Diana Krall and Melody Gardot - a day in with such friends!

In Bluche, Switzerland with Les Roches until 14th of August

DoesTripAdvisor provide E-Quality?

10 dirtiest, 10 best; we can now view customer comments immediately, find the best service before we book.
Is this medium more reliable than Tourist Organisation inspection or travel and food writers?
Does it have more credibility?
Do Hoteliers or Restaurateurs take note of comments?
How do they respond to negative comments?

I guess that most Brands will be very awaire of such posts but some independents might just struggle to keep abreast of developments in the technology. And just how do they counter the comments of the vocally expert complainers.

I should be interested to read your views - be you customer or Hospitality professional.

David Wood

One to None Email enquiries

80% of business people expect a reply from an email within 3 days! No one expects an email enquiry to take over a week to get answered, yet my research, together with the MBA Marketing students of Les Roches in Switzerland ,show that nearly 80% of email enquiries to business web sites go unanswered.

What's your experience of using email to enquire about products?

Training suffers as the economy bites

The first cut is always the training budget. Just why? I teach people to add value to their business. Come a decline in business and even upselling training get the chop, yet many of the businesses I see could sell more to less customers and get a greater return. Hospitality training goes hand in hand with cost monitoring. I work as a business coach to businesses and can see the immediate business advantage to targeted training in a recession. I work on a Government sponsored programme called Profit through Productivity (PTP), which has given me great pleasure to help people at little cost within their business. They pay £99 ex VAT and can get over £3,000 in value. Training and business advice - great value.

David Wood
david.wood@GMX.co.uk

Complaints - they just never happen

Well you might think that complaints never happen because I can see no evidence that most hospitality businesses take a blind bit of notice.
No one gets everything 100% correct but using Six Sigma systems to record common faults so that complaints can become friends - telling you what to do first to improve quality. But few hospitality businesses actually do use complaint records to identify where they can improve. Most businesses don't even respond to written complaints.
Six Sigma is not just for the big company, it can be used as Six Sigma Light with reduced cost and effective results. Training staff to collect, respond and record all complaints could improve trading. But just simple techniques could bring in vast benefits in service, quality and reputation.