Hotel and training centre, Melksham, Wiltshire
High quality accommodation for course delegates, business travellers and the leisure visitor too.

Home Accessibility Bedrooms Book Here The Mouth Facebook Resources Find Us About Us Contact
 
For 2023 (and 2024 ...) - we are now fully retired from IT training.
We have made many, many friends over 25 years of teaching about Python, Tcl, Perl, PHP, Lua, Java, C and C++ - and MySQL, Linux and Solaris/SunOS too. Our training notes are now very much out of date, but due to upward compatability most of our examples remain operational and even relevant ad you are welcome to make us if them "as seen" and at your own risk.

Lisa and I (Graham) now live in what was our training centre in Melksham - happy to meet with former delegates here - but do check ahead before coming round. We are far from inactive - rather, enjoying the times that we are retired but still healthy enough in mind and body to be active!

I am also active in many other area and still look after a lot of web sites - you can find an index ((here))
Setting and publishing your hours to suit your customer base

If we say "breakfast from about 7 a.m.", we mean that breakfast's available by a.m. at the latest. Very occasionally, it may be that the freshly cooked breads don't make an appearance until five past if we've got held up on the newspaper run.

This morning, I had a hand delivery to make in Trowbridge and thought I would take advantage of a road show about transport advertised to me through email:
"The approximate times are Wednesday 18th September 8.00am   [82][ac] •Ü 2.00pm; In front of Trowbridge Town Hall, Fore Street." Excellent - the 07:38 bus from the end of our street, 08:21 into Trowbridge, and then 30 minutes to visit the road show before catching the 09:00 bus back, ready for a day's work.

Alas - looking around at 08:30, after my delivery was made, I couldn't find the road show at all and I had a quick cup of coffee in a fine coffee shop. I could see people arriving in buses at the Town Hall, making their way to their destinations. The market stalls were all set up and starting to trade. And I noticed an empty canopy with one young gentleman standing underneath at. Finishing my coffee at around a quarter to 9, I enquired of him if he was the Road Show, and he admitted he was, and asked if he could help, so I asked a question about one of the bullet points on his organisation's invites. "I don't know - I'm just the marketing guy. You want **** **** and she should be here about 9."

I did keep an eye open... I went back to the bus stop, but when my bus back to Melksham left at 09:06 all I could see at the stand was a couple of blokes starting to erect a display system.

If we were an hour late with our customer service, we would soon loose our customers and you would say "serves you right - you've only got yourselves to blame". The problem with this road show is that it's run by the council, it's funded by the taxpayer, and it's the people it aims to reach who will be the losers if it fails to work properly, together with the taxpayer who's funding it and the travel and transport campaigners who have fought so hard to improve Wiltshire's travel offering.

As a business, we say to people "please let me know if there's anything we can do to improve" and we value such feedback. And on that basis I have fed back; resulting in an explanation:

"We gave out approximate times for the roadshows as we're adapting them as we go based on the weather and how busy the town is. The main focus is the 11-2pm period and the afternoon when people finish work."

It was a lovely autumnel day in Trowbridge, and I'm completely at a loss as to how they knew ahead of time that it would be quiet, yet not far enough ahead to publicise the real times. Truly our local council works in mysterious ways. And with the show closing at 2 p.m., I'm not sure how they'll catch people "when they finish work", or is the 2 p.m. as elastic as the 8 a.m. was, and they'll be there until 6 or 7?

This isn't "my" project, so I don't know all the ins and outs but if I was doing a travel and transport road show, I think I would look to hit the peak hours - 07:00 to 09:30 and 16:30 to 19:00 in order to reach the regular and frequent travellers. To only be open when most people have already completed their morning journey seems like an opportunity obtained and squandered.

I may have missed something here... I know that several of my readers are involved in the organisations associated with these road shows, and I will happy add a better explanation of the advertising of 8 a.m. but not even being set up at all by 9 if you'll let me know.

Footnote - the morning after, at 07:00. I note that the web site has changed the start time for these events from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., including a change to yesterday's... saying that it [was] due to start at 10 a.m.; I'm not a great fan of rewriting history like that, nor of missing the morning peak. The email newsletter in my inbox that attracted me still says 8 a.m. for this morning - let's hope it'd not been very effective in bringing people along before work!.
(written 2013-09-18, updated 2013-09-21)

 
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
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)
  [2885] Twenty Questions - (2010-07-24)
  [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)
  [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)


Back to
International and off island travel from Melksham
Previous and next
or
Horse's mouth home
Forward to
Where are you? How to write a geosensitive application
Some other Articles
Grumbling about trains? Buses can be far worse!
Exceptionally, I sign a petition - on a life and death issue for Irish dogs
Changing transport and destinations - looking forward to a good future
Where are you? How to write a geosensitive application
Setting and publishing your hours to suit your customer base
International and off island travel from Melksham
An alternative format for a new train service timetable
What would the extra trains from Melksham mean to your journey?
Train and Rail Travel - who runs it and where do I ask questions?
Public courses - Python, PHP, Perl, Ruby, Lua, Tcl, C and C++ - autumn 2013 and through 2014
4759 posts, page by page
Link to page ... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96 at 50 posts per page


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.

Link to Ezine home page (for reading).
Link to Blogging home page (to add comments).

You can Add a comment or ranking to this page
Hello. I'm Graham Ellis. If you have a question about the hotel, please ask me or

 

then book here

© WELL HOUSE CONSULTANTS LTD., 2024: 48 Spa Road • Melksham, Wiltshire • United Kingdom • SN12 7NY
PH: 01144 1225 708225 • EMAIL: info@wellho.net • WEB: http://www.wellho.net • SKYPE: wellho

PAGE: http://www.wellho.net/mouth/4177_Set ... -base.html • PAGE BUILT: Sun Oct 11 16:07:41 2020 • BUILD SYSTEM: JelliaJamb