Skiing Notes from Ira Riklis

An interesting customer-relations point, from our friend Ira Riklis:

Another part of our “secret sauce” if you will is that we don’t view the skier as our true customer. I’m not suggesting that we aren’t renting skis to skiers somehow, we are. But if the skier has a bad experience, they don’t go home and in a disgruntled voice say that Charter Sports was awful; they go home and say they had a lousy time in Vail and they wouldn’t recommend the Marriott in Lionshead. In essence, the skier is the customer of the mountain and, even more so, the hotel.

It is the job of the resort (both mountain and hotel) to put “butts in beds”, or BIBs as we call them. We don’t create the BIBs and they won’t decide to come to Vail or Lionshead in order to rent from Charter Sports. Once a BIB is in place, then we have the opportunity to provide them with their needs. So in essence, keeping the hotel happy by keeping THEIR customer happy is more important to us than the revenue that any particular skier may generate.

Therefore, if a skier comes in and is having a bad experience caused by any of our equipment (foot discomfort being the most likely), we move into high gear. First off, we will work diligently to determine the problem and solve it. Second, if the problem was severe, we will likely comp (not charge) the skier for the ski rental for the week. If the problem was really severe, we will probably comp their entire family for the week. And third, when they leave our store they will take along some small gifts like lip balm or hand warmers as our way of apologizing. These customers end up being our strongest advocates, often writing letters to the hotel or condo association extolling our service.

The greatest expression of these feelings occurs every year in the Travel & Leisure Magazine survey of their subscribers as to the 50 best ski resorts in North America. There are only two ski shops mentioned in the reviews and they are BOTH Charter Sports. In one instance we are mentioned by name and in the other we are nameless, but it must be us because we are the only ski shop in that resort. We are immensely proud of this compliment and have posted the articles in some of our stores (when space is available).

Continued from Ira Riklis‘ interview on Vail and the skiing life:

“We are different from the usual ski shop in that we are focused on providing ski rentals. All sales of merchandise are incidental to the rental equipment and we do not sell ski equipment.

“This philosophy of business penalizes us in good years and rewards us in bad years. For example, the 2008/2009 ski season was during the depths of the recession (near depression?) and Vail Resorts, the operator of the mountains of Vail, Lionshead and Beaver Creek, reported a 22.3% drop in skier visits and a 20.7% drop in Operating Earnings. In spite of that, Charter Sports experienced only a slight drop off in earnings, nicely under 10%. In fact, in our 20 years of operation, Charter Sports has never had a money losing year.

“Of course we carry merchandise ranging from ski gloves and lip balm to T-shirts and scented candles. However, none of our merchandise is seasonally based. We try to sell through our merchandise during the season, and we certainly will take markdowns to clean out the last 3 jackets in odd sizes of a 50 jacket order, but anything that we have left over at the end of the season can be packed away and put out again at the start of the next season.

“Further, our merchandise is not fashion oriented. Believe it or not, even ski equipment is fashion based. A ski shop carrying a multi-million dollar inventory of skis and boots, as well as ski clothes, at the end of a bad ski season will have to take significant markdowns and losses to get rid of it because all that inventory will be worthless next year when the new equipment comes out.”

More from Ira Riklis very soon!

Ira Riklis continues his interview about skiing and starting a ski-equipment rental business in Colorado:

It was a good partnership, but that partner couldn’t really support Mike’s ambitions for growth. So when the time came that Mike had another opportunity to pick up a store, Mike and I went into partnership. Mike found the opportunity to buy the ski shop in the Charter Hotel and Resort in Beaver Creek, about 20 minutes away from Vail/Lionshead. We took the name for that store from the hotel, calling ourselves Charter Sports. It has been a long hard slog, but today we have 11 stores, including the original Tech Sports (since renamed) with stores in Vail/Lionshead, Beaver Creek, Avon and Breckenridge, plus a premium ski delivery we call Premier which caters to the multi-million dollar mansions around the valley and celebrities that don’t want to come into a ski shop to get fitted for equipment.

Ira Riklis continues his interview about skiing and life:

“Mike eventually left working for the Vail/Lionshead ski school. It was inevitable. Unless you want to move into management, the pay scales really only work for young enthusiasts who are enjoying a few carefree years before they start their adult lives.

“Mike and I continued skiing together whenever I was in Vail; but now that Mike was no longer an instructor, we could no longer cut through the lines on ski lifts. We developed a method of avoiding lift lines, but more about that later.

“Mike worked as a concierge and other jobs around Vail before deciding that he wanted to operate a ski shop. While that shop is today a part of the Charter Sports chain, I was not Mike’s original partner. In a confused situation worthy of the Three Stooges, Mike didn’t realize that I had sent the money for the purchase of the shop and went into partnership with another. I eventually got my money back and Mike had his first shop which he called Tech Sports in the Lion Square Lodge in Lionshead.”

Ira Riklis will continue with this interview — complete with photos — soon.