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It’s also a major selling point for vis- itors, Enz said. People want to be com- fortable at a hotel, but more and more, environmental concerns dictate con- sumer choices.
“If we let them know about this, it can help people make a decision on where they’re going to stay,” Enz said.
Jake Ek, owner of Northwest Plumb- ing, said geothermal energy is gaining in popularity, but the Cedar Creek Lodge is the largest project he’s worked on in his eight years installing the systems.
Along with the heating and cooling system, the hotel includes fresh-air exchanges for each room, eliminating the need to walk in and open the window to remove staid or sticky air. The hall- ways oors include gypsum concrete and acoustic mats to reduce the sound
transfer to the oor below, and those rooms near elevators or ice machines or other high-tra c areas are encased in a high-density sound membrane to keep it quiet.
“We really spent more money to put those details into this to make this hotel more comfortable,” Enz said.
And though the expected open- ing date isn’t until June and the hotel doesn’t even have a live website yet, calls for reservations are already coming in. The rst of many busy summers is on its way for the Cedar Creek Lodge, and the team there hopes to attract customers through location and attention to detail.
“Everywhere you look, (Ruis) has opted to go with the high-e ciency choice,” Ek said.
mpriddy@ atheadbeacon.com
Erick Enz, project
manager of the Cedar
Creek Lodge in Columbia
Falls, discusses
progress on the hotel.
GREG LINDSTRO FLATHEAD BEACON
TRANSACTIONS
WEEKLY BUSINESS BRIEFING
FIRST INTERSTATE BANK TO ACQUIRE FLATHEAD BANK
The parent company of First Interstate Bank is acquiring Flat- head Bank of Bigfork, the com- pany announced April 6.
First Interstate BancSystem,
headquartered in Billings with
banks across Montana, Wyoming
and South Dakota, has agreed
to acquire Flathead Bank for
$34.2 million. The transaction
is expected to close during the
third quarter of 2016, at which
point the Flathead Bank loca-
tions across Montana will become branches of First Interstate Bank, which has over 80 branches in three states. This marks the third acqui- sition for First Interstate Bank in as many years.
Cynthia Lyle, director of marketing with First Interstate Bank, said there have not been any decisions made about potential personnel or facility changes, “but we will be evaluating those in the coming months.”
Flathead Bank operates seven banking o ces, including three in Big- fork, Kalispell and Lakeside. Flathead Bank has total assets of $231.6 million, according to the company.
Opening, moving or expanding a business in Northwest Montana? If you would like to be featured in “Transactions,” please email information to news@ atheadbeacon.com
BUSINESS IS PERSONAL MARK RIFFEY CONTEXT EQUALS OPPORTUNITY
LAST WEEK, I NOTED THAT HOW you should recover from a client’s poor experience with you is depen- dent upon the context.
For example, a four-hour ight delay is meaningless if you have a six-hour layover. It becomes serious if you have a three-hour layover before an interna- tional ight late in the day, or if the delay causes you to miss an important meet- ing, a wedding, or a funeral. If the delay causes you to get bumped to a connect- ing ight later in the day, it might not be a big deal. If it causes you to get bumped to next Saturday ...
Context matters a lot.
Serious Context is a Serious Opportunity
When your client is under pressure, deadline, stress or similar, you have an opportunity to create a memory that can last a lifetime. Will that memory be good or bad? Whichever way it goes is likely to be how your relationship with that customer ... unless you treat them like a client.
What’s the di erence? A customer is a
transactional thing. Customers buy and consume “stu ”. Clients are like patients - under your constant (or at least regu- lar) observation and care. Which are you more likely to take better care of, based on that de nition? My guess is the client. Despite the de nition, it’s all about per- ception. If you perceive them as an asset to be cared for (and to extract revenue from for a lifetime), you’re likely to treat them di erently than you would if you think you might never see them again. Thing is, if you treat them like you’ll never see them again, you might experi- ence that.
The opportunity to save the day/be a hero in your client’s most stressful, pres- sured, awful moment is a gift, but only if you open it. Sure, you might push COGS a little higher for their transaction. You might take a little heat from your man- ager if you take the initiative to solve a client’s problem in a slightly unorth- odox way, but not if they truly get it because they’ll know you’re protecting the business.
Are You Encouraging Initiative?
One of the things that seems to be
getting “beaten” out of employees these days is initiative. Evidence? The fact that people are so impressed when someone takes initiative to help them as if they read the Business is Personal playbook. Businesses have produced a generation of workers who fear helping clients in an appropriate manner (when context calls for it) because not adhering to policy and procedure is often considered as a ring o ense, even if you acted in the client’s best interest.
Even if You Can’t Stretch, Provide Options
Last month, I reserved a car rental with a pickup at 3 p.m. The rental loca- tion address provided by the vendor was wrong – fortunately, it was wrong by a few blocks (and across the street). However, the rental location closed at 3 p.m. and the nearest open branch was about 50 miles away. After waiting on hold for 54 minutes, customer service basically said the whole thing was my fault because I arrived a few minutes after the pickup time. By the time my call came o hold, I was more than an hour’s drive from
their only open location and due to my appointment schedule, I was unable to visit that location. I made it clear that I was more or less stranded but my com- ments were ignored.
How could this have been handled, even if the customer service person couldn’t spend a dime? They could have o ered to send someone to pick me up, but at 5 p.m. on a Saturday (which tells you how long I was on the phone) there was no extra sta at the airport to shuttle a car to me. Had they said they checked and couldn’t do that due to a lack of extra sta on duty, I would have appreciated it. They could have asked which hotel I was at and (because they are a travel agency), o ered to rebook me at a hotel close to me and have the car delivered the next morn- ing. Instead, they chose to blame me for the entire situation. They were focused on shifting blame, rather than helping a client juggling business and family travel on a very important family day. I will not forget and neither will your (former?) clients.
Protect your business by protecting your clients.
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a strategic, operations or marketing problem? Email him at mri ey@ atheadbeacon.com.
APRIL 13, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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