also interrupt your customers’ vacation experience.
So that means those towels and dishes we talked about above actually are an important part of great customer service. By thinking through and providing everything your renter might need, you’re helping to ensure they have a great vacation experience. After all, no one enjoys having to call a service provider to ask for something to be changed or dealt with, even if they aren’t upset about whatever the issue is. It takes time and energy that should be spent enjoying their destination.
Thoughtful extras, like scented candles or maybe even a bottle of wine, can also go a long way toward making your renters feel welcomed and at home when they’re packing up your rig for their camping trip.
How to Improve Customer Satisfaction
Of course, no one can predict everything, and at some point, you’ll more than likely have to deal with an oversight or an emergent issue. Luckily, RVshare offers 24/7 roadside assistance to renters, so you probably won’t be out fixing a flat tire on the side of the road… but you never know what other questions your renters might have for you during their journey!
One of the most important customer service skills — and also one of the most frequently encountered barriers to good customer service — is the ability to listen, wholly and completely, to your customers’ needs. Don’t make any assumptions based on their camping experience level, and don’t lose your patience if the problem is an easy fix. After all, we were all new once!
When you listen and provide friendly advice without passing judgment, your customers will notice and appreciate it. No one likes to feel silenced or like the person they’re talking to feels like her time is being wasted, and your demeanor and tone of voice can very clearly signal your lack of interest, even over the phone. Work hard to put yourself in your renter’s shoes and keep an open mind!
Since this is one of the biggest factors affecting customer service, it can also be helpful to look into some good customer service language — catchphrases to have at your disposal in common scenarios, and ways to rethink negative circumstances. There are several fantastic books on the topic available; here are a few highly-rated titles.
- Customer Service: Career Success Through Customer Loyalty by Paul R. Timm
- Listen Up, Customer Service: A Guide to Develop Customer Loyalty by David Cottrell
- Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service by The Disney Institute
And no matter who you’re renting to or how much they seem to be enjoying themselves, don’t forget a simple, foolproof customer service tool at your disposal: Simply ask if you can do anything to improve their experience!
Customer Retention Goals
By learning and practicing great customer service skills, you’ll acquire a long string of clients who truly enjoy your service and are likely to come back and recommend it to others — and even more importantly, you might just make some real friends along the way.
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