Owner's Commitment by Tom Klein
"As Owner, I accept the responsibility of providing our guests with total satisfaction".
My wife, Pat, and I have owned Scott Lake Lodge for fifteen years. It’s been an exciting and satisfying journey. Many tons of building supplies and “stuff” has been flown to our lodge-owned thirteen acre island right on the border of Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, dead on the 60th parallel. Over the years a complex of twenty-eight buildings has developed, all well-maintained. More importantly over that time a culture of quality customer service has developed in the staff of thirty dedicated Canadians who love the north as dearly as hockey. With unequaled staff retention, that attitude and team spirit make my job easy.
Scott Lake Lodge for Pat and me has clearly been a labor of love. For us the far north is a slice of paradise: there is simply nowhere else we would rather be between June and October. Our presence at the lodge does make Scott a bit different from many of the several dozen fishing lodges I’ve traveled to over the past few decades (I do like to fish). At many well known lodges, the owners are either some distant entity, a corporate holding company maybe, or long absent private owners. The on-site managers often don’t really care if I have a great trip or not. I take a different view of ownership. Owners, I believe, need to be present and involved. They need to understand their business and love it. As owner, I am our primary customer service auditor. I fish every day, making sure the guides, equipment and locales are top shelf. I dine every day with guests and staff, making sure our cuisine is interesting and well served. I do what you do. And I do a lot of just hanging around and listening. You’re right: it is a rough job. And I’m not giving it up.
As owner, I accept the responsibility of providing our customers with total satisfaction. It is both a professional and personal commitment. I have one simple metric: everyone leaves our island fully satisfied with our customer service, facilities and equipment. With an experienced, well trained and motivated staff of thirty staff caring for just twenty-four clients, I can be confident that our team will take care of all of our anglers. It’s in their blood. And it’s in our system. We actively seek customer feedback, before during and after their trip. And we know how to listen. Every day at breakfast and dinner I make “the rounds” and check in with customers. Our General Manager, John Gariepy, does the same thing. Even very subtle concerns or issues are dealt with—immediately. You will never hear any stories at Scott about guides who don’t listen or fishing reels that don’t work. If there is a problem, we fix it. That’s why we have probably the highest repeat booking rate in our industry. In 2010 eighty-eight percent of our customers rebooked for 2011 before they left the island. That’s customer loyalty. We work every day to earn that loyalty. It is never taken for granted.
The bottom line at Scott is transparency, honesty and accountability. These are not just words at Scott. We live them. You will never hear “we’ll have to get back to you on that” or “that really isn’t our responsibility”. We like to say at Scott that we handle every reasonable request without question and take a very hard run at the unreasonable ones. From owner to General Manager to department heads to the dock hand, we will not retreat from our commitment to give you the very best fishing trip imaginable. From the moment you touch our dock at Scott until you are safely back to Saskatoon, I guarantee you will be in good hands—our hands.
If you want to learn more about Scott cast me a line at 406-539-5245, or click here to send me an email. .