1.  Clean & Plentiful Bathrooms

The reality is that most Agritourism venues with heavy seasonal crowds don’t have enough indoor bathroom facilities to keep up with the demand.  That means we have to resort to the dreaded Porta-Potty.  This is the worst nightmare of germaphobes’.  Your guests may be on their way to having an outstanding customer experience (see our blog post from last week) and a dirty bathroom or Porta-Potty may be the lasting memory that sticks longer that all the great experiences they had that day.  Or if their 5-year-old decides they have to go NOW and there are long lines for all the bathrooms.

With ev...

1. Trained Staff

I believe the first step in providing an OUTSTANDING customer experience is a thoroughly trained staff.  I believe there are 3 key areas of training: Product Training, Operational Training, and Procedural Training.

PRODUCT TRAINING.  Providing an outstanding customer experience requires a staff that is educated about your “product” and can answer questions from your guests.  If you are a farm that offers organic food, they should know why your farm has chosen to grow organic and the benefits of eating organic food.  If you sell Christmas trees, your staff should be able to correctly identify the different varieties and kn...

 1.  Experienced Drivers

Be super selective in this critical safety area.  Just because the minimum age requirement by your liability insurance carrier may be 21 years old doesn’t mean that any 21-year-old that has driven a tractor “will do”.  This is probably the last place you want to try to save on payroll expenses.  First choice is always family or friends that you know have the experience and the personality that is critical to this position. 

If you don’t have family and friends that meet that criteria and are willing to do it, we strongly recommend that you look for seasoned farmers in your community.  These employe...

Reason 1:  Capitalize on a Current Event or Trending Topic!

Themes can be a powerful guest magnet if you choose the right one.  Think Big!  Pick a theme that has broad appeal.  Stay away from themes that are only about your farm or your town.  Use a theme that has the potential of drawing traffic from hours away!  Here are some of the themes we have done over the years:

• Chicago Bears vs. Green Bay Packers (our venue was located about 100 miles from both Chicago & Milwaukee)

• New York Giants vs. Philadelphia Eagles (our PA venue)

• Presidential Election themes (during election years)

• NASCAR (the year it...