Superhost Customer Service Award:

This award recognizes a frontline employee whose exceptional customer service contributed to an outstanding travel experience for one of our visitors in 2008.

Recipient: Darrel Dueck

Darrel Dueck has been providing exceptional customer service at the Elysia Resort on Quesnel Lake for over five years. Among the many random acts of kindness Darrel performs, one particular guest was exceptionally moved when Darrel installed a missing but vital bilge pump into this guest's boat. Darrel installed the part as a surprise birthday present for this long-time resort guest and truly went above and beyond and to create a memorable birthday.

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Story reprinted from the Williams Lake Tribune
Published: February 24, 2009 8:00 AM

Darrel Dueck won the SuperHost Customer Service Award at the 10th annual BC Tourism Industry Awards earlier this month.

Darrel Dueck Wins Major Tourism Award
Darrel Dueck won the SuperHost Customer Service Award at the 10th annual BC Tourism Industry Awards earlier this month.

Story & photo by Ken MacInnis - Williams Lake Tribune

Darrel Dueck didn’t hesitate when he saw a guest’s boat drifting about eight miles down Quesnel Lake two summers ago with two tourist couples and a nine-month-old baby.

The prop on the boat had broken, and both the electrical and fuel lines had been cut.

He and a fishing guide got in their own boat and went to pick up the stranded boaters and bring them back to Elysia Resort.

“I’ve been on many rescues, but that was the most severe,” says Dueck, in charge of maintenance and the marina at Elysia Resort on Quesnel Lake.

That story was told Feb. 12 at the 10th Annual BC Tourism Industry Awards in Vancouver, where Dueck was presented with one of the industry’s top honours — the SuperHost Customer Service Award.

“Darrel consistently makes guests feel special and performs random acts of kindness every day,” reads the entry for Dueck in the award program.

One of these acts was to buy and install a new bilge pump for a guest’s boat for his 84th birthday, saving the guest the difficult and dangerous job of manually emptying water from the boat.

“Darrel often does these kinds of things,” says Holly Frederickson, a training advisor for SuperHost programs in Williams Lake who offered workshops last week as part of Chamber of Commerce Week.

“He exceeds [standard] customer service. The first thing some guests ask when they arrive is if Darrel is there.”

“The whole industry is proud of Darrel,” says Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Tourism Association CEO Scott Kovatch. “We like to think this region has that special kind of character.”

Dueck has been with the resort for five years, and does marina work, groundskeeping, and “whatever the guests need,” he says.

And beyond being available to guests and rescuing them on Quesnel Lake, what’s his secret to customer service?

“I never ask guests about their professional lives,” he says. “I never ask what people do for a living. If I was on holidays, the last thing I’d want to talk about is work.”

With 20 years of experience with a rod and reel, he’s also been known to offer a fishing tip or two to guests.

“It feels good,” he says of the award, which is a striking nine-pound combination of wood and glass. “It’s a lot more than expected.”

He thanked his parents Ben and Dorothy Dueck when he accepted the award in Vancouver.

“If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here or there,” he says.