Customerspective

Know Your Customers

A recent article on the Financial Times website points out ways travel could be made easier by airlines and hotels, and makes this great point:

"Travel, particularly flying, could be much more pleasant if airlines, airport operators, and the services that support them actually employed people who have an intimate knowledge of how their passengers live, and who put themselves in such a mindset when making service decisions."

The author wonders why international airports don't always carry international newspapers, and why a clean airplane isn't always a guarantee. By giving the customer simple goods and services they would use and appreciate, businesses could produce happy customers and increased revenue.

Out there in the Black Hills of Dakota there lived...

a bunch of buffalo. The Beatles lyric is actually: "there lived a young man named Rocky Racooooooon." On our vacation out west last week, I never hesitated to start singing that song whenever anybody mentioned "Black Hills" or "Dakota," which made me really, really popular with my wife and kids. Oh well, they're used to rolling their eyes when I'm around.

Our trip started with a jaunt to the Badlands (very cool) followed by Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills. We camped in Custer State Park, which contained miles of rolling beautiful terrain, and enough buffalo (or do you say Bison?) to make your head spin. We were stopped several times in our car to let entire herds wander past.

Then we ventured on to Yellowstone in Wyoming. On the way we passed through Cody (named after Buffalo Bill) and ate at the famous Irma Hotel (founded by Buffalo Bill), drove past the Buffalo Bill Museum, gandered at the Buffalo Bill Dam, and cruised through the Buffalo Bill Cody State Park. That guy was the Trump of the 1890's.

The kids were not particularly enthused about Old Faithful (which was right on time with its eruption) or the stinky pools of bubbling sulphur water. They enjoyed the hike to the base of a waterfall, and we saw a bear as we were leaving the park, which made the trip for my youngest.

Overall, a goll-dang fine trek.