We have just arrived in Kalgoorlie-Boulder touring the show. It has a population of a little over 32,000 and is 600 kilometers or so East from Perth. It is an amazing old town with a lot of history, including a Super Pit gold mine which was started by Alan Bond.
One of the things that has been immediately apparent upon arriving in town is that customer service is not really a priority. I know I harp on a lot about it, and I find it really embarrassing that Australia is know the world around for our poor customer service. When we arrived in town, and I could not get the address of the hotel out of my computer because there is no NextG coverage in Kalgoorlie, I called to ask what the street address was. When my call was eventually answered, I was told it was on a particular street. I said that I thought that was the name of the street but that it does not appear in my GPS, so I asked if it was also known by another name. She answered that it was the main street and then hung up.
Obviously, either an assumption was made that I was a local and that was all I needed to be able to find the motel or if that was not it – that I was a visitor and obviously any visitor to town stupid enough to not know where the main street is shouldn’t be staying at their motel.
We have had a few other negative experiences in town including one of the cast being denied entry to a shopping area by a group of locals. All of this has thrown the cast and myself a little bit – because, architecturally, Kalgoorlie is a beautiful town.
Hopefully we will have some positive experiences in the next couple of days to share with you.
The Ways to make people feel welcome in a town by Troy Kelly, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
