A talk with Craig and Cheries Dutton from WildTrax, the Land Rover outdoor adventure hire business, about their motivation, innovation, and pursuit to provide excellent customer service and experience.
“It’s an incredibly rewarding industry. It’s because people are always so happy. The guests and the customers are happy whether you’re running a kayak rental company or hiking company, or hotel. People are smiling when they come to you. And invariably, if you’ve done your job right, they’re smiling when they’ve left. And that’s rewarding, that’s for me the perfect recipe for a happy work-home life. You’re enjoying the fact that people are out there enjoying themselves.” — Craig Dutton, WildTrax
Podcast excerpts. Interview by Drew Hendry
Drew: At the Good Business podcast, we believe that people are at the heart of a good business. So, we want to hear more about both of you and what you’ve been up to. What’s influenced you most in your career, would you say?
Craig: I think personally I am influenced by my work environment, and I strive for a fun, relaxed work environment. And I can’t say that I have any people that have influenced that, but most certainly everything I do needs to be fun, enjoyable. And if I have achieved that, I’m happy.
Cheries: I think of what motivates or has influenced my career over the last 20 years or so has been probably Craig. He’s always had a passion for Land Rovers, and I think that’s what got us where we are today, really.
Craig: We’ve always been one of the forerunners of our type of business within the UK. We certainly have the largest fleet, [but] it’s not only about that but having a bigger business for us in terms of vehicles has helped us to become more of a better service operator for our guests. As I’ve mentioned, we don’t send our entire fleet out, we keep a vehicle or two behind as backup vehicles just to make sure that if a vehicle breaks down for whatever reason, then we can service our guests.
Drew: It’s quite a high standard of customer service to have a vehicle on standby.
Cheries: That’s our number one priority — customer service. Above all else for us, the customer experience is the most important thing.
Craig: There are a lot of people out there that are buying their own rooftop tents and that essentially becomes part of our competition. So, moving on from here, WildTrax is going to be more of an adventure company, we want our vehicles to be a vehicle for adventure. We want to show people where to go, what to do, and how to do it. We want to be more experiential — it will be far more experiential than just coming, grabbing a vehicle from us, and heading out and not knowing where to go and what to do, and how to get the best out of the Highland experience.
Drew: Well, finally, this podcast is about the heart and soul of good business. What’s at the heart of your business?
Craig: Customer service. 100% customer service. Customer service is what makes us happy. What makes customers happy, gets people to come back here.
Listen to the full Podcast to learn more about WildTrax and how they responded to the Covid pandemic, their business expansion, technological innovation, carbon footprint awareness, business marketing, team inclusion, and ow they deliver excellent customer service.