Nashville’s Gaylord Opryland Resort is home to SoundWaves, one of Tennessee’s premier water parks. The three-story, four-acre attraction, which opened in December 2018, features 11 water slides. It also has a lazy river, wave pools, and splash zones for kids. The $90 million facility also includes an arcade, a rock climbing wall, and a giant LED movie screen. The amenity also boasts a restaurant and a bar. The SoundWaves staff place a heavy emphasis on customer experience.
“if you went to a Six Flags water park, you might be one of 6,000 people going for that day and maybe they have 3,000 chairs. That doesn’t guarantee you a chair, it doesn’t give your family a nice place to sit…We will always have a place to sit. We do not sell more tickets than we have a place to sit.” SoundWaves manager Donny Wensinger said.
Wensinger and his staff try to perfect the little things so that every detail adds up to the most optimal experience.
“It doesn’t matter if your kid is really happy with the chicken nuggets. We want mom to be happy with the beautiful salad that we prepared for her, right? We want dad to be happy with the extra club sandwiches.”
SoundWaves is only open when families are available to visit, which gives their employees more freedom and ensures a convenient visit for families.
“We kind of have a reverse school calendar to be open. So during the school year, we’re open all the weekends, we’re open the Thanksgiving and the Christmas breaks. We’re open all of March to cover a lot of different spring breaks for schools. And we’re really just focused on being open when the families can come. That Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of the typical work week, we are closed and dark those days.” Wensinger Said.
“[Our staff] enjoy the perks of not having to work seven days a week or five days a week. They have figured out how to have a good work from home life, life work balance.” Said food and beverage manager Brett Farr.
SoundWaves hires many college students to give them work experience and opportunities to help pay their tuitions. The majority of the servers are current college students.
“They came here for pick up a summer job and then at some point someone said, ‘hey, you’re kind of good. You want to stay on?’” Farr said. “It’s a good opportunity for them to pursue their education, make a lot of money in the summertime working here to help pay for education. You probably can pay a majority of your school load by what you make here in the summer or pretty much close to it. So it’s another aspect of working in sound waves that benefits them.”
SoundWaves’ unique schedule aligns with the college students’ schedules, ensuring a good balance between school and work. The managers also understand their stress as students and give them more flexibility.
“we had a meeting and one of our guys was like, ‘hey, I got finals that day at that time.’ I was like, ‘all right, cool. I’ll see you on Friday. We’ll go over the stuff then and go from there.’”
SoundWaves has a perfect balance between customer experience and employee experience, guaranteeing satisfaction from customers and flexibility for employees. Wensinger loves the job and enjoys working there every day.
“My job is not what I would call a job. It is something that I would love to do and I would probably do for happiness in general. So whenever a parent or a guidance counselor has told you, ‘Oh, pick something fun and you’ll never work a day in your life,’ I did it.”
