The fun, family-friendly Elora, ON track opens its 12th season of live harness racing with cosmetic improvements and a goal to improve its already exceptional customer service.
Grand River Raceway in Elora, ON will open its 12th season of live harness racing on Monday with some cosmetic improvements, a refreshed website and a mission to improve on customer service that already well exceeds industry standards.
Renovations to the track began last month and will be finished this fall. Improvements include painting, lighting, flooring and new furniture to the Simulcast Lounge, upper lobby, Wellington Room, Board Room, Captain’s Quarters Dining Room, and Lighthouse Restaurant.
Working to improve customer service at a track already known for a fun, fan-friendly atmosphere has involved extensive staff training. Nearly 100 Grand River employees will have eight hours of customer care training and also receive additional training that gives them first-hand exposure to horses.
“Every staff person will get their hands on the horses and actually get to drive a horse, so they have an understanding of our product — at least a very basic understanding of our product,” said marketing director Kelly Spencer.
“We’ve created a set of principles and a whole manual for both the staff and the managers. We’re making fairly significant changes even in just our language in how we talk to each other about the customers. How we address customers and how we address each other. We’re trying to really not just improve the customer care, but really change the whole underpinning of how we think about the customer.”
The goal is for all Grand River Raceway employees to be able to answer any customer question. For patrons, it all begins when they walk through the door. Grand River Raceway has set up a customer care counter in the lobby to act as a hub for first-time or infrequent patrons, or anyone that needs particular attention.
Improving customer service might be a tall order considering Grand River Raceway already received extremely high marks for how it treats its guest in a multi-year market research study the track commissioned. Spencer is particularly proud the track already has scored well in dealing with customers, but said, “to move the needle up another notch sort of requires this kind of transformative change.
“It’s a very big undertaking. It’s very ambitious. I’m certainly not going to promise that people will notice a marked shift in a couple weeks. It’s a process, but it’s one of the most important initiatives that we’ve done, to date.”
Still, it’s a change Spencer said is a necessity in today’s competitive marketplace.
“We’re really striving to be a customer care organization that also features live entertainment,” Spencer said. “It’s really a customer care organization first. Which, from a racing perspective, when you look at a history of harness racing, I think it’s safe to say that, unfortunately, that has not been a priority for most racing enterprises for many, many years.”
Grand River will feature 49 cards of live racing this summer. The track will race Monday and Wednesday nights from June 1 through Sept. 30. Its signature Fun & Frivolity Friday night cards will run June 5 through Sept. 4. Post time is 6:30 p.m., except for the annual Industry Day / Battle of Waterloo card that starts at 1:30 p.m. on the Aug. 3 Civic Holiday Monday. There is no live racing at the Elora track on Aug. 21.
Monday’s Opening Night card will also mark the sixth annual Local Biz Night event in co-operation with the Centre Wellington Chamber of Commerce. More than 100 local business people will be paired with a horse in the Local Biz Night Race. Prior to the dash, guests are treated to a cocktail reception hosted by the OLG Slots At Grand River Raceway, followed by dinner and a trip to the paddock to meet their horse.
For more information, check out Grand River’s OHR page:
http://ontariohorseracing.ca/
or the track’s recently-refreshed website:
For more information please contact:
Dave Briggs
Standardbred Communications
Ontario Horse Racing
standardbrednews@
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