Twenty questions for our hotel team to ask themselves ...

1. Is our Internet access easy and obvious to find rather than having to search through a load of hubs called things like "netgear" that are around the place?

2. Are our power points easy to find and near the desk space, and is there enough desk space?

3. Do we ask our customers if they had a good day / good journey when they arrive?

4. Do we ask our customers if there's any other information they need or anything else we can do for them?

5. Do we take our customers to the room, or just take them to the bottom of the stairs and point up saying "it's up there"?

6. If asked for local directions, do we offer to sell our guests a local map, or do we have something we can give them with our compliments?

7. Picture question - Do the window frames in our bathrooms look like this?

8. Do we advertise something at £5.95 in the room, but then have a newer version of the same sheet in reception and offer it there at £7.25? Then tell our customers they must have misread the information in the room when they query it?

9. If we were to offer apple sauce, and the offer was taken up, would we provide a fresh pot or one that had clearly been nearly used up on another table?

10. Do we offer breakfast earlier than an 8 a.m. start?

11. Do we request payment the night before if guests are leaving before 8 (said in one place), 8:30 (in another) and 9 (in a third)

12. If we're going to have an argument between staff, do we do it where customers at breakfast can hear and appreciate the words being exchanged?

13. Do we vacuum clean the room next to the breakfast room at the height of breakfast service?

14. Do we seat single customers in the back seat without the good view at dinner, and by the kitchen door at breakfast, on a table that's only half set - short of salt, pepper, menu ...

15. Do we serve instant coffee in stylist stainless cafeterias with plungers to make it look as if it's real coffee?

16. Do we provide a leisurely breakfast - although it's an 8 O'Clock start, food isn't actually served until twenty past (half past if the staff aren't told it's urgent)

17. When guests check out, do we present them with a bill for one more day than they actually stayed (and with the total line well hidden) in the hope they won't notice and we'll get more income?

18. Picture question - Do our tables look like this?

19. Do we go round and check with people while they're eating, or leave them to finish their meal alone?

20. On check in, do we ask people to sign in on a form that's been amended and it's clear that the rooms have been shifted around - leaving them wondering what is wrong with room 17, or have we been put in the "dunce" room because a more important customer wanted 17.

I an happy with the answers that I can personally give for Well House Manor on each of these questions, which were inspired by a hotel that I stayed in very recently.

I'm very much aware that with some of the questions, there are arguments as to what is the correct action anyway. For example, there is a "staff will be seen and not heard" ethos in some places and it could be argued that asking "did you have a good journey" is getting overly familiar; for our accommodation - mostly for business travellers often on their own, I think that an opening of this sort should be (and it is) made, and a lead then taken from the guest as to whether a conversation follows or it shuts down.

I'm copying this list to our whole team - saying - "please think of how WE do on each of these issues". I always want to be reviewing, and my stays in lots of different places let me bring back the good and the bad experiences and thoughts and we can all gain from these. What reaction do I want from our team? If one or two things - not necessarily on the list, but brought up from wider thought - come up, that's tops. If we find nothing, we're being too smug. And if we get more than a handful, then we have some issues, I think!
Dorothy-2:jul10 grahamellis$

(written 2010-07-24, updated 2010-07-30)

 M401 - Well House Manor - Seeing how others do it
  [17] Differing tastes - (2004-08-17)
  [514] Crazy Day-sies - (2005-12-02)
  [619] If its Sunday, it must be the Norland - (2006-02-23)
  [693] The on line booking experience - (2006-04-21)
  [699] Extremes costs of getting on line - (2006-04-25)
  [714] Room for Octopuses - (2006-05-08)
  [736] New Tape Librarian - (2006-05-28)
  [966] CSL, KISS and RTFM - (2006-12-05)
  [1011] Well House Manor and Beechfield House, Hotels, Melksham - (2006-12-29)
  [1026] The Wheatsheaf 2, The Bell 0 - (2007-01-09)
  [1091] The Psyche is all wrong. - (2007-02-24)
  [1205] Arrival and Departure experiences - another hotel - (2007-05-26)
  [1287] Work and play at Well House Manor - Football and Shell Shortcuts - (2007-08-02)
  [1301] Plastic or China - (2007-08-12)
  [1333] Kasteel Elsloo - Michelin rated hotel. - (2007-09-05)
  [1347] Wireless Internet Access at hotels - an update and some pitfalls - (2007-09-12)
  [1354] Match the Bedroom to the Hotel - (2007-09-17)
  [1356] Crystal Ball - How long do I need to be online? - (2007-09-18)
  [1374] Maidenhead Coffee Challenge - (2007-10-02)
  [1406] Away or home - which do I prefer? - (2007-10-25)
  [1413] The little gestures that can really count - (2007-10-27)
  [1454] From Sunday to Monday, from Melksham to the Balkans - (2007-12-03)
  [1458] The wrong way to put up prices - (2007-12-05)
  [1525] Just one thing let the service down - but that is my memory - (2008-01-31)
  [1547] New bathing idea for hotels from Hotelympia - (2008-02-20)
  [1597] Comparing hotels - as a guest and from the proprietors view - (2008-04-01)
  [1672] The Composting Cone Challenge - (2008-06-10)
  [1758] Lindors Hotel, near St. Briavels, Wye Valley - (2008-08-18)
  [1915] Quietly putting prices up - (2008-12-02)
  [2007] Launch of Melksham Food and Drink Festival - (2009-01-24)
  [2105] Hire Car, from Atlanta Airport - (2009-03-27)
  [2127] Call in the professionals! - (2009-04-12)
  [2308] A new place in pictures - (2009-07-28)
  [2311] Floor to ceiling - (2009-07-30)
  [2413] Sanity checking the price, and selling up to increase income - (2009-09-21)
  [2441] Not your cup of tea? - (2009-10-08)
  [2502] Monday night, Tuesday night - (2009-11-13)
  [2911] Feeding the Grockles - (2010-08-09)
  [3054] Longhope Hotel - (2010-11-16)
  [3333] Honesty and a friendly welcome goes a long way - (2011-06-25)
  [3368] Well House Manor hotel, Melksham - recommended to you by our customers - (2011-07-23)
  [3754] Eyes Wide Open - (2012-06-06)
  [3776] Some traps it's so easy to fall into in designing your web site - (2012-06-23)
  [3794] Should hotel staff sit on the toilet in the customer bedrooms? - (2012-07-02)
  [3900] The Xxxxx Guest House in Xxxxxxxxxxx - my stay reviewed - (2012-10-20)
  [3963] National TV - Melksham - 9th January 2013, Pre-alert. - (2012-12-27)
  [3970] Comparing four VERY different places to stay - (2013-01-11)
  [3975] Being an amateur hotel inspector helps me run a professional hotel - (2013-01-14)
  [4058] The highs and lows of customer service - Cheltenham - (2013-04-03)
  [4081] Pushing down the advertised price, pushing up the total price charged. - (2013-05-08)
  [4091] A reminder of why we opened Well House Manor for our customers - (2013-05-17)
  [4093] More things to make sure that we do NOT do ... - (2013-05-18)
  [4109] What might you find at a tiny bed and breakfast? - (2013-06-03)
  [4177] Setting and publishing your hours to suit your customer base - (2013-09-18)
  [4245] It always happens to me when I'm in Borehamwood! - (2014-03-06)
  [4255] Making a personal gain from a more expensive business hotel stay - (2014-04-02)
  [4321] Are administration / review charges on hotel guests acceptable? - (2014-11-20)
  [4348] Taking my life in my hands in Swansea - (2014-12-11)
  [4373] A long and disappointing evening - (2014-12-30)
  [4443] Seventh stay away this year - and it's still only February! - (2015-02-25)

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Congratulations, Kimberly
Twenty Questions
Hotlinked images onto adult material sites
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Seeing Wiltshire - from a Melksham base
Tailoring of courses to meet customers needs - how it works
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