Just One Touch
September 29th 2021 by
Mrs H & I enjoyed a few days away to celebrate the completion of our most successful Write That Book Masterclass (more on that later). We spent our weekend in Cartmel, in the south Lake District and started with lunch at L’Enclume. This isn’t a foodie blog – it’s a people blog. Although L’Enclume totally deserve their […][...]
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Doing Their Best
August 24th 2021 by
My favourite pub, The Rat Inn, has chosen to close on Mondays. Not due to Covid. It’s because they can’t find enough staff to provide the service they are known for. They’ve tried letting patrons know and still some customers kick off. After a horrendous 18 months, the hospitality industry is being hit again with the challenge of not being able to find enough people. And […][...]
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Could 2021 be the WORST year for British Hospitality?
May 12th 2021 by
There’s a boom happening. Staycation, holiday at home, let’s go ‘out out’, the great British getaway. Whatever you want to call it – it is happening. There are record sales for domestic holidays. And with them… record prices. 200-500% increases in some cases! Many coastal and country hotels are fully booked for months. And the idea of […][...]
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Death by 1000 cuts
October 21st 2020 by
Lingchi (Chinese for lingering death) was a horrendous torture method used for hundreds of years before being banned in the early twentieth century (I know, that recent). It’s horrendous and I’ll leave the detail to your imagination. We often think something ‘suddenly’ happens, but could the truth be that we killed it with 1,000 cuts? The family business transitioning to the next generation. The new owners are happy to take some […][...]
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Take your shoes off
October 8th 2020 by
I was recently presenting a 5 Star Service Zoom webinar to a group of estate agents. At the end, I was asked this question: ‘What’s the one thing estate agents could do to provide better customer service?’ Obviously a brilliant CRM system, great representation, using Omnichannel effectively, etc. comes to mind but my answer was: ‘Take […][...]
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Is it going backwards?
January 30th 2020 by
I picked up my friend Jamie at Newcastle; he’d just had a 3-hour train trip from London and commented that the service was getting worse. The once brilliant Apple have dropped the ball three times (with me) over the last 12 months. BT told me less than the truth, failed to fix a problem and mis-sold […][...]
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How I would save UK Retail
July 10th 2019 by
On its knees! Amazon has killed our retailers! The high street is dying! The hyperbole is increasing daily and the solution is complex. But how about we start with this …. Retail Staff – instead of chatting to your mates – how about doing some selling and serving? Is it just me, or has the […][...]
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When Customer Service Doesn’t Matter
May 15th 2019 by
I was looking to book 3 nights in a really nice, relatively new hotel on one of the Spanish Islands. It was for the height of summer, so I wanted to plan ahead. I didn’t need a deal. I wasn’t fussed about an upgrade. But I wasn’t prepared to pay more than list price for […][...]
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How Good Service Becomes Brilliant
April 30th 2019 by
I was recently tagged in a Twitter post about customer service. Normally, it’s a reader having a rant and suggesting the culprits ‘check out @MichaelHeppell and get your staff trained’. They never do … but I’m honoured for the shout out. This particular tweet was about a simple but effective design in a hotel room to aid sleepy guests on the […][...]
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3 Great Customer Service Stories
January 22nd 2019 by
I thought it was time to share some inspirational service stories. As usual, your job is to keep thinking, ‘How can I use this?’ Shopping Nightmare Imagine the dread of buying £70 worth of shopping and then realising you have no method of payment. This is what happened to one of our clients, Nikki, […][...]
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