{"id":54441,"date":"2016-12-28T14:32:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-29T00:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=54441"},"modified":"2020-03-05T15:58:48","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T01:58:48","slug":"sharing-hawaiis-story-through-excellent-customer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2016\/12\/28\/sharing-hawaiis-story-through-excellent-customer-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharing Hawai\u02bbi\u2019s story through excellent customer service"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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Fall 2015 graduates of the revised visitor training program.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>’s visitor industry is about to make a good thing better. Besides rainbows, exotic gourmet cuisine, beautiful sand beaches, historic sites and scenic byways, global visitors will experience extraordinary customer service during their stay in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>.<\/p>\n

The Office of Continuing Education and Training<\/a> (OCET)—Global Learning and Development (GLaD) unit at Kapiʻolani Community College<\/a> has teamed up with the Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Tourism Authority<\/a> (HTA) to offer professional development training for employees in frontline services. These areas include professional tour guides and customer service providers in such areas as hotels, restaurants, airlines, entertainment venues, visitor attractions and retail organizations.<\/p>\n

Learning about Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>’s culture and servicing global customers<\/h2>\n

One of the programs, Certification for Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>’s Professional Tour Guides<\/a>, is an updated program that was established in 1993 by the\u00a0Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> State Tourism Training Council and sanctioned by the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. Kapiʻolani CC<\/abbr>’s GLaD<\/abbr> team collaborated with industry professionals to identify current service standards for Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>’s visitor industry and modernize the training accordingly. In addition to learning more about our host culture, this program is now focused on servicing Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>’s global customers, communicating with visitors in ways that are engaging and memorable, as well as sharing stories of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> that are authentic and, most importantly, accurate. Kapiʻolani was granted custody of this program and thus owns all copyrights on the developed curriculum and materials.<\/p>\n

The Certification for Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>’s Professional Tour Guides allows individuals to enhance skills and knowledge in their profession. The Certificate for Customer Service in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> provides professional development training for individuals in various service industries. An additional training program has also been designed for individuals seeking careers and preparing them for positions in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>’s service industries.<\/p>\n

Shirley Tsuhako<\/strong>, program manager at OCET<\/abbr>, said she is very excited about working with HTA<\/abbr> on these programs. “When you think about it, a tour guide can tell amazing stories about Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>. A guest service agent can convey a warm message of\u00a0aloha even over the telephone, retail sales associates can exemplify hoʻokipa in how they warmly greet and service their customers and a restaurant worker can share about locally grown food and traditional Hawaiian cooking methods with patrons. Through training, employees will have an opportunity to learn how to ‘give their best’ and be an incredible ambassador for Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>.”<\/p>\n

For more information about this program, please visit Kapiʻolani CC<\/abbr>’s OCET<\/abbr> website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

—By Louise Yamamoto<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kapiʻolani CC<\/abbr> has teamed up with the Â鶹´«Ã½ Tourism Authority to offer professional development training for employees in frontline services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[63,333,71],"class_list":["post-54441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","tag-kapiolani-community-college","tag-office-of-continuing-education-and-training","tag-uh-community-colleges","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t