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Business Guidance

How customer-focused is your camping accommodation business?

Contents

Contents

How customer-focused is your camping accommodation business?

Campsites and holidays parks, like any business, clearly need a focus on finances and profit, but those that are truly customer-focused put customers first and foremost at the core and heart of everything they do. Business decisions are made based on how those decisions impact customers.

Friends toasting marshmallows around campfire

Customer focus

Customer behaviours and expectations have changed considerably over the years, and will continue to do so in future. Businesses are tasked with meeting or indeed exceeding customers’ expectations and requirements at every interaction, and in so doing they are seeking to achieve customer loyalty and trust. How well or to what extent companies actually deliver this depends on where their customer focus lies.

Companies who have real customer focus are passionate and relentless in their pursuit to discover, understand and meet what their customers’ require and value. They deliver exceptional service, and they actively seek and incorporate customer feedback into their decision making process and the future development of the business.

The rewards of being customer-focused is well researched and documented, and in summary:

  • It engages customers: the majority of whom will appreciate being listened to and will expect companies to take on board their feedback and adapt accordingly. If they don’t feel listened to, customers are likely to choose another company that will listen.
  • It makes business sense: customer-focused companies enjoy many benefits as a result, and are significantly more profitable than companies who do not put customers at the heart of their business and decision making.
  • It creates competitive differentiation: customer focus builds customer relationships, loyalty and trust, and in so doing it presents a platform for growth, and competitive advantage.

Here is an indicative framework for improving customer focus:

An indicative framework for improving customer focus

Leadership
  • Clear vision and leadership by example from the top
  • Champion customer focus and what it means to the business
  • Regular personal interaction with both customers and employees
  • Recognise and reward achievements and successes

Know your customer
  • Identify different customer types and behaviours
  • Collect, categorise and gain insight from customer data
  • Tailor customer experiences based on what you know about them
  • Communicate customer insights across the business

Understand the customer journey
  • Map the customer journey with your business from end-to-end
  • Identify all of the key customer interaction points
  • Look at each interaction from a customer perspective
  • Develop & deliver customer experience improvement strategies

Engage people across the business
  • Engage everyone across the business with customer focus
  • Form a business-wide core team to champion customer focus
  • Tailor/align recruitment, training & development activities
  • Encourage all employees to make customer-based decisions
Measure what really matters
  • Make customer focus one of your key performance indicators
  • Align measures to key customer interaction points
  • Communicate regularly with updates, successes & achievements
  • Recognise and reward customer-focused thinking and actions

Encourage customer feedback
  • Actively seek, listen to, and act on customer feedback
  • Use direct feedback methods such as surveys & review platforms
  • Collect indirect feedback such as social channels & online forums
  • Manage customer feedback & insights to drive business decisions

Source: Bob Hill Leisure Consultancy (An indicative framework for improving customer focus - March 2021)

The framework above provides a synopsis of the core elements of a customer-focused approach.

Becoming a truly customer-focused business requires a long-term and wide-reaching strategy, which will develop and build meaningful customer relationships, loyalty and trust. It is something that requires a dedicated and comprehensive approach, careful planning and delivery, and often a change of culture within the business.

There are specialist consultants that work with companies to develop and deliver strategies to improve customer focus in their businesses.