Spotlight: West Bay Acadia

West Bay Acadia RV Campground's Passion for Improving Customer Satisfaction

Spotlight: West Bay Acadia

By Brynne Adamson

West Bay Acadia RV Campground owners Rob and Peggy know how important listening to customers is for their business. Learn what you can do for your business to improve your customers' satisfaction.

I spoke with Rob via telephone.

About the RV Park

West Bay Acadia RV Camp is a newly built campground in Gouldsboro, Maine that's on a beautiful 33-acre oceanfront property. The first phase of the campsite, which may be added onto later on, uses the seven acres closest to the shore for 24 luxury campsites.

The natural slope of the land enables a four-tier layout, with each tier being higher than the one in front. This creates an amphitheater effect, so everyone can have a view of West Bay without being obstructed by another RV.

The campground doesn't have amenities in the traditional sense, meaning there aren't any slides, hot tubs or playgrounds, so you can become immersed in nature. Enjoy natural amenities like trees, birds, animals and a brilliant night sky. Almost all motors used to run the campground are silent; they are electric. Other amenities include kayaking on West Bay, birding in the surrounding woods, smelling wildflowers or hiking in the nearby Acadia National Park.

Rob and Peggy have had a consulting business since 1985. They worked with senior leadership for complex organizations, helping business leaders and owners understand what their customers want. They have also been camping their whole lives. Rob and Peggy have applied all that they've learned and know from the last 30 years to their design of West Bay Acadia.

Their campground is seasonal and will be open for the first time in May.

What made you decide to buy your own campground?

We have been going to Maine for over ten years to camp, though the experience has been getting progressively worse. There's a huge demand for camping, but the number of campgrounds have not been keeping up. Trying to find camping sites to stay at has been difficult, especially one on the water with the views we want or one that can fit a camping vehicle that's over 30 feet long.

Then we discovered that any piece of property under 10 acres would have zoning constraints that would prevent us from putting any kind of camping vehicle on the property. So we realized we're going to have to get a bigger piece of property, and the cost of 10 acres wasn't that different from 1 acre.

We came across this piece of property, and it seemed a perfect fit. The owner of the property had divided it in half and wanted to sell it in two pieces. We said, ‘Look if you want to sell the whole thing, we'll buy it from you.' That's how we got the property. So we bought it in the fall of 2019. We began building last winter.

We put in a two-lane main road that's one-third of a mile long. The driveway is not your typical driveway: We knew we were going to have RVs going down it; the road is 30 feet wide in most places.

The people of Gouldsboro have been wonderful to us. A code enforcement officer told me the driveway was so long, we had to name it because it's considered a street. We asked our family and friends for name ideas. They came up with 25 different names.

"Rainbow's End" was the winner because it was everybody's favorite choice. We like it a lot because we are in our early 70s; running this campground is our encore career, which makes this campground the end of the rainbow for our working lives. We haven't found the pot of gold yet, but local lore says there's a silver mine somewhere.

What research did you do before buying the property?

We've done a lot of research. We talked with many campers for years to get their perspective on camping, which is why the design of our campground is from the customer's point of view.

Most campgrounds we've seen... They decide to put in as many RVs in the space they have possible, which is very similar to a sardine can. We did not want that. That is not what any customer would tell you what they want.

If you ask campers, they would say they want elbow room. We went about determining what elbow room meant. The result is that sites average about 75 feet long and 45 feet wide, which is roughly between 25% to 50% bigger than the norm.

As campers who remotely work or homeschool while traveling, we found that the vast majority of campgrounds advertise free Wi-Fi; however, the free Wi-Fi doesn't work because they don't have enough bandwidth for everybody to use it simultaneously.. Campers know this, and they're all frustrated by it (even more so because of COVID-19 constraints).

We've set about becoming the first place in our area to have fiber optics for our Wi-Fi and broadband. We have three levels of speed. Our Wi-Fi that's free is at least twice the speed of the norm of most campgrounds, especially in Maine.

The top speed of Wi-Fi is the business class broadband, so you can have a world-wide Zoom conference, play games on the internet with thousands of other players, stream movies... doesn't matter what you want to do, you can do it at our place.

We wanted to blend immersion with nature without unplugging from the internet. We did some experimentation with our first few campers who stayed and gave feedback. One of our campers looked high and low for broadband capability because he is an executive with a large company in Silicon Valley, California, and his family home schools their four kids.

Another characteristic of other sites we observed and hated: a large portion of campsites assume that campers are either going to have a pull-behind trailer or a Class A RV. If you book a pull-through site and you have a Class A RV, generally you pull that RV all the way to the front of the site since that's where the sewer hookup is for both the site and your RV. Otherwise, you'd have to have 40 feet of pipe.

If you have a pull-behind trailer, your sewer hookup needs to be at the back of the site, as that's where the hookup is for the trailer. We said, ‘That's crazy,' so we installed two sewer hookups. When customers book, they need to know where they can connect their sewer line. We don't have a dump station or honey wagon.

Most people don't think about drinking water. They just assume the water would taste good or be safe at a campground; they're wrong. That's not how that works. All you gotta do is hold that glass of water up to the light, and you'll see that it's not clear. I like my water to be without things in it, unless I'm putting my own stuff in it.

Our 400-foot well has clear, pure water that does not require any purification; our water passes all of the state inspection tests without any extra work. Additionally, the water comes out at top pressure, similar to the kind of pressure in your home.

We also feel strongly about the geography we're in. Our campground is in an economically depressed area, so we do our best to contribute to the local economy.

Most people here are fishermen or artisans who work with glass, metal, stone or wood. We want to support them, so our website talks about this to help bring them business. People who come to Maine don't necessarily know that Maine is rich with artisans. Our job is to see if we can introduce them.

We're trying to make sure the footprint we develop is one that is going to make people feel good and improve their lives. If you provide people with a phenomenal experience that's memorable, they'll come back, and you'll still make money.

How do you find out what customers want?

I've written a number of books, like my book called "Mastering Excellence." In that book and my other works, part of a methodology I've developed is referred to as the "Voice of the Customer." What that means is that customers won't just volunteer to tell you what they want. They will tell you first what they don't want.

So you have to ask the right questions. The question that you start with in uncovering the customer's desire is: What is the desired outcome the customers want to achieve? This is true no matter what the business is or what kind of product you're trying to sell.

The customer's answer will reveal their priorities. The questioner must be specific about the product or service being asked about.

For campgrounds, the one pattern of outcome customers want to achieve is:

Become decompressed and relaxed; have a good night's sleep
Experience nature up close
Strengthen relationships
Escape obligations
Easily stay connected to the outside world remotely

That's what we have used as a design principle for everything we've done.

How do you operationalize that understanding?

1. If you're going to have a good night's sleep at a campground, you don't want to be afraid.

You're out in nature with wild animals, which can be a scary thing. So one of the things we do to help you feel secure is to tell you that we understand that when you travel, stuff happens that you wish didn't happen, like your RV not having working air conditioning or your fridge going on the fritz.

There are a variety of ways to handle a broken RV component. You could fend for yourself and go online to find someone to come out and fix your unit. That's the norm. But the practice for real life campers is to ask another camper to help you. Campers love to help other campers.

Why use the internet to hire somebody who will take an hour and a half to get to you when John over here happens to be an aerospace mechanic? He told us when he signed in that it was his special talent, and he can fix anything mechanical.

You can also focus on the five senses to help campers get a good night's sleep. We decided to eliminate the usual barriers to sleep, such as traffic, camper-generated sounds, proximity of campers to their neighbors and RV malfunction.

Our campground is remote enough for campers to decompress while still being close enough to a rural area for them to be connected to the outside world. Camper sounds are limited to daylight hours, and campers are 30 feet from their neighbors.

2. We invite them to tell us about their gifts and talents.

People like to talk about their talents. You have some people who are really great cooks and other people who are good at woodworking or some other trade. We tell them we have a place on the property down by the water where we invite people to an open mic. The entertainment can be provided by other campers who just want to share their gifts.

We've talked with one of the local lobster pounds, and we told them, ‘You're only a few minutes away, and we know that you guys have great seafood and really good prices. Would you be interested in promoting your business to our campers? We would like to link to your website, and you return the favor.'

You promote them while also building your own business. You've also made instant friends.

We have created our own community; it takes a village to build happiness that is sustainable.

What's the end strategy for your business?

We don't know what the end strategy is. We will probably expand the number of sites we have in a couple years. We're just focusing on the first 24, so we have our business model thoroughly tested and performing at its maximum before we do something else. In the meantime, our strategy is to have and inspire fun and good health.

Why did you decide to use ResNexus' booking system?

Before we had decided to build West Bay, we stayed at a campground in the Smoky Mountains. They used a booking system that thoroughly impressed us with its simplicity and broad functionality. We discovered it was ResNexus.

We found out how easy it is to work with the ReNexus system as a camper. When we became campground owners, we found the system to be exceptionally easy to use and customizable to specific features we wanted.

ResNexus is so responsive, they've frequently replied to our queries within minutes. They have obviously made great customer satisfaction their top priority. Employees clearly respect and think highly of each other, as well. So I wasn't surprised that ResNexus' customer reviews are outstanding.

Free, personalized training was unlimited, in addition to their on-line video training.

At our campground, you can book the site you want, which is why we use ResNexus. We set out trying to find a company that we can work with that would help us achieve the highest standard experience for our campers that's possible to achieve. We looked at all your competition and talked with them, and nobody matched ResNexus.

If you're a camper, you're demanding. You want perfection, which is hard to come by but not at our place. When you book with us, you have all the information you want regarding all the sites and you can choose which one you want. That's why we have no check in at our place.

We send a text message or email before your arrival that says, ‘We are looking forward to seeing you. Just a reminder, please go directly to your site, and we'll come by shortly after and make sure you have everything you need.' Then we come to you after you've arrived to see if there's anything you need, like firewood.