Double Award Winning Clachaig Inn!

We seem to have done rather well at the recent 2011 Scottish Hotel Awards, winning not just one but two awards. To say that it's a pleasant surprise is somewhat of an understatement! And we're especially chuffed becuase to win anything at all, you have to be nominated by you, the public, our customers.

First of the awards is a coveted Design Medal for our bedroom refurbishment. We've been telling you that it turned out rather well for a while!

We wanted to refresh our Ossian Bedrooms, and give them a bit of a lift and a touch of that luxury feeling whilst at the same time retaining that traditional Clachaig comfort. The en suite bathrooms were completely gutted to make way for new baths and full height floor to ceiling tiling, whilst the bedrooms themselves got a sumptuous makeover with some very carefully selected wallpapers and new soft furnishings.

We do have to take some of the credit for the scheme ourselves. Interior Design was never something that we thought we'd excel at when we started out running an inn. But there again, neither were a dozen other trades and skills that you quickly acquire when you're thrown in at the deep end with a business to run!

However, we do need to thank Burns Design for pulling the pieces together from the scattered corners of our brains so well and turning it into a viable and successful project.

And the second award was a Commendation for Hospitality & Welcome. Reading through the feedback we receive, both through our bespoke in-house scheme, and on Facebook (with the exception of the guy that didn't like our green pea soup!) this Commendation should come as no surprise to our customers.

Clachaig is nothing if not based on the good old traditional values of a warm welcome. And in this regard we have to thank our staff who keep on making it happen, quite often when under pressure and in sometimes trying circumstances. A big thank you!

But this isn't the end of the story. No, in good Oscar acceptance speech style, we'll drag this one out a bit further yet. We've already had the confidence to continue with some of the momentum we've attained. There is of course the Childrens' Play Area, which judging by the number of we'ans having fun on it over Easter is £15,000 well spent. And then there's the rolling out of the soft furnishings through our Lodge Bedrooms, plus a more moderate decorative makeover in time for the season really kicking off. We get the feeling that it won't be long before the rest of the bedrooms are brought into the fold.

And that's not all... But you'll have to wait a bit longer for more news!

The value of feedback - part 2

Read our recent post about our guest feedback process and you'll know that it's a subject close to our hearts. Learning how to use it, how to interpret it, has been a learning curve over the last 18 months. If you take it too literally, then it could either lead you to complacency (you're wonderful, don't change a thing) or conversely drive you mad (you're terrible, get your act together).

The new cooker in situ at Quarry Cottages, Ballachulish

The best example we can give is on the subject of the comfort of our beds, as it's quite possibly the most subjective of all opinions that we receive. Tracking our forms we've discovered that completely opposite opinions can be forthcoming on the same bed within a matter of days. The solution? First and most obvious is to test out a negative comment to make sure something hasn't suddenly gone horribly wrong. And second, is to maintain a register of all our mattresses with replacement dates, so that we can tell exactly how old a mattress is and whether it's due for the next round of our rolling replacement programme.

One area where we have acted directly on feedback received is on the cookers at Quarry Cottages. Knowing quite how well these perform is a bit tricky unless we're told, and recent feedback suggested that they weren't performing well at all. And rather than risk acting on just one of the properties, we've replaced all 3. So, Quarry cottages are now equipped with some rather nice new cookers with double cavity fan assisted ovens and ceramic/halogen hobs.

Next up, 3 new flat screen TVs. These should be in within the week!

Feedback & Reviews

Here's a message from a happy chappie that we thought we'd share with you...
----------

Dear all at Clachaig Inn,

You probably don’t remember us but we stayed with you on 4^th and 5th May during our walk of the West Highland Way.

I just wanted to say ‘Thank You’ for a great place to stay. The food and hospitality was excellent, the staff also were friendly and helpful.

We managed to complete the way in our allotted 6 days and are well on our way to raising the £5000 we set as a target.

Anyway to remind you who we were here is a link to our website:

http://www.stgeorgesreunite.com/news/wogle-walkers-complete-the-west-highland-way/

Many thanks again!

Best regards,

Bill & the Wogle Walkers
---------

Great to hear from our customers, not only (but perhaps especially) when they've enjoyed themselves (yes, we do remember you, Bill.) We do hear these little bits of feedback quite a lot. Mostly at the front desk as our residents depart or at the bar during the course of the idle chit chat that is central to the convivial Clachaig atmosphere.

Service with a smile!

 

The only problem is, we're not very good at sharing this feedback. And therein lies the problem.

A little note like this can boost morale on hot, tiring nights in the Boots Bar tremendously. Go on, try a shift here, sample the adrenaline on a busy night and see all the happy faces and you'll know why we love being here so much. But, equally, some negative feedback can really bring us down.

You get what you deserve? From our point of view that's very true. Lots and lots of happy customers. Over 50% of our hotel guests are in the 'repeat business' category. And yes, the (very) occasional bit of negative stuff, sometimes deserved because we got it wrong, but sometimes just a case of not quite getting what Clachaig is all about.

Its been a hot topic here of late, mostly because we've had a bit of a knocking on a certain review web site.  Hands up when we get it wrong, and why shouldn't the world know too? But where's the balance? It does seem a little skewed. And just what is the point in a review 3 years after your stay? Just who does that help? And how many folk have I spoken to who create an identity or ask a friend to put in a good review to put the bad one further down the list? No, we're not impressed.

Head in the sand attitude I hear you say? Not at all. We actively solicit the feedback of our guests, and for the last 18 months have been running a very detailed and methodical feedback scheme. We ask 11 questions and also leave plenty of space for the 'free text'. Every week we collate the returns and 2 directors and a General Manager review each and every form. Name another business where that happens! Specifics then go on to Department Heads, and front-line staff as appropriate. We also convert the results into a score. The number itself is fairly arbitrary, but the week on week, year on year comparisons of the scores give us a very good indication of how we're doing.

To date we've had nearly 1,000 returns. They're all here in a bulging file! Our "satisfaction rating" has risen from 73% in 2009 to 77% in 2010. Out of the 11 questions asked, 10 have shown similar and consistent improvement. The only one decreasing is the question about our web site (which has got us puzzled) and is the area that would concern us least.

So, we think we're doing a good job, and so do our customers. We just need to share this information a little more.

And nmny thanks for the email Bill. Really appreciated. And if you happen to be visiting any review sites in the near future (or the next 3 years come to that), do us a favour and give us a mention!

Thanks for the Feedback

Feedback from our guests is tremendously useful. We receive feedback from our guests via a variety of avenues.

Firstly, we actively ask for it. We've now got over 600 completed feedback surveys from our 2009 guests at the inn, plus a lot more from our self catering guests. We read it on forums such as Tripadvisor. And sometimes it just comes to us because people want to tell us about their experience. Here's an example that hit the inbox yesterday.

Oak Lodge, Clachaig Chalets, Glencoe

In the last week of October we stayed with you in Oaktree Lodge, and have kept meaning to send an email to say what a wonderful stay we had with you, I am not sure that you have time to read any guest comments in the books you provide, but the staff were fabulous and so welcoming, I have a Scottish friend from Glasgow and she told me the place was magical but only if you were Scottish, well it was magical to us, my children haven't stopped talking about it, the lodge felt like a home from home and we certainly were sad to be going home. Keep on doing what you obviously have off to a fine art, it was a brilliant stay. And we will be back.

Fantastic! Stuff like this just keeps us going. We really appreciate the fact that our guests take the time to contact us after their stay to tell us things like this. Thank you.

And now for a commercial break...

You too can book Oak Lodge at Clachaig Chalets.