I ’ve been skiing in Vail, Colorado, one of the best skiing areas in the world, for more than 50 years. George Gillett Jr. acquired the resort in 1985. But when I first met him in 1978 and asked him what he does, he said, “I am in customer service.”

Gillett is out of that business now. And though Vail Resorts now owns 42 mountain resorts, it has lost its focus on the customer experience. I was skiing at Vail last January, and most of the employees there do just enough to not get fired. A lift ticket is $295. If you call 970–754–0015, your call gets outsourced to a call center in the Philippines.

When the Covid pandemic hit, Vail Resorts never recovered. While I was in Vail in January, a negative front-page story appeared in the Vail Daily regarding shareholder Taylor Schmidt’s call for dramatic changes in management. (If you want to see hard numbers from this investor, this is worth reading.)

Very few top executives understand the service strategy. Schmidt did. Top management at Vail Resorts did not. If you don’t train all your staff constantly with something new and fresh, the customer experience slides. It starts with 1,000 little cuts—anything to save money.

Amazon 2024 results: $63.2 billion increase in sales

Amazon increased sales by 11%  in 2024, from $574.8 billion in 2023 to $638 billion in 2024. And Amazon Web Services increased sales by 19% to $107.6 billion; net income in 2024 was $59.2 billion. Amazon is the most customer-driven firm in the world.

Here’s the link for my Proven Process for Driving a Service Culture; Amazon has flawlessly executed all these steps:
• Build passion and strategy.
• Develop your leaders to manage, motivate, and lead an empowered customer-driven workforce and reduce the friction that prevents an awesome customer experience.
• Use proven certification seminars and training programs to change attitudes and behaviors and develop customer-centric employees.

9 principles of creating a relentless service culture strategy

1. Focus on strategy: You must be relentless; it has to be a way of life. Amazon understands this better than any of its competitors.

2. Reduce friction: Remove stupid rules, policies, and procedures. This improves speed, reduces costs, and improves the customer experience.

3. Empowerment: It’s the backbone of great service. Everyone must be empowered. It takes two miracles at one time to get an employee to spend $10. At Amazon, they are light years ahead of everyone.

4. Speed: People today expect and want speed. You must drastically reduce the time for everything you do. Products are delivered in one or two days from Amazon.

5. Training: All employees must be trained in customer service with something new and fresh every few months; 99% of customer interaction is with your frontline employees. They are the least trained, least valued, and least paid, but they are the face of your organization. There are no educational institutions in the world that will train your employees.

6. Remember their name: The most precious thing to a customer is their name. Remember it and use it.

7. Service recovery: When you screw up, you must keep the customer; all employees must be well versed in the skills of service recovery.

8. Reduce costs: Price is critical with all customers. Service leaders are frugal and always looking for ways to reduce costs. All my research shows service leaders are aggressive at eliminating waste and costs. Everyone buys at Amazon because they always have the best price.

9. Measure results: You must measure the results of creating a service culture to keep top management passionate about this process, the financial investment, and the time required. A $63.2 billion increase in sales and net income of $59.2 billion in profit are incredible results.

Published Feb. 12, 2025, on John Tschohl’s blog.