Donna Genie shares how poor site maintenance costs campgrounds money. A low-hanging branch at Sun Resorts in Connecticut scraped her RV after rain. She argues operators should trim overhanging limbs, monitor narrow turns, and remove parked cars blocking exits. Family-run parks fix problems faster than corporate chains.
I want to talk today about trees and customer service and the obstacle courses that you have in your campground. I'm currently at the Sun Resorts in Mystic, Connecticut and I wanted to pose a little bit of a dilemma to you and help you see from your guest point of view what good customer service is in regards to trees and obstacles. When we pulled into this spot, I don't know if you can see, there's a tree right above me here and we are all the way to the far side of this lot and we could not escape the tree scratching the top of our rig. There's nothing more frustrating to an RV owner or a travel trailer owner or a fifth wheel owner than having something out of your control that is going to mess up your rig. Each and every person who buys camper or RV spends a lot of money and a lot of hard time. No matter how much the cost of their rig is, it was hard for them to make that decision to spend that money. And just like you don't want to see somebody walk out with a key and scrape down the side of your car, nobody wants to see that happen to their rig. Unfortunately, trees do grow and I know nature is out of our control. However, as a proactive campground owner, you want to watch for this. So here's my advice to you. I encourage you to watch every big fifth wheel, an RV that pulls into your site. Follow them from the time they come in from the street and including on your street. If your street has some tree limbs overhanging, see if you can get in touch with your county to get those trimmed or your city get that knocked out. But follow them from their journey into your campground. Watch the turns that they need to make. Is there ample space? Is there a really tight part that maybe inexperienced drivers might get get caught up on? Are there tree limbs overhanging on the sides, places where your road may be very narrow? Are there cars from other campers parked in the street blocking their navigation to make turns? We left a campground in Mount Desert Narrows in Maine in Bar harbor recently and at about 8:00 in the morning, I had to have a guy knock on his door, ask him to come move his truck. Now, luckily I had seen he was awake, but we couldn't make the turn to get out. That should not happen and you should be wary and watching this to make sure that if there are tight areas that you navigate your campers around them or make that as easy as possible for them to navigate in your park. Now let me tell you what happened here as a valuable Piece of information as to why family run campgrounds have an advantage over corporate run. This is a sun resort. So here's what happened. When we arrived, it was already too late. We'd already hit the tree limbs up here at the top and it had been raining. So I know that when it rains, tree limbs tend to sag. So I didn't have any blame on the campground for not having that tree trimmed. But when I stopped by the office after we checked in, I said, hey, I took a picture here. There's a tree that you might want to have trimmed on our site for the next guy. It's hanging very low. It scraped the top of our rigs. It's going to scrape anybody who pulls in there with a bigger rig or a fifth wheel. So I wanted to make you aware of this so that you could correct it for the next person who arrives. I spoke with a person who works here and she will remain unnamed. But her answer to me was, oh, corporate does all the tree trimming. And I said, oh, well, I just wanted to let you know because that one needs trimmed. I know it has just rained, so some of these may sag. Just to update you for the next guy who pulls into that site so that they're not disappointed that they scraped a tree limb. Her answer was, well, we don't have any control over that. Corporate won't listen to us when we tell them that. Is that really what you want your employees to say, whether you're corporate or family run? Hey, I just work here. I don't have any control over anything and nor do I want to even pass along any suggestions? No, it was a terrible response. I was not happy with her response and I tried to persuade her and tell her, hey, you know, from a customer service perspective, that's a horrible answer. You need to get in touch with somebody. And I even suggested, is there somebody I should get in touch with at corporate to help move this process along for the next guy and for if I should ever return to a resort? She said, no, they won't listen to us. They just trim the trees whenever they feel like it. Not so happy with that response. Boohoo, Tucson resorts. If that's really how your corporate structure works or if you put up with that from an employee standpoint, that's terrible customer service. I explained to the lady that I work with family owned campgrounds every day and there are tree limbs that sag and need to be trimmed. And in general, I was actually at another campground. I'll give a shout out to old Orchard beech in Maine as well. We had the same situation. It had been raining and some trees needed to trim. We had a guy out there in like two minutes and he came and brought his limb trimmer and got to work and got that fixed up. So cheers to them for having good customer service on tree limbs. Go out there, family owned campgrounds, take a look and try to prevent the situation from even happening. As your employees and you are out and about, constantly watch for those tree limbs that might cause a problem. Watch for the obstacles that people face as they arrive in your park. Believe it or not, they do talk about those in their reviews. So let's make sure you have great reviews and watch out for the obstacle course in your campground and make sure that trees are trimmed appropriately. Common sense perspective. Also, take a drive out of your campground. What do your campers face as they arrive to your park? When they arrive, this is their shining moment. You want to make a great impression. You don't want them to have just had a harrowing experience driving down the road and be mad because there have been tree limbs out scraping up the rig. Again. I know Mother Nature has a mind of its own, but in a lot of cases you can talk to your state, county, city officials and be proactive about getting that information, getting that information to them, having them trim those trees for you. So I hope you provide a great experience to your guests by helping them navigate a successful journey into and out of your park.
