A lack of superlatives
Friday, I received a phone call from one of our guides. The couple of clients that he was with wanted to meet me when they got back to Bishkek.
No problem – I am always happy to meet with people … although I am not very good at “small talk”, I am by nature a very garrulous character, and it is always good to meet with people and get their opinion on how there tour has gone. I have written elsewhere about the importance of Feedback. I must admit, however, that this particular call came as a bit of a surprise, after all, not every client asks to meet with the General Director.
Rare though this may be, it does happen.
Just occasionally, they want to meet me just to be sociable.
Sometimes, they want to meet me because I have been involved in the correspondence about their tour and they want to “put a face to the name”;
On other occasions it is because someone has told them: “if you are ever in Bishkek, you should look up Ian Claytor”;
Once or twice it has been because one of the clients is a businessman and wants to talk about an business idea that they have had. On this occasion there was an element of that. One of the clients came up with a suggestion that was very interesting – but I’ll look into that and write more about it another time. It wasn’t the main reason that they had asked to see me.
There have been occasions when they have wanted to meet me to tell what a wonderful time they have had in Kyrgyzstan.
Sometimes, however, and let’s be frank, (after all, I say that I believe in the “warts and all” approach and like to be “up front” with clients), it is because there has been a problem and they want to complain. Another thing that I often say is that I believe, like President Truman, that “The buck stops here”. It’s part of my job to deal with complaints when they do arise.
As it happens there been a problem with this particular trip, but they didn’t want to complain, simply that I heard their side of the story. Which I did.
It was, actually, a small problem – and even they made light of it – something to do with the admin at one of the places where they were to have stayed. It was the sort of problem that on many trips, the clients may not have even been aware of the fact that there was a problem. On this occasion, however, it was obvious … and they just thought that I ought to hear their side of the story.
With that out of the way, however, most of the conversation was taken up with totally different matters – such as the idea that I wrote about above.
They were full of praise. Praise for the country: “magnificent landscapes”; for the staff: “professional … excellent …”; for the tour: “outstanding … wonderful …” … and so on. One of them then made a comment which brought a smile to my lips … “the trouble is that aren’t enough superlatives to express our delight… “.
OK, so why did that bring a smile to my lips?
Because, back in 1997, when we opened the company, this was one of our slogans:
“there aren’t enough superlatives …“
which later evolved into:
“… in Kyrgyzstan, it is possible to run out of superlatives when trying to describe what you can see and do”
and, also, when we ran the “Impressions of Kyrgyzstan” competition in 2007, one of the winners was the slogan:
“There is really only one problem concerning Kyrgyzstan – a lexical one. There are not enough words to express the admiration one feels “.
It’s not the first time this year that I have been taken aback when something like from the past has been thrust back at me like this. Earlier in the year, I described how a couple of tourists from New Zealand thrust another of our slogans back at me: “There’s something special about Kyrgyzstan … “.
Now I know that everyone is different and other people might have a different feeling – but isn’t it nice when you meet someone who agrees with you?
Bishkek