By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
What is there to do in Great Bend? Great Bend Convention and Visitors Bureau Director Christina Hayes is hoping to arm as many people as possible with plenty of answers to that question.
With the help of Barton Community College,
the CVB is rolling out the Be Our Guest Academy at the end of the month. Hoping
to enhance the city with premier customer service, Hayes hopes to provide free
online training on Great Bend’s attractions to businesses and their employees.
"Last spring I went to Denver for a trade show," said Hayes. "People from Denver came to our community and were asking to see the birds. They were told 'what birds, I don't know what to tell you'. It was a pretty negative interaction. They only found out by calling City Hall how to get out to Cheyenne Bottoms."
Hayes refers to employees at gas stations, hotels, stores and restaurants as “frontline
workers.” These are the men and women that are often welcoming and interacting
with visitors from out of town.
Hayes said the training takes three hours to complete and businesses and their
staff have three months to complete the online session once beginning.
"We're hoping by the first year we'll have 500 people take this front lines training," said Hayes. "After we see how year one goes, we'll kind of grow it and make it a bigger training."
Any individual, or business with staff dealing with the public, can sign up for
the training at beourguestingbks.com.