Is it frustrating to make a phone call and to transferred elsewhere, or to email someone and get an "out of office" with a note your email has been forwarded? No - a single transfer is acceptable on the lines of "I'm putting you through to Lisa who can take your room details" or "I've forwarded your email to Christine who will get back to you with catering options". And if Lisa, Christine, Tom, Dick, Harry or the other area expert isn't available to take a transfer, then taking a note of the call's details and question and promising a call back - with a given timescale and the name of the call returner stated - is good practise. The more so if the person has actually researched the answer when they call back.

I sent out a batch of emails yesterday ... and some of them bounced via "vacation" programs. Those that say "your email has been forwarded" need no further action on my part and I can smile. Those that give me alternative contacts that I have to re-email make me grit my teeth and do that extra bit of work. And when I've done that extra work, those that come back from the alternative contact's "vacation" program too have me rolling my eyes to the ceiling and saying 'what a shower'. The reponse that tells me that my new contact is out of the office moving house from 3rd to 5th September and I should get back in touch with the person I contacted in the first place really takes the biscuit!

I don't use a vacation program. Period. I tell people I'll email them back within 48 hours (but often achieve much better), and if I'm away and happen to be unable to check in, alternative arrangements are made to maintain service without troubling the original emailer.

Moving more into the general business line with hotel phone calls, we should be looking to maintain the same standard. Personally, I find phone calls intrusive as they pull me off concentrated effort, but there are time that they're appropriate - emergencies, things that would take an age of back-and-forth emailing, and so on. And I shouldn't let my personal bias effect the standard we offer.

Conscious effort to be made. (1) - phone calls on ANY of our lines to be answered with a clear statement of who we are, who is speaking, and an offer to help. (2) - a target that 80% of hotel queries and 40% of training queries can be answered by the person who picks the call up. (3) - a caller should never be told to call another number. Rather, we collect details and one of us calls back if need be; target time given to customer and (hotel side) "within the hour" sounds good to me.

"Bounce, bounce bounce" I started this piece - and that didn't relate to bouncing happily along. Bouncing contacts from pillar to post rapidly takes the spring out of them. We've been past masters at responding to training queries in "mint on the pillow" mode and we're learning and targetting the same on the hotel.
(written 2007-01-20 07:49:04)

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The HTML++ Metalanguage
Java 6, Apache Tomcat 6.
Getting rid of people - hotel techniques
Maintainable code - some positive advice
Bounce, bounce, bounce
Bang! Train campaign hits home
Call for appropriate train services - Swindon, Bristol, Bath, West Wilts, Severn Beach etc
Sending an email from Python
Nested exceptions in Python
Learnt in London - Ruby, Martini, Coral and the Core
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This is a page archived from The Horse's Mouth at http://www.wellho.net/horse/ - the diary and writings of Graham Ellis. Every attempt was made to provide current information at the time the page was written, but things do move forward in our business - new software releases, price changes, new techniques. Please check back via our main site for current courses, prices, versions, etc - any mention of a price in "The Horse's Mouth" cannot be taken as an offer to supply at that price.

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