There is a saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder… so is value. This has been really driven home for me this week.
We’ve spent a couple of nights away from home and stayed in pubs. One was priced at £98 for the night, the other at £95. They were both in country villages close to conurbations, one close to Bristol airport, the other Southampton airport. They both were rated Fabulous on Booking.com. It would therefore seem reasonable to expect similar value from both hostelries. That’s not what we got.
The good…
At the first we were greeted warmly and helped to our room (my husband is on crutches following knee surgery). The room was spacious and well appointed, as was the en-suite shower room. The welcome tray had plenty of tea, coffee, and milk as well as a couple of packets of biscuits. We had a decent if not spectacular dinner in the pub restaurant. Breakfast was included in the room price and was generous and good. We posted a very positive review and will very likely return and recommend.
The not so good…
We arrived at the second a bit stressed with car warning lights on having driven through torrential rain on roads that were more like rivers. The first thing we saw on arrival was a blackboard saying, ‘kitchen closed until further notice’. We were greeted in a rather lukewarm manner and there was no real apology for the lack of notice that we wouldn’t be able to eat in the pub. They did however volunteer to book us in to another pub in the village. ‘It’s a six minute walk or two minute drive’ she says with no consideration for my husband’s crutches or to the warning lights on the car that I had referred to. We were told where to find our room… outside and beyond a fire escape. There was no offer of help.
Our room was as described when we booked, big enough without being generous. The shower room was small but appeared to have everything we needed. Although when I came to use the shower the following morning the controls were impossible to operate with wet hands and the water was scalding.
The welcome tray was not generous (three sachets of tea, and a few coffees and five pots of milk for a double room); there were no biscuits. One of the table lamps didn’t work and the waste bin hadn’t been emptied. The hangers were hardly robust enough for adult clothing! However the bed was reasonably comfortable and dressed in quality bed linen.
We had a good dinner at the other pub in the village but decided that as I had to drive we’d just have one drink (for me a non-alcoholic one) and go back to where we were staying for a couple of drinks after dinner. Imagine our surprise when we returned at 8.30 to find the place locked up! No advanced notice was given, and we weren’t the only residents.
We knew that breakfast wasn’t included in our room rate but didn’t expect that nothing would be offered. Surely you don’t need an open kitchen to offer cereal and toast or pastries? We left feeling that we had been overcharged by about £30. You can imagine that our review was pretty mediocre. We won’t be back.
The lessons…
- Our customers have expectations when these are not met the disappointments start adding up.
- Communication is key. We understand that staffing in hospitality is an enormous challenge and if you have no chef you probably can’t run a kitchen. But if the pub had emailed us saying that their kitchen was closed but they would be pleased to make a reservation at the other pub in the village we would at least have been prepared. And if they had told us that the bar would be closing early we could have chosen an alternative way to spend our evening. We left feeling that they didn’t care about their customers.
- Small details are important. Cast off hangers don’t communicate high end accommodation. Dunelm sells packets of 10 wooden coat hangers for £7, I’ve bought some for less in a Sainsburys sale. An anti-theft type of wooden coat hanger is only around £2. An investment of just a few pounds would have conveyed a value commensurate with the price.
- Value is what the customer feels, we can’t control their perception, but we can help by understanding what contributes to their judgment and ensuring that what we offer is in line, or better than, what we charge.
- Our customers will often measure value in terms of their personal experience, so we need to understand what our competitors charge and how we compare.
Value for our members is something that is really important to me. That’s why, in a typical month our members have access to at least 9-12 online events for their £25 fee and can attend any of our in person meetings at any time, although there is a charge of £10 to cover refreshments and venue fees. It’s something I keep under constant review, and I am always open to suggestions as to how I can create even better value.
