First of all, I’d like to thank Steve Wright for providing the perfect way to start this post. I was halfway through writing it when he replied to Wednesday’s post with this bit of insight.

Great pictures Gregg and melissa reported that the pumpkins are now officially carved. The program has been a great success for us, not only in the revenue generated but in getting new, never evers to check us out, and being able to generate much deeper relationships with them.

— Steve Wright (@stevejpr) October 21, 2020

So I circled back and rewrote my intro quickly, because one thing I didn’t touch on yesterday was something that surprised me and impressed me during the this last month.

It may be one of Jay Peak’s strengths, but it was absolutely a part of our experience.

The Power of People
When you stay for a month in a condo 12 states away, you end up interacting with a lot more people than you normally would. Sometimes these are longer conversations like:

• Wanda who patiently helped me with my reservation and answered all my questions
• The woman in the call center who cheerfully brushed off the fact my phone kept dropping the call as I tried to read her our credit card number
• Paul at the front desk when we checked in who realized how long we’d been driving and pulled out a couple Vermont jokes to cheer me up
• The cashier who sold us our tickets to the tram and was kind enough to put up with my questions around how many she’d been selling
• George(?) who helped me get new room keys after the first month of our stay passed
• Melissa who was thoughtful enough to bring us a treat soon after we arrived
• And of course Steve who, true to form, has checked in on us and been super helpful throughout

Sometimes it’s just seeing the security guy (who delivered our pizza during quarantine) out when he’s making his rounds or recognizing the same faces a few times in the base area.

Whoever it is, I’ve never had interactions with a resort at this breadth and depth.

And it’s a really cool dimension of this trip I wasn’t expecting.

Why
But I love it in part because everyone has been so helpful. Even more, they’re not being fake or coming off robotic or acting anything but genuine. I won’t be so dramatic to say that one rogue employee would have ruined it all, but all those little, real, human interactions have absolutely added up and made a noticeable difference.

It reminds me of something Joe Myers once said that I think about often:

“Everyone at a resort is in marketing.”

Yes, we’ve had a blast. Our agenda has mostly been full of the small, simple things we love to do as a family, and we really have loved it all:

• The sunrises
• The hikes
• The tram rides
• The first snow
• The bike rides
• The logo gear
• The evenings watching movies
• The pumpkins we carved

But that alone isn’t the whole experience. It’s that human side combined with all the activities that have given our little family a relationship with Jay Peak that we’ve never had with a place before (that isn’t our home).

And, man, that’s a heckuva marketing win.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.