The Timeshare Beat: Jerry Sikes; With Regard to Indifference

“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.” -George Bernard Shaw -

The mission of any great Timeshare or Vacation Ownership Resort should be to exceed the expectations every guest had when they chose that resort as the base for their memorable vacation. There are times when we fail to achieve that mission and most often that failure can be traced to indifference. Our SOP (standard operating procedure) upon the receipt of a negative evaluation about the quality of our product or service usually is to identify the staff members or associates that had direct interface with the complaining guests or reported incident. Once we have identified the culprit, most often we council them and put some kind of documentation in their personnel file or we put some kind of bandaid on the problem and go on to the next situation.

Now I am sure that many of you are shaking your heads and thinking, “That’s so much BS” and it doesn’t apply to you or your resort. Same here at SCR! When this month's Guest Comment Report came in from RCI, I looked at the numbers and quickly identified that we (once again) had maintained the Gold Crown standard. It was a day or two later when I had nothing more important on my agenda that I took the time to look beyond the surface of that report at the individual comments by our prior guests. By and large (as the numbers had indicated) the comments were favorable, however two comments stuck in my mind. The first indicated that the freezer on one unit’s refrigerator did not work, the guest had notified us of the problem and our maintenance staff had responded but were unable to fix the freezer. The marks from this guest indicated that our effort ended thus. The other comment came in the form of a general critique from a guest that, while our front office staff were knowledgeable, they lacked enthusiasm. Because our scores for Check-in/Check-Out and Hospitality are always above 4.6 and I don’t remember many complaints about our crew not being able to fix (or place the appropriate band aid) stuff when the guests report them to be broken, I placed the report aside and began work on attendance at the upcoming ARDA-Arizona Management Seminar.

Its not that I am indifferent to those guests who found our product and/or service did not live up to their expectations, it's just that I am extremely busy working the telephone to drum up attendance for next week's management seminar.

Now Randy Goodhope is the Director of the ARDA Educational Institute for the Foundation and he just doesn’t understand that mailing a brochure to those on the ARDA list is like preaching to the choir. Many of those who received the mailing were waiting for the details the brochure contained because they had already planned to send several of their people and to attend themselves, however to most on the list it was just one of several such announcements they had received that week. It's not that Randy is indifferent to the fact that many of the (so called) leaders in the industry are busy doing their own thing and its not that those leaders are indifferent to the needs to provide motivation and learning opportunities to their associates, it's just that the brochure about the Arizona seminar must have got lost somewhere in the shuffle.

I am also sure that the members of the Board of Directors for the several HOA/POA Associations within the area would not be indifferent to the opportunity to hear what Thorp Thomas, Senior Vice President Associations for Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc., or Harry McCoy II, Esq., or Partner at Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, could have to say about owner associations or board member “due diligence”. It wasn’t indifference because I am sure they would have liked to have found out firsthand from the AON representative the details of the new ARDA sponsored Directors & Officers insurance, however they just did not know about the ARDA-Arizona Management Seminar or about the availability to receive a scholarship from ARDA-ROC to cover the seminar registration fee. I am more than sure that no one involved in paying property taxes for a Timeshare or Vacation Ownership Resort within the State of Arizona is indifferent to the details concerning the recently passed real property and classification legislation or would miss the special workshop on compliance if they knew about it, or that they could attend even though they did not find the other presentations beneficial to their associates or themselves.

Indifference is not an issue with Sue Kelley Senior Vice President; Shell Hospitality because she is coming all the way from the Shell headquarters in greater Chicago to present her views on exceeding guest expectations and to lead the Shell associates that will be in attendance. Indifference would not keep Howard Nausbaum, President of ARDA, from coming all the way from D.C. to provide an industry update or Stephany Madsen & Toby Weas both coming from the Orlando ARDA Office for State Affairs. Obviously indifference is not an issue with the folks from Roundhouse Resort in Pinetop because they are coming even though they are right in the middle of figuring out how to overcome the economic impact of the recent wildfire that threatened their very existence.

Final Thought

I could have chosen several other words for the title of this dissertation. Words such as apathy, disinterest, listlessness, or unresponsiveness come to mind. These words could apply to those whom I called and left messages about the ARDA-Arizona Management Seminar and who never found the time to return my call. I personally would like to think that they were very busy overcoming evidence that indifference had crept into some area of their operations and correctly thought those urgencies were more important at the moment. Could be that I need to follow their lead and get with Lori, Eric, Reyes and Clark to discuss the recent RCI Report and find out if indifference has become a problem at SCR. I would hate to think that those who chose to be our guests during the seminar would find the associates at SCR to be indifferent to their needs.