10 Telltale Signs You Need Better Tours
& The Importance Of Storytelling Š 2012 AudioConexus Inc,
Why You Need Better Tours
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10 Telltale Signs You Need Better Tours
The goal is to make every customer experience exceptional - to be remarkable - to provide commentary that engages and delights your audience every time your tour departs. Your tour is the most important impression you make on a customer. Yet, too many organizations think they're providing a “good enough” sightseeing experience. They're selling tickets right!
You've spoken with your drivers and guides (countless times). You've invested in writing scripts that are seldom followed. And you can’t control what’s said to passengers when you’re not there.
But making enough money to pay the bills and maintain the business isn’t enough. You know your tours can be better. And better tours sell more tickets to more people for more money.
So your drivers just wing it because it's hard to find good drivers that are also great storytellers. Or conversely, you’re concerned about safety. You don’t want drivers’ distracted by commentary and microphones. 2
These problems aren’t new. Sightseeing businesses share many of these common challenges.
People don’t remember facts. They remember stories.
3. You don't follow a script
Here, we'll share ten common signs that you need better tours: !
People choose your tour because they found your website, picked up your glossy brochure, heard about you from a friend, and saw value.
1. Your tour is "good enough"
" What are your passengers saying? If you're not hearing good things from your customers you’re delivering a mediocre experience. Your tour may even be good - but not good enough to create positive word of mouth.
It was your branding that influenced their purchase decision (or a family member or a friend). The fact is, people unwittingly judge books by their covers. Together many factors that are not directly related to your tours conspire to create a mental experience before your customers’ arrive.
If you're customers' aren't engaged by your commentary and delighted by your experience you’ll say goodbye to referrals (online and off).
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But if nothing about your tours is consistent, if your drivers (or guides) tell their own stories, you have no control over what is said to your customers (and when).
2. Your tour sounds like a history lecture
" Many guides get caught up in historical dates laden with facts and figures. For example,
You’ve lost control of “the experience.” When this happens, it’s hard to manage the expectations of your customers.
“In 1854 John Blithe was a carpenter by trade. In 1855 his wife passed away suddenly. It’s for this reason John gave up carpentry in 1856. In 1857, John's loneliness led him to a pub where he met his future partner, Ed Smith in April, 1858.”
Lack of quality and consistently are key reasons why businesses fail (or fail to grow).
As painful as this may seem, we often experience this kind of history tour (or lecture) when evaluating our customers’ experiences. The problem is, people want to be engaged.
People generally don't talk about a “satisfactory” experience. When was the last time you went out of your way to share a story about an okay experience? Customer comments enable you to monitor engagement.
4. You're not getting feedback or comments
A traveler in an online forum said it best when she said "a guide needs to be a good storyteller. A pure recitation of facts is mindnumbingly boring."
If people aren't commenting on your tours it's because they didn't experience anything worth sharing.
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Giving people a reason to talk about your products and services and making it easier for these conversations to take place contributes to a business’s growth and profit.
7. You're using the same commentary you wrote 10 years ago
Have you ever had such an outstanding dining experience that you had to tell your friends about it? If so, then you understand the power of creating a great experience.
Your commentary is outdated. If you haven't evaluated your commentary in 5 - 10 years, it more than likely feels stale and old - not only for you - but for your passengers. Travelers today have different expectations than they did ten years ago.
5. You asked staff members to write your stories
8. Your marketing builds your business (and will save you).
Okay - we'll give you the benefit of doubt. Your driver, guide, or Marketing Manager who wrote your script also moonlights as a professional writer. They understand how to engage audiences with a sightseeing tour that is "infused with its own particular magic and energized by its own unique electricity".
If you think marketing is the only key to unlocking your business potential - this is a sign you're headed for trouble. Maybe not now but when a savvy customer focused company comes into town to compete with your business - you'll be watching your business slump.
But, if your staff members aren't professional writers, it's more likely that your tour isn't great - it's mediocre. And if it's mediocre you're turning people off.
Marketing is important. But you've got to start with a great tour experience. If your tour is mediocre, a big marketing budget won't save you.
6. You're talking about things people don't care about Your drivers or guides talk about things people don't care about. We’ve heard the craziest things on our customers’ tours. The local Starbucks? Garbage collection days? The fancy chandelier at McDonalds? All true stories. The metric tonne introduced by France in 1799?
Be receptive to the needs of your potential customers. And focus on creating exceptional customer experiences first. Then worry about the marketing.
People don't care about units of measure unless you can help them visualize why this is important to your story?
Providing great tours requires preparation, training, and a continued investment in your staff. While this is a good start - it doesn't guarantee the results you're looking for. Some people are natural born storytellers.
9. You think everyone provides great tours
If you're talking about things people don't care about - don't expect them to care or talk about your tour.
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They have the knack. The mojo. The magic. The gift of the gab.
Get customer feedback by asking questions, using customer questionnaires and surveys and working with frontline staff. Your frontline staff are your most resourceful customer feedback sources.
But that doesn't mean everyone you hire provides great tours. We agree that everyone is a storyteller - but is everyone a great storyteller? Consistently?
Find out who your competitors are targeting? Who are their current customers? You may find a niche market that they’re overlooking.
People can learn to be better storytellers - but not everyone has the knack. Invest in storytellers.
The bottom line is your customers want to hear great stories. And they want to be entertained. So your stories should matter to you.
10. You don't know who your audience is Who’s your audience? This may seem like a simple question with an easy answer. But it’s the most difficult question our customers’ answer.
With a little hard work you can get there. The goal is to make every customer experience exceptional - to be remarkable - to provide commentary that engages and entertains your passengers every time your tour departs.
Who are you targeting and why? To build a solid foundation for your business, you must first identify your typical customer and tailor your tour experience accordingly. We find the most successful tourism businesses know their audience. When executing your business and marketing plans don't chase people. Focus on attracting specific audience(s) that share your worldview. And then write commentary that engages and captivates your target audience. So what’s next? We recommending evaluating your tours. Who are your current customers, and why do they buy from you?
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Differentiate by Storytelling
A great tour, with a great story as its core and context, is infused with its own particular magic and energized by its own unique electricity. A great tour is story-driven, it entertains; that’s what makes it truly memorable. Guided tours that preoccupy themselves with describing the sequence of “points of interest” encountered along the way — what’s on the right, what’s on the left — make the fatal error of believing they are telling a story, when, in fact, they are simply announcing a route map.
Dispensing facts and figures, however “interesting” those facts and figures may be, should never be mistaken for weaving the threads of a mesmerizing plot. In the end, the information imparted is never as important as the story told. Because your customers want to be entertained. And they want to learn new things.
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If your tour tells no story, it invariably falls flat, by virtue of its failure to entertain. The worst sin is to be boring.
live entertainment. But when you don’t deliver on this promise, you lose credibility and trust.
Storytelling is the heart and soul of a great tour narrative. An effective guided tour has more than a beginning, a middle and an end; it has a point.
The most successful sightseeing operators work hard to craft and support their ideal passenger experience over time, delivering on their promise while appealing to our senses. These tourism operators understand that prosperity is created by making their customers feel like they made the right choice.
Like a good story well spun, a great tour narrative forges an imaginative connection between teller and told. A great tour, with a great story as its core and context, is infused with its own particular magic and energized by its own unique electricity. One is drawn subtly and irresistibly into an experience that is inevitably “more than meets the eye,” and from which one emerges with a broader, deeper understanding, if not a more visceral sense, of place, history and character.
In Joseph Pine’s and James Gilmore’s book, The Experience Economy, they write "Those businesses that relegate themselves to the diminishing world of goods and services will be rendered irrelevant. To avoid this fate, you must learn to stage a rich, compelling experience.” Great tours are led by great storytellers. Their stories compelling, appealing — and memorable.
Deciding the story to tell is only half the story, as it were; bringing that story to life is the other half of the battle. In this, a great tour narrative uses every tool of storytelling at its imaginative disposal — historical persona, single and multiple narrators, music, sound effects, dramatic reenactment—not only to engage the attention and sustain the interest of its audience, but to immerse them within an enhanced experience whose whole is demonstrably greater than the sum of its part. A great tour is story-driven, it entertains; that’s what makes it truly memorable.
If brands are experiences, then the stories we tell are the coherent, meaningful narratives of who we are and how we fit into the world, and into the worldview of our customers. By understanding your audience and learning what stories your customers respond to, you can really be sharing something that matters. According to a survey by the U.S. Tour Operators Association, USTOA members cited that travelers want enhanced experiences, cultural enrichment, and in-depth discoveries. Travelers are telling tourism operators that they want value for their money.
So what’s your story? Great tours promise something to your customers. In sightseeing, your tours may promise fun, adventure, on-time service, history, or
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So what’s your story? When passengers step onto your bus, boat, trolley, or train, what do you want to say? What’s your script? What’s the story you want to share?
The bottom line is - Stories matter. More important than any technology, software platform, or device that you may be considering, your stories are the experience – and the experience is what will differentiate your business from becoming a "me-too" tourism commodity. And this is what really matters. By providing high-quality and consistent touring experiences for domestic and international foreign language markets, your brand will be transformed, will be respected, and will be something that is remembered, and shared, through languages, cultures, friends and families.
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AudioConexus Inc. 556 O’Connor Drive, Suite 129 Kingston, Ontario K7P 1N3 Canada Phone: +1 (613) 507-1300 www.audioconexus.com
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