Ferry Business - Summer/Spring 2020

1 3 3 Ferries like Pride of Rotterdam are popular with passengers due to their high-quality interiors and excellent customer service dissection of the passenger journey. “There are key moments in hospitality that define consumer opinion, good and bad: when you first arrive at the port, when you are greeted at the ticket desk, the walk through security, the welcome onboard, when you open your cabin door, when you first enter the bathroom, when you walk into a bar or order food in the restaurant. These one- or two-second moments are either magical or miserable but they are always the most memorable and so we have to get them right, every time.” Hebblethwaite has a fastidious obsession with detail – the quality and condition of the hardware and the gentle finesse of the service delivery. “Yes, because that’s what hospitality is. Of course, you need good food and an agreeable environment but where it all comes together to deliver a memorable experience is in the personal interactions that you have in a moment,” he explains. “If those key moments are with people who are unhappy, demotivated or they haven’t been trained properly, they can undermine absolutely everything. Or they can absolutely transform a customer’s experience, almost regardless of the quality of the product.” Maintaining existing facilities is not enough for Hebblethwaite; plans are afoot to wow guests with even greater variety and higher standards. “I’ve got a slightly different view of how we should approach our business. I see it as a ferry business with cruise line standards, so I’m trying to create an environment where the experience is so compelling that I want to do it as a stand-alone thing.” Every element of the onboard offering will get a makeover to ensure a comfortable comparison with a cruise experience. And future P&O Ferries passengers will enjoy ‘wow’ moments from the company’s revitalisation programme and from its new concepts. “We’re going to be adding facilities that only cruise guests currently enjoy. One of the most enticing is the introduction of a spa on the Pride of York,” Hebblethwaite says. “Perhaps the single biggest change is how we are fundamentally reinventing our onboard entertainment.” No shoreside or onboard area will go untouched in his master plan. “We won’t stop; this is a continuous journey to raise standards across the entire ferry experience,” he explains. Hebblethwaite is clear about how he hopes this new cruise approach will change passenger perceptions about ferry travel. “I might have to go