BLUE MOUNTAIN RESORTS: THE SERVICE QUALITY JOURNEY

Karan Mathur
Introduction to BMR
Founded in 1941 by Jozo Weider
Four Season Resort and largest family operated ski
resort in Canada by 1999
Ski-hill offered 251 acres of ski-able terrain with a
vertical drop of 721 feet
11 trails on 88 acres under lights for night skiing
Range of Skiers

20%
40%

40%

Novice Intermediate Expert

Intrawest Investment
1999 BMR sold 50% interest to Intrawest Corp.
Intrawest leading developer and operator of village
centered resorts across North America
Purchased 16 acres of real estate lands at the base of
BMR resort
Planned to develop a four-season pedestrian village
the included:
Restaurants
Shopping and nightlife
Resort entertainment(skiing, tubing, etc.)
BMR Operations
Staff

Ski Hill
Facilities and Guest Services
Year Round Call Center Snow Making
Staff 200 10 12
Winter Additional 6 Grooming 8
Seasonal 750 8 different Ski Training
Summer food service school with
Seasonal 250 facilities 180
Annual payroll Conference employees
of over $10 Hall Ski patrollers
million Daycare 15 part/full
Ski rental and time
repair shops First-Aid 75
volunteers
BMR Concerns

Reputation on long line-ups and poor service

Employee morale and job performance

Service Quality Program
Contacted consultancy firm Achieve International
Vision Statement To be a resort in Canada at
exceeding customer expectations
Value Statement Caring, Trusting and Commited
Customer definition re-defined as External and
Internal
Changed hiring practice for matching job demands
with employee capabilities
Rings of Service
Enhanced
Services

Support

Basic Product or
Service
Move to Enhanced Services
Process Teams (1994-1995)
Used Pareto charts, process flow mapping and
brainstorming
Improved communication between staff and management
Formal Training programs
17.2% customers gave 10/10 on staff friendliness
SWOP Program
Identification of specific areas where opportunity existed
to improve service quality
Proposal to identify issues and recommendations
Issues Identified

Customer Flow

Speed of Service

Information Systems
Customer Flow
Speed of Service
Information Systems

Guests become frustrated: Process flow mapping

Finding the resort
Confusing parking lots
Where to find amenities?
Intrawest plans to grow
facilities, problems going
to get worse
Hire 3 attendants to
address parking issues,
customer issues
Walk-up information
booths, FM radio or
computer-terminal kiosks
Customer Flow
Speed of Service
Information Systems

Long line-ups/misdirected Forecasting techniques to

to wrong lines better predict future
business activity
Weekends and holidays
Provide fast and accurate
information to staff

Self-serve kiosks placed at

high traffic areas

Train staff to be more

flexible to adopt new
approaches to their work
Customer Flow
Speed of Service
Information Systems

Information systems Online information

operate on several systems that link all
separate databases sectors together

Information mostly on Hire a graduate to help

hardcopies get information systems
organized
Usually inaccurate or out-
of-date

Set-up costs high

Recommendations
Upgrade the Information Systems

Centralized Database
Elimination of Human Effort and Errors
Data Integrity
Ease of Access
Quick responses to customer queries
Cross Functionality
THANK YOU