This is the full transcript for Episode #267 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast featuring Paul Rutter – Cruise Director, Customer Service Captain. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
Paul Rutter 0:00
It’s all about attitude. Attitude is everything.
Max Branstetter 0:17
Ahoy ahoy ahoy, welcome back to the Wild Business Growth Podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting, and you can email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast. This is episode 267 and that rolls off the tongue somehow. And today’s guest is Paul Rutter. Paul is a customer service expert who has spent decades as a Cruise and Entertainment Director and has stories on stories and stories from the high seas, the tall seas, the seas. He’s also the bestselling author of multiple books, including You Can’t Make This Ship Up, which is one of my favorite book titles of all time. In this episode, we talk why customer service is so important and what customer service is like in an extreme environment where you live with your co-workers and your customers, some of Paul’s most memorable cruises of all time, and what is next in the cruising industry because the sky and the ocean is the limit. It is Sir Paul. Enjoyyyyyyy the showwwwwww!
Aaaaaalrightyyyyyyy we are here with Paul Rutter, one of the most ship-tastic guests – I don’t even know where I’m going with that. One of the best guests that you’ll hear from in terms of customer service and cruises and actually just an amazing background as a Cruise and Entertainment Director for decades and decades. Paul, thank you so much for joining us today really, really excited to speak with you, Paul Rutter – if that is your real name. How you doing today?
Paul Rutter 2:13
Is my real name actually working on board a cruise ship people have actually come up to me and made bets on whether that’s my real name or whether it’s a stage name, but no real name born and bred.
Max Branstetter 2:24
It would totally work as a stage name. So you were born to be on cruises. How about that? There you go. I’ll take that. So we’re going to talk a lot about cruises and customer service today for where I want to start is I heard from a little birdie that one of your more memorable cruises was actually with lots of nudists and lots and lots of naked people excluding yourself. What was the biggest thing you learned from that cruise?
Paul Rutter 2:49
Well, that’s a that’s a wonderful way to start off the podcast. You’re talking about naked people. But
Max Branstetter 2:56
we do that with every guest, by the way.
Paul Rutter 2:59
Okay, good to know. As you mentioned, I come from the world of hospitality and travel and cruises. I’ve worked on board some of the largest cruise ships in the world. And it’s a very unique experience because we were one of the very few industries where we’re actually live with our customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And when I speak with land based businesses, my first question is could you survive if you had to live with your customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week and most of them have a glazed look on their face. And they say there is no way I could spend 24 minutes with my customers let alone 24 hours a day. And so we’re one of the very unique industries where we actually live with our customers and we live with our co workers. Now. You talked about a cruise that I did a clothing optional cruise. There’s many different types of group charters in the cruise industry. We do. We do a music charters and sports charters where somebody will will charter a ship and then bring on lots of rock and roll acts or country artists and then sell the cabins like that. Well this particular Cruise was a clothing optional cruise and this this travel agency is extremely unique. That’s that’s their entire business is doing clothing optional cruises, they will charter an entire ship. And so then they can just see how they want to sell their their staterooms, their cabins on board. And they’re always sold out. And there’s always a waiting list. And so this travel agency has such a niche in the market that it’s really incredible. And yes, as soon as we leave port, they’re not allowed to have been naked in port. So as soon as we’re 12 miles out, which is a sort of an unofficial distance away from the protocol. Clothes can go off it’s a clothing optional cruise and there’s all these naked people running around and I should say that the people that you want to see naked are usually See the ones that keep their clothes on throughout the inquiry throughout the cruise. So that’s always a little disappointing. But it was a fascinating cruise you have people from all walks of life from CEOs of companies and military people and first responders and all sorts of people who just live this lifestyle, they either live it full time, and I’m coming to you from Florida, where there’s clothing optional communities here in Florida. Or sometimes these people just do it on the weekends, or they do it as a, you know, a personal preference. And so, we had a ship full of naked people. And the first thing you learn very quickly when you have a ship full of naked people is how to maintain eye contact. You don’t want your eyes wandering all over the place. And so, but it was a fascinating cruise. And it was great to get to know these people. I’m glad I did it. I don’t think I ever want to do it again. But I’m glad I had the opportunity to do it really wasn’t great experience.
Max Branstetter 6:03
I had the the ultimate pleasure of walking with a few family members through a nude beach on one of our cruises that we did as cousins. Just because we have never seen a new beach before we’re like alright, what why not? Maybe this is after a couple Coronas or Pacificos on the beach. But I agree with your statement that the vast majority of people that enjoy taking off their clothes are will just say not the easiest on the eyes. We’re getting into dangerous territory here. But how do you maintain eye contact and overall professionalism? When you’re in I mean, like an extreme environment of cruisers like that? Well,
Paul Rutter 6:47
this travel agency was very good. They came on in advance and met with the crew and talked about it because they had done this on many different cruise lines. And they actually gave crew members the opportunity to get off the ship for a week if they felt uncomfortable doing that. It was a European cruise line. And so you know, clothing optional. Opportunities are much more prevalent in Europe than they are here in the United States. And so, to us here in the US to Americans, it is something of a novelty. But they were great with coming on board and answering any questions and giving us tips and things and after a while it became pretty easy. But yes, when the first day when everybody’s running around naked, it’s It’s unusual. Now I should tell your listeners, it is proper etiquette in the clothing optional world that everybody sits on clean, fresh towels. They’re not sitting right tonight,
Max Branstetter 7:44
the burning question I had. So thank you.
Paul Rutter 7:48
They’re not sitting right on the furniture itself. They there’s lots of fresh towels all over the place. So there were a couple of places they had to be dressed. One was the main dining room they had to have their clothes on. And then the second place, as you know, I know that you’re a cruiser there in the old days before the pandemic there was a the captain’s formal cocktail party where you would have pictures taken with the captain. So that was the other place they needed to wear clothes. If they wanted their picture taken with the captain, they did have to have some sort of clothes on. Now, I will be honest, some of the clothes were left to the imagination here. But those were the two places having a picture taken with the captain and in the main dining room. But if they wanted to go to the buffet upstairs or at any of the bars, it was Oh naturale. And it was it really was a fascinating experience. And, and some of your listeners are now probably thinking, Oh, how can I get the name of that travel agency? I want to go on the next one. Right?
Max Branstetter 8:46
You know who you are? Exactly. So let’s get to some heavily cloth customer service tips. So as you as you hinted at the start, cruises are phenomenal case study of excelling at customer service because you as you’ve done for decades, you live with your customers and you like you’re you’re in this enclosed area will open air at the top, but you’re any single second, you can run into your customers. And so you need to maintain sometimes it’s maintaining extra eye contact, but you need to maintain that customer service and professionalism making sure that they have the time in their life on that cruise. What are some of the top tips about customer service that you’ve learned through cruises that actually could apply across any sort of business?
Paul Rutter 9:38
Well, you have to plan ahead you have to have policies and procedures and really principles in place before that cruise ever leaves. You can’t say for instance, if somebody’s toilet breaks down or their air conditioning stops working in their in their room in their cabin, and it’s a Friday afternoon, you can’t say oh, it’s the weekend. We’ll send somebody on Monday, it doesn’t work that way. We have, and most cruise lines have like a 30 minute policy where that if you come to us with a pretty major problem like your toilets, not flushing, we’re gonna get to that problem within 30 minutes. And that’s usually a pretty good timetable that people know that we’re, we’re not gonna just dismiss the problem, we’re going to take it seriously, we have to have everything on board. I mean, if you think about it, the largest cruise ships in the world have over 6,000 guests on board, they have over 2,000 crew members, that’s over 8,000, close to 9,000 people in a metal boat in the middle of the ocean, you know, what could possibly go wrong? And the answer is anything that can go wrong on land can go wrong on a ship. And so you have to have these policies and procedures, in effect, and so you have to plan for what could go wrong. So for instance, if it’s a bad weather day, or it’s really rainy, or the winds are so strong that the ship cannot dock in a port of call, you have you can’t wait until that happens in order to say okay, what are we going to do, you have to plan in advance what you’re going to do if that happens. And so then if at five or six o’clock in the morning, I get a phone call from the captain or from the hotel director, that we’re not going to make it into port today, then I have to immediately get my team up and running for a full sea day. And that that takes a lot of a lot of planning, advanced planning, you have to have a program all set. Now I should We should tell your listeners that my job on board was as cruise and entertainment director, I think you might have mentioned that. So we’re the fun people were the people in charge of all the activities were the people in charge of the entertainment. And so if a CD automatically comes up to us, you know, we’re supposed to be in let’s say Grand Cayman a beautiful port in the Caribbean. But it’s a we dock there. Sorry, we anchor there. We don’t dock there’s no docking facilities, you have to anchor in the in the port. And you go ashore by use of tenders, which are small boats. But if the winds are too strong, the captain will say because obviously the safety of our passengers are utmost. The captain will say even if it’s a nice sunny day, he’ll say sorry, we can’t dock. And so we have very disappointed guests. And so what are we going to do to try and win them over by the end of the day. So that they say listen, we know the weather is not your concern, but you made it a really enjoyable cruise for us. And so you have to plan in advance for these for these for these instances. So for instance, let me give you another example. We do lots of weddings on board weddings are very popular. And there’s two types of weddings you can have a shipboard wedding where people get married on board the ship, let’s say the first day of the cruise, the ships in Miami, have friends and family come to the ship, you get married on board, everybody leaves and goes home and then the couple takes their cruise they stay on board or maybe a few family and friends cruises with them. So usually things go perfectly then. But sometimes they have like what’s called a destination wedding where they will actually get married at the island. Let’s pick your end Cayman or St. Thomas on the beach. They want to get married on the beach and the sun is coming up and it’s a beautiful day. But unfortunately some of these people have booked their weddings on the beach during hurricane season. So hurricane season goes from about June 1 to December 1. They plan their wedding in August and they say oh, there’s never a hurricane is going to come in August. And so what happens of course, a hurricane is heading towards the island. Well, we’re not going to go to the island. If a hurricane is coming. We’re gonna run away we can we can survive, but the passengers aren’t going to survive that hurricane. And so all of a sudden we have a couple on our hands that was planning on getting married. They’ve been planning this wedding for a year and everything said and they have the dress and the friends are there. We actually had a wedding people flew into the island in order to be on the beach with this couple. Well, all of a sudden the hurricanes on the forecast the ship goes in a different direction. This couple cannot get married, and their friends are on the island waiting for the ship that’s never going to show up. All of a sudden the airport shuts down. These friends can’t get off the island. They’re stuck there during a hurricane while we on the ship have gone let’s say to the Eastern Caribbean away from the hurricane. How do we win this couple over that can’t get married? Well, we have to show compassion we have to show empathy. We put ourselves in their shoes and this is where land based businesses really can and can get a lesson from this is really to show that you care about your customers. We would send them to a romantic dinner or we would get them a massage for two. We they knew that the weather wasn’t our fault, but they are also saw that we were compassionate and that we cared about their situation. And so that’s what the lesson that you can take away is always be prepared, always have a plan in your back pocket in case something goes wrong, you hope for the best, but you plan for the worst.
Max Branstetter 15:19
And my wife Dana and I on our wedding. We had, we got married in Florida, so on land, but there’s still kind of cruise departing area. But we had a hurricane scare leading up to it. And fortunately, it was earlier in the week, it didn’t turn out to be as big as they expected. But it was kind of like the I was heading right towards where we weren’t. So it was really scary. And fortunately, like, thankfully, everything worked out. And our wedding went on as planned no issues. But I can only imagine the moment that you find out, we can’t have our wedding, or we have to totally change our plans. Or we you know, all our friends and family are stranded here. Like, that’s crazy. And that’s one of the scariest things to run into for a big moment in life like that. You mentioned empathy and care, that’s obviously huge. When there’s any sort of crisis or when there’s any way to I guess you have to let your guests down easy or do something to make up for, you know, the hardships and other ship on there. What have you seen work the best in terms of like showing that care and empathy towards customers? Like what what can you offer as a cruise to make things a little bit brighter when things aren’t so bright in that particular cruise?
Paul Rutter 16:32
Well, studies have shown that if there’s a problem, and you can handle it in a timely manner, and handle it correctly, guests will come back over and over. And they’ll actually spend more money with your business, if they know that when there’s a problem, you’re going to take care of it. You know, businesses do great when there’s no problems. And you know, they order a product or a service and you deliver and everything’s fine. But when there’s a problem, that’s when you really have to shine. And that’s where you really have to show that you care. I mean, it for instance, with this couple that got married, we couldn’t marry them, we didn’t have anybody on board. But you know, maybe we could give them a discount on a future cruise. Or we can hope that they spend their honeymoon with us, maybe they get married back on land. But if they know that we took such care of them in a pressure packed situation, they’re gonna say, Okay, we know that it wasn’t a cruise lines fault, but they took such good care of us, we’re going to spend our anniversary with them or, you know, when our kids have a special occasion, we’ll go take a cruise with them. So it’s easy to keep your customers coming back over and over. If you take care of a problem in a timely manner, and you take care of it right the first time you don’t want, you know, if something breaks, and you fix it, you don’t want it to keep breaking over and over again. But you do want to fix it right the first time. And again, people will come back and they’ll spend more money with you. So just showing the empathy and the care and that they’re not forgotten about. That’s all customers really are looking for from a business. And
Max Branstetter 18:09
I think that speed is so important. We use it all the time with PR nightmares of when a brand doesn’t address something or doesn’t respond to something quickly, and it’s just kind of floating there. Like even if they do issue what is deemed a proper apology. You know, if you take like a few days to get on top of something, and that world like it can totally you know, it could be the death of your brand. And so and then the crews when you’re when you and your job are working in living with customers, like you need to be even even quicker than imaginable. How do you get yourself and your team to be so agile and be so speedy of like, look, we I know we got a million things going but like this is what we need to handle right now. And we need to do it right now. I
Paul Rutter 18:53
think one of the most important things a business can do is to make sure that they empower their employees properly. For instance, if somebody goes to a front desk, let’s say on a cruise ship, and they have a problem, you want your employees to be able to take care of the problem right away. So as an example, we do lots of shore excursions on our ships. When we get into ports of call, we do different shore excursions. Let’s say somebody doesn’t like a shore excursion, or it wasn’t to their xpect didn’t meet their expectations. If they go to the front desk, in the old days, let’s say 20 years ago, somebody would go to the front desk can say listen, I really didn’t like my short excursion. What a cruise line would do is they would hand them a business card. And they would say okay, when you get home call this number. We’re sorry, you didn’t like it. There’s nothing we can do on board. Call this number when you get home and so the customer may walk away from the desk, not really pleased. We didn’t solve their problem. And then they would steam about it or think about it for the rest of the cruise. They’d be unhappy. They’d go home, they call the number. The people at the other end would say okay, give us a week. We’ll get back to you then. Those people will come back to the ship and say, okay, this person contacted us tell us what happened, we then have to spend all this time communicating with our office who then at the very end, we’ll just end up giving these people back, let’s say a 50%. Refund. Well, if we could have done that right away, if our employees were empowered to make a refund right away, when they came to the desk, then that customer will leave happy, and that they will tell their family and friends, yes, I had a problem on board, but they took care of it right away. And so you really want to empower your employees. And you can do it in sort of like a tiered fashion. So the person at the front desk may have you give them up to $100 to solve a problem, if you can take care of this problem, and it cost less than $100 Do it right away. And so the people leave happy. If it costs, let’s say over $100, yes, you need to get approval from a supervisor or a manager. And that may take a few minutes, but they can approve it right away. If you can do this, you know, again, in a timely manner, then the customers will leave happy. And they will know that, well, if there’s a problem, they’re going to take care of it, they’re not going to leave me hanging. And so employees feel empowered, they feel like they’re part of the solution, not that they’re part of the problem. And so I’m a big believer in empowering your employees to handle situations, right then in there. So let me give you an example. For instance, if you call somebody up on the phone with a problem, and they say, oh, there’s nothing we can do, and they and then you say, Oh, let me speak to a supervisor, they put a supervisor on the phone, then you have to explain the problem all over again. That is one of the top complaints that companies get is that they have to keep explaining the problem over and over and over again to different people who can then finally solve that problem for them. Well, if you empower that first frontline employee to take care of the problem right away, then these people are going to do business with you over and over again.
Max Branstetter 22:03
I really like that aspect of getting ahead of everything, because you can’t plan for everything like you know, when it’s, you know, potentially bad weather. But weather is always in a sense, unpredictable. There’s always random things that you can’t plan for. But you can empower your team and train your team to be prepared for you know, X, X, and X scenario. And also be prepared to act quickly when something comes up. So I think that’s a really, really crucial approach. When you look across businesses, even outside the cruise industry. What do you think is the biggest mistake that companies make in terms of customer service?
Paul Rutter 22:43
Well, I can answer that in one word: training, training, training.
Max Branstetter 22:47
That’s three words.
Paul Rutter 22:51
I think that some land-based businesses think that training is only a one time thing that as soon as somebody comes in, is employed in your business, then you give them a half an hour worth of training and that sit in the cruise industry training is constant, it never ends. It’s every time somebody signs on the ship, if they they’re there for their contractor for six months, they go home, and then they come back, they get the same training. And so it’s constantly drilled into their heads exactly how the company wants you to handle certain situations. So I’m a big believer in training and bring either bringing in an outside corporate trainer or have it within the confines of your business, to have somebody doing the training. But it’s so important. And one of the things I should mention about working on a ship, not only do we live with our customers, but we also live with our co workers. So the person that we’ve just, you know, worked at the front desk with or worked in the dining room or stateroom attendant, that person may be our roommate. And so how do we keep our employees engaged? And employee engagement is so important. And I know that you’ve been on cruises before and some of your listeners who’ve been on cruises, they know that there’s there’s crew members from probably 60 or 70 Different countries on board. Americans are the minority. And so how do you keep all of your employees engaged, whether they’re from Indonesia, the Philippines, India, China, Croatia, that’s where crew cruise lines are getting their employees from? And they’re incredible people. That’s one of the great things about working on board is getting to meet people from all over the world. It’s such an incredible education. But how do you keep all these employees engaged and so cruise lines are very good knowing that where somebody lives and what they eat are extremely important. So we know that if their cabins are good and and everything works in the cabin, and that their food is good that they can go to the crew mess or wherever they eat, and get a halfway decent meal, then there is no reason why they can’t do A real, real good job for us. And you can do that by making them feel at home, you give them little creature comforts of home. So for instance, as Americans for breakfast, we may have fruit, and eggs and bacon, but somebody from another country may want rice and fish and soup, because that’s what they normally. And so the cruise lines do a great job of keeping the employees engaged, by giving them little creature comforts that make them feel like they’re at home. And I think they do a great job of that for land based businesses and for your listeners, employee engagement, making them looking forward to coming to work, because on a cruise ship, as soon as you walk out of the cabin, you have to have a smile on your face, you’re on Bureau at work. And so how do we make sure that we keep our employees engaged so that they’re willing to deliver top, you know, first class customer service whenever they see the guest, so there’s always a smile on their face, there’s always a good morning or a hello. And so you keep them engaged, by giving them the little creature comforts of home and not giving them a reason not to be in a good mood.
Max Branstetter 26:10
Yeah, that’s a crazy dynamic. I was wondering about that. As well as you are living with your customers, you’re living with your co workers, but you do have you know, that cabin that you need to go back to to sleep and if you have any downtime, where you are, where you aren’t customer facing, how do you get yourself kind of amped up or just ready to, you know, blast through those doors and go back to being customer facing when you are coming off, you know, a night’s sleep or a little downtime, like how do you get yourself back like, Alright, I need to be on
Paul Rutter 26:41
again. Attitude is so important. You know, there’s a saying out there that you hire for attitude and he trained for skill, you really need to have the right attitude. This is a unique experience working on a ship where you’re there for for six, sometimes eight months at a time. And you’re working every day, rarely do you ever get a day off. Because you know, you still have to clean the cabins you still have to serve the food, you still have to have activities and entertainment. So rarely do you ever get a day off. And so attitude is so important. You know, it used to be difficult, you know, oh, here we go. As soon as the door opens I have to be on. But I’ll be honest with you. Being friendly is now the easiest part of the job being happy and smiling, be grateful. I mean, we’re in St. Thomas today and St Maarten tomorrow in San Juan, Puerto Rico the next day, you know people are crew members are allowed to get off and enjoy these ports of call a lot of these crew members are coming from countries you know, that would never experience going to the Caribbean and so attitude is so important being grateful for Your opportunity is so important. To be honest, that was one of the easiest parts of the job is being able to open the door and just being friendly to people it’s so easy you know and again that’s where attitude comes in. And that’s where training comes in
Max Branstetter 28:08
sorry in advance for this attitude if I’m a little quick no I’m not I’m actually really slow at this but let’s wrap up with some Rapid-Fire Q&A. You ready for it?
Paul Rutter 28:15
I am ready for it.
Max Branstetter 28:17
All right, let’s get Wild. This is an all cruise Special Edition Rapid-Fire. What part of the world have you been in on a cruise when you’re when you’re out at sea somewhere and at night you look up and it’s just the most beautiful sky of stars you’ve seen?
Paul Rutter 28:34
Wow. Well just I was just there this summer in Alaska when you can see you know the Aurora Borealis is in the night sky because you know the sun sets it you know 11 o’clock at night, anywhere with a night sky and you can see all those beautiful stars but certainly I just got back from Alaska during the summer and I’ll take that number one. Yeah,
Max Branstetter 28:58
that’s a dream have been on some really fun cruises, but they’ve all been in the Caribbean and so Alaska I feel like it’s a whole different, whole different world. It’d be really cool to get a peek of those northern lights as well. All right, what is either hired onstage you know, entertainer for a cruise or just a celebrity that’s been on a cruise that you’ve been on that you and other cruisers were just absolutely blown away by major jaw drop?
Paul Rutter 29:25
Well, when I first started as a Cruise Director back in the early 90s, we had a celebrity program where we actually brought on big Las Vegas stars and you know, some of them are not with us anymore. So I don’t know if your listeners would know, you know, Jerry Lewis and Phyllis Diller and Norm Crosby and Captain & Tenille and The 5th dimension, and just some incredible performers and people didn’t pay extra to see them. These were all free shows. And so we had some top Las Vegas stars. Some of them were incredibly nice. Some of them were not so nice and I will not, you know, spill the beans on, on who wasn’t as nice. But there were just you know, I’ll tell you, you know Phyllis Diller Charo if you know who Charo is of Cuchi-Cuchi, and incredible Flamenca guitarists that people don’t know about and so I just had the an incredible opportunity to work with some really ageless stars back in the day. Now, that doesn’t happen anymore right now. But when I first started to work with some of these big stars, it was absolutely wonderful. Well,
Max Branstetter 30:33
we started off this ship full conversation, that word doesn’t even make sense. Talking about a particular theme cruise, where people were not wearing clothes after the 12 mile border thing. But for you personally, if there could be a theme cruise about any theme in the world, which I know that pretty much is what would be your dream theme to be on a cruise of? Well,
Paul Rutter 30:58
I’ve been fortunate I’ve been on some sports cruises. I’ve been on some Super Bowl cruises where we’ve had some NFL players I’m a big sports fan. I’ve been on jazz cruises. I’m big into jazz, and rock and roll I’ve been on ships with groups like you know Earth, Wind & Fire and The O’Jays and just some incredible talent like that. So I’m a big sports and music guy. So anything to do with with sports or music is is fine by me. I’m I’m in I’m in heaven right there. I’m in my zone, right? If I can do that,
Max Branstetter 31:33
yeah, sports and music that never gets old. You’re rockin and rollin there. If you could only do one cruise excursion for the rest of your life, what would it be? Oh, anytime
Paul Rutter 31:44
you want to take me up in a helicopter in Alaska and land on some glaciers and do some dog sledding. Sign me up for that. That’s absolutely wonderful. You know, see planes in Alaska, you’re flying over glaciers, you’re flying over snow capped mountains. And then these helicopters will land on glaciers. And these glaciers have been there for 1000s of years. It’s just absolutely incredible. I’m a big nature lover. So put me on a helicopter flying over any places is fine by me.
Max Branstetter 32:17
All right, well, we’ll see what I can do. And then last, last one, want to get a little peek behind the curtain on the future of cruises. Now, you don’t need to reveal any IP or trade secrets or anything, you know, like that. But just overall high level I am sure many people are just blown away how far cruises have come in terms of one getting bigger and bigger, but to the amount of things like fun activities offered on board and like some of these cruises these days. It’s like literally it looks like it’s a it’s a whole amusement park on the water. Like there’s roller coasters. There’s all sorts of rides, things like that there’s, you know, the wave surfing, things like that. What is the limit for this? Like what what do you think would be a really cool addition for the future of like on cruise activities or ride type things to have.
Paul Rutter 33:06
What’s happening now is the ships are not competing against each other. The competition to cruise lines are really resorts and so cruise lines are making the cruise ship the destination. And so there’s so much to do on these cruise ships that they’re competing with resorts with the universals and the Disney Worlds. As you mentioned, there’s so much to do from rock climbing walls. There’s ice skating rinks on cruise ships. There’s bowling alleys, there’s, as you mentioned, the wave of float with they’re called Flow riders, they now have I fly which is the simulated skydiving these tubes where the wind blows you up and you’re doing simulated skydiving. There’s go kart racing. There’s all sorts of things. There’s now a ship coming up in January has these waterfalls that Aisha water shows where there’s high diving. It’s just incredible what they’re coming up with. Now, some of these ships, you don’t even know how they’re floating there. So there’s so much going on. But obviously, all the weight is on the very bottom of the ships and it gets lighter and lighter as they go up. But you’re right, these ships are now competing with resorts and not just competing with ports and some people go on these ships, they don’t even get off in the ports of call because there’s just so much to do on the ships from carousels to there’s now there’s ziplining across the top of the ship you can go ziplining they now have ziplining out over the side of the ship which is crazy. So the really the activities that they’re coming up with are they’re just trying to outdo each other so that they’re competing now with the resorts as opposed with competing with other cruise lines. Now with with new types of fees You all they’re now coming out with a liquid natural gas powered engine. So they’re getting much cleaner. Now, the exhaust coming out because a lot of people are concerned with, with the climate control, and what they’re doing to minimize their impact on the world. And so they’re coming out with new types of fuels. And so that will let ships go further without having to stop to refuel. It really is an exciting time in the industry.
Max Branstetter 35:27
Paul rudder, which we know is your alien now. Thank you so much. This has been an absolute blast just learned so much about cruises and customer service and even naked people, which probably a lot of people didn’t expect. was seeing the name of this episode. But, Paul, thank you so much for coming on. Where is the best place for people to learn more about you? And also I know you have a couple of awesome books as well where’s the best place for people to, to grab copies and connect with you online?
Paul Rutter 35:52
If they can check me out at my website to PaulRutterSpeaks.com. My latest book, You Can’t Make This Ship Up is available on Amazon. I have a book about repeat business things to keep customers coming back all the time. And, and I’m on Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram. I have YouTube channels. So anywhere you can look me up. I’m more than happy to stay in touch with any of your listeners. Perfect.
Max Branstetter 36:21
Thanks again. And the last thing here one line to send us some words to live by or cruise by.
Paul Rutter 36:26
It’s all about attitude. Attitude is everything.
Max Branstetter 36:32
Paul bringing the attitude and Cruis’n Exotica around the world. Paul, thank you so much for coming on the podcast sharing your stories from the seas, and all your customer service tips. And thank you, Wild Listeners for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth Podcast on your favorite app, maybe even on your favorite cruise ship. Make sure you download it and tell a friend about the podcast. Maybe it’s a friend you’re on a cruise with. You can also find us on Goodpods, where there are good podcasts and good podcast recommendations and good people. And for any help with podcast production, you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. That is short & sweet to your inbox every Thursday and it is where podcasting meets entrepreneurship. And, some of the worst puns you probably ever heard. You can do that at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Until next time, let your business Cruise Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!
