Mr and Mrs Brown, and Mr and Mrs Roberts, are staying at Well House Manor for a weekend in a month or two's time. It was Mrs Brown who called, and as I spoke with her and filled in her details on our booking form it all seemed very formal.

When we came to taking details to confirm the booking, it became a bit less formal as I 'discovered' her initials - the name on the card is "Mrs S J Brown", and when I asked towards the conclusion of the call for her email address, she gave me "sally@ ...." with "that's me" as a confirmation that I may put two and two together, and conclude that we have Mrs Sally M Brown staying (all details changed to protect privacy) as group lead.

And then - as a part of the concluding conversation - I learned a little more. Of what she does for a job, of why they're traveling, and what are the key sales elements that brought them to choose Well House Manor.

I find it a fascinating study of how conversations open up as callers become more relaxed, and it's a reminder to me of just how important it is for the person on our team who's taking the booking to lead the conversation through in "the Well House Manor way", if you can call it that, which is to provide the facilities that visitors would wish to find in a hotel, and yet with the more relaxed and friendly service which so many of our business guests clearly appreciate, judging by the repeat bookings that we get, and the friendly way they'll seek us out to chat of an evening when they're with us.

Link - Well House Manor. Keywords: Hotel, Melksham, Wiltshire, Friendly, Business and Weekend Break.

(written 2011-02-10, updated 2011-02-11)

 M400 - Well House Manor - The Hospitality Business
  [774] Bed and Breakfast, or Hotel? - (2006-06-22)
  [884] Drive time - (2006-10-02)
  [922] Staying at your own hotel - (2006-11-12)
  [988] You should think you're first in a hotel room - (2006-12-15)
  [1002] Meet the neighbours - (2006-12-20)
  [1046] Bounce, bounce, bounce - (2007-01-20)
  [1048] Getting rid of people - hotel techniques - (2007-01-21)
  [1084] Writing terms and conditions for conferences and other events - (2007-02-17)
  [1108] Express service - (2007-03-14)
  [1122] Hotel - online feedback forms compared - (2007-03-30)
  [1161] A contrast in room rates and facilities - (2007-04-25)
  [1180] Conjugation - (2007-05-08)
  [1248] How NOT to oversell a hotel - (2007-06-27)
  [1284] An update on the West Wilts show ... - (2007-07-30)
  [1421] Castle Lodge Hotel, Ely, Cambridgeshire - (2007-11-04)
  [1422] Wiltshire - speaker / after dinner talker offer - (2007-11-05)
  [1445] Looking after you Christmas Customer Crowds - (2007-11-26)
  [1548] Hotelympia - show report - the lighter side - (2008-02-21)
  [1622] An extra step - victory from defeat - (2008-04-25)
  [1792] All the pieces fall into place - hotel and courses - (2008-09-10)
  [1877] Guests doing a bunk? - (2008-11-09)
  [2007] Launch of Melksham Food and Drink Festival - (2009-01-24)
  [2283] Everyone is in the customer relations business - (2009-07-12)
  [2303] Turning potential customers away - (2009-07-24)
  [2593] Food and drink launch - (2010-01-21)
  [2724] Escapee Grandparents welcome - Henfield and Melksham - (2010-04-15)
  [2879] Night Porter and reception - 24 hours a day? - (2010-07-20)
  [2936] The service that customers should receive - (2010-08-27)
  [3147] Hotel star ratings - towards a better system of review - (2011-01-25)
  [3309] Tipping Policy - Well House Manor - (2011-05-29)
  [3660] A Pivotal Incident - learning how to welcome your guests - (2012-03-18)
  [3743] Sunday - no longer a day of rest - (2012-05-28)
  [3832] A busy day at Well House Manor - so come in and make it even busier! - (2012-08-10)
  [3838] Guest review - Well House Manor, Melksham - (2012-08-14)
  [3909] Every Customer Counts - (2012-11-01)
  [3988] Three cheers for the staff at Well House Manor - (2013-01-24)
  [4033] Official Star ratings for hotels - still worth having? - (2013-03-07)
  [4051] On reading a new hotel review - (2013-03-24)
  [4202] Excellent Railfuture conference, but some setup lessons - (2013-11-03)
  [4232] Not wanted here - hotel guests who will not be happy - (2013-12-30)
  [4321] Are administration / review charges on hotel guests acceptable? - (2014-11-20)
  [4521] Should we get an AA or Visit Wiltshire hotel assessment? - (2015-10-09)
  [4543] Saturday morning at Well House Manor - (2015-10-17)
  [4603] Happy New Year. Our customers are our ambassadors - (2016-01-01)
  [4613] Our best hotel customers help us ... to help them ... be our best customers. - (2016-01-04)

G999 - Well House Consultants - Keynote
  [164] Well House Consultants - review of 2004 - (2004-12-31)
  [225] 10 years and counting - (2005-02-23)
  [295] Pricing strategy - simple and fair - (2005-04-29)
  [360] Spring turns to Summer - (2005-06-26)
  [419] Most popular courses - (2005-08-19)
  [428] Swindon - Chippenham - Melksham - Trowbridge - Westbury train service - (2005-08-29)
  [452] Is enough enough? - (2005-09-27)
  [464] Technical Loneliness - (2005-10-14)
  [549] 2005 - Come as a student, leave as a friend - (2005-12-31)
  [626] Not just a pretty face to answer the phone. - (2006-02-26)
  [695] In the hospitality business - (2006-04-23)
  [845] Course scheduling and Geekmas - are they traditions yet? - (2006-08-26)
  [890] Open - (2006-10-09)
  [898] Courses at Well House Manor - (2006-10-19)
  [929] Presenting Melksham - for a weekend away in Wiltshire - (2006-11-17)
  [1079] Wilts and Berks - two conference / training rooms in Melksham - (2007-02-14)
  [1245] Ensuring that our tutor answers YOUR questions - (2007-06-25)
  [1317] 2008 course schedule - Perl, Python, PHP, Linux, Java Deployment, Ruby and more - (2007-08-23)
  [1319] Customer feedback - lifeblood of a business - (2007-08-25)
  [1414] What we teach - expained for the non-technical - (2007-10-28)
  [1481] The Christmas Letter - (2007-12-22)
  [1492] Well House Consultants Training and Hotel - 2008 news - (2008-01-01)
  [1555] Advanced Python, Perl, PHP and Tcl training courses / classes - (2008-02-25)
  [1615] PHP training courses every month - (2008-04-18)
  [1676] A warm welcome for visitors from the USA - (2008-06-14)
  [1748] Hotel room prices - Melksham, Wiltshire - (2008-08-11)
  [1773] The Longest Possible Day - (2008-08-26)
  [1857] November and December Public Course Schedule - (2008-10-27)
  [1859] Wiltshire at dawn - the tourist trail - (2008-10-29)
  [1929] 2009 - Hotel, Meeting, Training Course prices - (2008-12-07)
  [1955] How to avoid duplicating web page maintainance - (2008-12-20)
  [1975] Well House Manor Hotel - on plan for 2009 business guests - (2009-01-03)
  [2144] Looking for a career change - Physician to Web Site Designer - (2009-04-28)
  [2216] Past Delegate Offer - Summer Holiday / Weekend Break - (2009-06-03)
  [2228] Where do I start when writing a program? - (2009-06-11)
  [2326] Learn a new programming language this summer. - (2009-08-06)
  [2384] Looking ahead to the Autumn season of training and accommodation - (2009-08-28)
  [2483] Clustering on Tomcat - (2009-10-30)
  [2537] Faster network, but not faster browsing until ... - (2009-12-14)
  [4588] What teach you in a week stays with you for a decade - (2015-11-29)

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Web Sites - Subject to Advertising Standards from 1st March - check your sites
Can I take my dog by train? And other questions
Well house is strong - confirmed?
Journalism 101
Brown - or Mrs Sally Brown, accountant from Whitstable?
Twitter - the special use of @ # and http: in tweets
Keep your business customer-friendly!
TransWilts rail - what picture represents us
Extra courses - Advanced PHP, MySQL and Lua
Returning multiple values from a function call in various languages - a comparison