For years, I have been advising campground owners to look beyond the campground industry for inspiration and ideas on how to more effectively run their businesses. What your competitor down the highway is doing is far less important than what cruise lines, theme parks, ski resorts and boutique hotels are doing to not only meet evolving consumer expectations but to essentially raise the bar and redefine those very expectations. Companies like Viking River Cruises, Disney, Snowbird, and Marriott’s Renaissance and new Edition hotel groups are game-changers, not only within their industries but within the broader travel and leisure industries. With an emphasis on customer service, industry leaders rarely – if ever – need to compete on the basis of price. They have established themselves in a league of their own.

There are certainly campgrounds that have embraced this management philosophy, and they have been recognized as the leaders within their field. Particularly with the growing emphasis on luxury cabins and the overall concept of “glamping” (glamour camping, something that was certainly considered an oxymoron less than a generation ago), they are rebranding the camping experience as a superior alternative to the typical resort or hotel. As leaders within the industry, they set both the pricing thresholds and the consumer expectations for all parks, and they are profitable operations as a result.

There are certainly some infrastructural investments that help to differentiate the leading camping resorts from the rest of the pack. These include things like heated swimming pools, paved roadways, modern playgrounds, reliable wi-fi, 50-amp electric service, spacious pull-thru sites, and dog parks; however, most of what differentiates industry leaders has little to do with infrastructure and everything to do with attitude. Let me be clear that not every campground is destined to meet these new levels of consumer expectations, and not every camper is seeking out this type of experience. It is all about choices, and let’s be honest: have you ever worried about raising your rates by $1.00 per night, even though there are parks charging $20.00 or $30.00 more for a similar site?

It is easy to learn what sets certain businesses apart from others, and I encourage you to take the time – probably in your off-season – to personally investigate. Put your financial concerns aside for a weekend, and book a stay in a leading boutique hotel in a major American city. Take notes. Everything that you experience can be translated into an equivalent experience at your campground, from the doorman who welcomes you, to the valet parking attendant who parks your car, to the front desk clerk who puts you in a room with a view, to the concierge who gets the dinner reservations that you could not get on your own, to the front desk clerk again who calls to confirm that everything in the room meets your expectations, to the housekeeping staff member who knows when you are away and turns down the sheets and leaves a rose and chocolate (or the hand towel equivalent of a balloon animal) on your pillow. What they all have in common is friendly, personalized service that exceeds common expectations.

Yes, it is easy to learn from the examples of businesses that are setting themselves apart by doing things right. It is also possible to learn from businesses that consistently seem to be doing things wrong. Let me relate my recent personal experience with United Airlines, when returning from a family vacation in Mexico on a one-stop flight to Boston.

When we arrived at Guanajuato International Airport for the first leg of our flight, we were told that our departure would be delayed by about 45 minutes, leaving us plenty of time to make our connecting flight in Houston. We were told that the incoming flight had returned to Houston with some sort of mechanical trouble. Shortly afterward, we were told the delay would be three and a half hours, because the plane was being replaced with another aircraft. Nobody wants to argue with delays that are based upon mechanical issues, true or untrue, and we had no choice but to wait. In the meantime, the United Airlines ticket agent hand-wrote new connecting flight numbers on our tickets from Houston to Boston. Yes, that seemed a bit unusual. About two hours later, I returned to the ticket counter (of course, going through airport security checks each time) to ask for the assurance of real, printed tickets. Another desk clerk at that time admitted that the hand-written ticket revisions did not even represent an actual flight number! The new printed tickets contained the actual flight number and terminal but, suspiciously enough, no seat assignments. The connection time was tight, and our flight would arrive in Boston around midnight.

When we finally arrived in Houston, we knew that we had to keep moving in order to get to the correct terminal, get our bags checked, and make it through security. Even with TSA Pre-Check, we were not getting anywhere quickly, with perhaps 1,000 people bottlenecked in security and trying to get to their outbound flights. We could only presume that the airlines are aware of long lines in security and are aware of passengers who have not yet arrived at the gate. Being the last departing flight to Boston, and flying non-stop, you would think that the airline might delay the flight’s departure by 10 or 15 minutes. Think again.

When we arrived at our gate, the door was closed, and we were told to go to the United Airlines customer service counter. We were far from the only passengers who had missed our flight to Boston, and the counter was severely understaffed. When we finally got to speak with the customer service agent, he explained that 2 out of the 6 of us did not even have seats on the plane that had just departed! (Remember the tickets with no seat assignments?) The attendant was very nice (and seemed highly embarrassed by the United policies), but his hands were tied. He said that our bags made it out on that flight, leaving us without changes of clothing, personal items, or medications. We were also told that the next flight would be early the following morning, and were given hotel vouchers for a nearby Holiday Inn (we passed more desirable Hilton and Hyatt properties along the way on our shuttle), along with $7.00 meal vouchers for dinner and breakfast. In the meantime, our limo driver was already halfway to Boston, because United did not post the original flight delay online and we could not contact him until we were in Houston with the bad news. That incurred an understandable $300.00 charge. Thanks, United!

At this point, there were still people in line at the United Airlines customer service counter, including a young couple with two children in tow. It was 8:30, the lights were turned out, and the customer service clerks announced, “Sorry, we are now closed for the night.” Can you imagine having guests in line at your registration desk and telling them that you are closed?

Our dinners alone (nothing fancy, at the Holiday Inn’s restaurant) exceeded twice the value of all of our dinner and breakfast vouchers. Our displeasure with United Airlines was the primary topic of conversation during our meal. Toward the end, a man who had been dining at a nearby table stopped by, identifying himself as a United Airlines pilot. He empathized with our experience and urged us to complain as loudly as possible to and about the airline.

After four hours of sleep, we caught our flight the following morning and arrived in Boston. We went directly to the United Airlines baggage counter to retrieve our bags that we were told were on the flight the night before. Guess what? Half of our bags had arrived with us on the morning flight. I had earlier picked up a copy of USA Today in the lobby of the Holiday Inn. Interestingly enough, there was a graphic that displayed a summary of results for the 2013 American Consumer Satisfaction Index airline industry benchmarks. To nobody’s surprise, United Airlines occupies last place, with a consumer satisfaction index of only 62%, well below the industry average and far below first and second place airlines, JetBlue and Southwest (our airline of choice). Note that, a week or two later, JetBlue probably took a major hit, when they cancelled hundreds of flights during the so-called “polar vortex” cold snap. Consumers have a voice, and they will share their displeasure in as many ways as possible.

In the case of United Airlines, you would think that they had learned a lesson, with the “United Breaks Guitars” video having been viewed over 13,000,000 times on YouTube over the last 4 years, or the more recent “United Airlines Almost Killed My Greyhound” video that also involved a United Airlines flight from Houston to Boston. The power of the social media cannot be overemphasized or underestimated.

In one instance after another within our ordeal, the problem was not with United Airlines employees, but with the airline’s corporate policies. Ticket agents apologized, the pilot advised us to express our anger, flight attendants could not have been more cordial, and the customer service agent seemed highly embarrassed when he was told to turn out the lights at 8:30. As far as United Airlines is concerned, they fully met their responsibilities by putting us up in inexpensive hotel rooms for the night and providing us with $7.00 meal vouchers.

As a campground owner, you need to hire and train staff members who are friendly and obsessed with customer service; however, you must not interfere with the customer satisfaction process by implementing rigid standards that will be resented by your guests and lead to frustration amongst your staff. United Airlines seems unwilling to learn, but you – as a much smaller player within the travel and leisure industry – can clearly profit from their mistakes by implementing flexible policies that will always put your customers first.

Whenever we tune into the TV news in the winter months, we are sure to see stories about the latest storm that is pummeling the Midwest, the lake-effect snow that is piling up on Buffalo, or the latest Nor’easter that is heading up the coast to New England. Our lives seems to revolve around the current weather, whether it means there will be school cancellations, problems getting into work, or difficulty starting a campfire at a campsite the following night.

If you run a campground, you know that your customers are craving the latest weather forecast. If the weekend is going to be sunny and warm, you are sure to get a barrage of last-minute callers inquiring about vacancies. If the weather is bad, you can count on calls attempting cancellations due to the sudden death of Aunt Clara or young Billy’s sudden case of the mumps. Inclement weather forecasts are a good reminder for why your business needs to have a clearly written cancellation policy in place.

Years ago, when I worked rather extensively with the New England ski industry, it was my understanding that the major ski resorts made an annual practice of wining and dining the chief meteorologists at major market TV stations, in attempt to get them to put a more positive spin on upcoming snowstorms. Like the glass that is both half empty and half full, the same snowstorm can be described in terms of gloom and doom or as the driving force behind the best ski conditions in years.

All that aside, your campers are always going to be obsessed with the weather forecast for next weekend. You can’t fight human nature. When it comes to online weather, there are two major competitors and two major players: The Weather Channel’s Weather.com and AccuWeather’s AccuWeather.com. They each have more than one free option. If you would like to post the current weather conditions and forecast on your website, here is how to do it.

The Weather Channel / Weather.com

Let’s start with Weather.com and its Weather Widget. This could not be simpler to create and install on your site. To put a Weather Widget on your website is as easy as going to Weather.com, scrolling down to the bottom of the page, clicking on “Weather Tools” (under the “Our Products” menu), then clicking on the “WEATHER Widget” link. Enter your city or zip code, choose Fahrenheit or Celsius, choose a horizontal or vertical orientation (whichever will fit better on your website), choose one of 10 themes (including Outdoors), the click on the “Get the Code” link. Copy and paste (or send to your webmaster). It’s as easy as that. For a direct link, go to:
www.weather.com/services/oap/weather-widgets.html

If you would like a similar but somewhat more robust option, start at the same page, but click on the “NEW & Improved Weather On Your Website” link. This one will associate the weather widget with your specific website and its authorized domain. In subsequent steps, this tool will allow you to choose one of four sizes and orientations, will display your city or town name, and will allow you to choose from twice as many background images or one of two seasonal collections (which alternate four images with the seasons.) Depending upon the size of the widget, it will also allow you to display localized real-time information showing your choice of several options that include wind speed and direction, humidity, UV index, atmospheric pressure, dew point, visibility, and the dreaded “chance of precipitation”. In exchange for being able to embed this tool onto your website, you will also choose a category for the unobtrusive advertising text links that will appear on your widget. Again, when you are finished, you will get a snippet of code (in this case, longer than the code for the basic website widget) that you or your webmaster will be able to insert into your site. For a direct link, go to:
http://www.weather.com/services/oap.html

AccuWeather.com

From the AccuWeather.com website, click on the “Apps & Downloads” icon and link at the bottom of the page. Then choose the “FREE Weather for Your Site” option for the AccuWeather Widget, which is created with a responsive design that will automatically scale for readability on virtually any desktop computer or mobile device. Basically, there are two weather widgets that can be used either individually or in combination. The first is the Current Weather Widget, the second is the 36 Hour Weather Widget, and the third is a combination Linked Weather Widget.

The Current Weather Widget comes in one of four sizes, and the 36 Hour Weather Widget is fully responsive, scaling from 890 pixels down to 320 pixels, depending upon the device. (You can even preview this feature prior to downloading the code!) With either widget, you can set the forecast for a fixed location (presumably your campground’s location) or set it to auto detect the user’s location (not as useful in your instance). You can also choose a language, which is very useful if you have a version of your website in Spanish, French, or another language other than English.

Finally, the AccuWeather widgets include the popular hourly forecasts, links to a local video forecast, radar, and weather maps. For a direct link, go to:
http://www.accuweather.com/en/free-weather-widgets

Weather, love it or hate it. However you look at it, your business needs it, and your customers want access to this information. Would you rather they get it from you or from somebody else?

It seemed oddly bizarre to hear the news recently that most of the last 300 remaining Blockbuster video rental stores would be closing within a month. Think back to 1985, when the chain became a behemoth that swallowed up an industry that was built upon local mom and pop businesses. Less than a decade later, at its pinnacle in 1994, Viacom bought the chain for a cool $8 Billion. How many of us cannot remember browsing the new releases and waiting in line to check out VHS tapes, later DVD’s, on a Friday or Saturday night? My local store, wedged between a supermarket and a liquor store, remains vacant since it closed about 3 years ago. A year or two afterward, after struggling to survive, the last remaining independent video store chain in our area also succumbed.

The local video store (Pleasant Street Video, in Northampton, Massachusetts) outlasted its monster competitor a mile up the road because it catered to serious film buffs, with an extensive inventory that included independent, fine art, and foreign films. The clerks who worked there loved film, they weren’t simply teenagers asking us if we wanted popcorn and soft drinks to go with our movies. In fact, when the local independent store closed, there was a fundraising campaign that allowed the store’s expansive collection to be acquired by the local public library.

Yes, the video rental industry found itself in the difficult situation of trying to continually adapt to keep up with what was essentially an industrial evolution. Suddenly, there was a second Goliath in the room – Netflix – and Blockbuster was slow to respond to video-by-mail, kiosks, streaming video, and a more customer-centered philosophy. Blockbuster considered itself indomitable. Rather than adapting to a changing competitive marketplace, it grew to 8,000 stores, passed on an opportunity to acquire rival Netflix, and collected as much as $500 Million a year in the late fees that were universally hated by its customers.

More than the changes in the way that Americans watched movies, Blockbuster ultimately failed because it simply didn’t care about its customers … you and me.

With most campgrounds in the United States being individually owned and operated, it is not difficult to see parallels between camping and the video rental industry. Certainly, there have been campground ownership groups that have appeared on the scene, capitalizing upon the leverage and efficiency of centralized business plans, marketing, buying power, and name recognition … not to mention sometimes very deep-pockets.

As campground owners, it is important to learn from the Blockbuster experience. My advice is to run your business in the most customer-centric manner possible. Ask your campers how you can better provide what they really want from their camping experience, then follow through and deliver. Whether it’s free wi-fi, pet-friendly facilities, live entertainment, or new recreational amenities, you need to recognize that resting on your laurels is not going to compensate for even a normal rate of attrition. Go out of your way to make it clear to your existing campers that their interests are your interests, and reach out to new campers by showing them what makes your campground unique. A homogenous Blockbuster-style operation is going to lose its appeal sooner rather than later.

Although family camping appears to be “here to stay”, there are certainly demographic shifts that both individual campground owners and the industry need to address. A generation that has been brought up on computers and video games has not been introduced to the outdoors to the same degree as previous generations. It is imperative that campgrounds find ways of drawing this younger generation into the outdoor experience. Ask Blockbuster – which considered innovations like the Redbox kiosks as insignificant niche markets – about the need to adapt. Hindsight is said to be 20/20. If you bought or built your business back in 1985, I suspect that you happy today that your investment was in a family campground and not a Blockbuster franchise.

Insure the long-term survival of your business by learning valuable lessons from those who have failed, as well as those who succeed, both from within the industry and from industries beyond.