Every Utahn is part of state's tourism effort, speaker says

LOGAN — Visiting downtown Salt Lake City on Thursday with his son, Peter Tarlow needed directions to Temple Square. The man he chatted with instead gave him a prime example of atrocious customer service.

Tarlow, founder and president of tourism services company Tourism & More, said Friday at the annual Utah Tourism Conference that everyone can play a role — positive or negative — in tourism.

"All it takes is one person in the state of Utah to destroy my experience here, and I will forget about everything else. Not fair, but it's reality," Tarlow said.

"When I'm in the state of Utah, I'm not a guest of the Utah travel association or the travel industry. I am a guest of the people of Utah. That means everyone in this state has got to be part of tourism. Everyone in this state has got to be willing to understand what customer service is."

At least one didn't. When he asked the man Thursday how to get to Temple Square, a mere four blocks away, the man first asked why he would want to go there, then said there would be too many bums along the way and finally said it was too far to walk.

"He was arguing with me," Tarlow said. "If he had won, I would have said, 'Fine. There's a bunch of bums and know-nothings in a great city.'

"Salt Lake City is a terrific city. You could have all the best advertising you want, (but) that one guy undid $10 million worth of advertising, very quickly. Now, I'm in tourism, so I blew him off, but somebody else might not have blown him off in the same way."

Tarlow cited examples of good and bad customer service in several industries — airlines making last-minute flight changes and not serving food, restaurants with too-harsh lighting, hotels with high room rates nickel-and-diming for services — but stressed that in a world where "no one ever needs to take a vacation," the expectations to please customers are extremely high.

"In tourism, if you do 10 things and nine of them are perfect and one of them is wrong, your customers are going to remember the one wrong thing, not the nine good things," Tarlow said. "That's not fair, but that's reality."

Companies win customer loyalty through attention, not price, he said. And that attention must be more than just the company leader believing in strong customer service. Every employee must believe and act accordingly.

"No one judges your customer service about your belief," he said. "What they judge your customer service on is on the front lines."

e-mail: bwallace@desnews.com