Shop4training.com blog

I was in Scotland recently with my best friend Angie, we visited the Pershire District with her aunt and uncle and stayed and the most welcoming lodge in Lough Tay. What an amazing and breathtakingly beautiful part of the world.

Now I haven’t turned into a tour guide, but over dinner with Phyllis and Alan (aunt and uncle) they told me about an hotel they visit regularly in Scotland. It’s a small hotel, with lovely views etc, but the real reason they return is because they are reminded about the hotel and invited back by the owners.

I was so impressed with the service that this hotel provides, I thought I would share it with you, so you can use it to keep your clients coming back year after year.  

It’s so simple, it doesn’t cost a fortune and really doesn’t take a huge amount of work… so here goes… they write them a letter about 4 times a year.

That’s it! OK the letter is always interesting, it’s never a sales letter, but simply an update about the hotel, the family who runs it, even the pets. They always ask them to look at the web site because they have special offers like theme weekends and would like to know what weekend they would love to come too. These range from Elvis to Murder Mysteries, and the guests choose. 

So it’s that simple, stop selling, just keep in touch, make it a letter from someone to someone, something personal. This takes time, but by getting to know you, creates trust and people love to do business with people they trust.    

It’s simple, it’s easy, cheap to do and above all else it’s effective!     It’s amazing what we can learn on a weekend away.

I was tuned into the radio today, listening to a women talking about the troubles in Northern Ireland, and how it had affected people. They spoke about the counseling that was on-going for victims of bombings.   It was quiet an interesting chat, but the thing that really got me thinking, was her mentioning a course that her organisation developed and ran for men.   They called it “Men’s Health” to start, and had very little interest at all in the course. After some research they decided that a name change was required to attract men, and the have subsequently called it “Men’s Health … it’s not all Balls”. That simple name change has seen them fill courses and increase enquiries ten-fold.   So my challenge to you is, as a trainer are you looking at the names you have for courses. Do they really speak to your target audience?   If you are on Shop4Training, have you given your course a catchy name that will create an interest for your potential clients to read further?  

Why not try a name change and see what happens.  

I had hoped with all the focus on the economy that one of the real benefits would be an improvement in customer service levels in Ireland.

Now, I may not be the best judge of service, as I spend a disproportionate amount of time working these days, so my days out consist mostly of meetings in Hotel lobbies and coffee shops across the Ireland of Ireland.   Last week was a great week; I fitted in a trip to Cork to meet some fantastic trainers and people that are going to be a vital part of Shop4Training in the future. After 5 hours of driving and thinking I arrived in Cork.  

I have never driven to Cork City before, so it was a little new to me.

I haven’t bought a GPS System yet, and hard as I try, I am a hopeless map reader.

My navigational and map reading skills only get worse when mixed with peak hour traffic, and I arrived in Cork City at 5.30 just as everyone was leaving work.

I needed to head in the direction of the new Jury’s City Centre Hotel as I had an early morning meeting there, so wanted to find a B&B in the area.   I pulled over to a parking space and called the Jury’s City Centre hotel. Now it’s a 4 star hotel. The phone was answered promptly by a male receptionist.  I never got his name, but asked him if he could give me an idea of the direction I should head in to get to the Hotel (I had explained exactly where I was which happened to be, just outside the other Jury’s).  

After a few huffs and puffs, a few very unhelpful directions (that only a person who knew their way around Cork would understand), I decided he must be very busy, so I didn’t need to take up anymore of his time. I thought that now that I had a vague idea of where I was heading, I could ask someone passing by.

Just as I reflected on his rather unhelpful attitude it got worse … the receptionist (the same man) who is paid by Jury’s to answer the phone, deal with tourists and provide service to customers, said “ but don’t bother coming as we don’t have any room tonight” !

Don’t Bother…. Wow was I taken aback. Not once during our brief conversation did he ask me who I was, if I had a booking or if he could help me at all. So he could have lost Jury’s a large booking, or perhaps Jury’s is in the very enviable position that the Cork City Hotel is just booked up for years to come. Well I wouldn’t rush to stay there now.   

I think with a refresher customer service training course wouldn’t go amiss too.   

I did attend a meeting in the Hotel the next day and stayed on for a while to have coffee and meet a few more people, and I must point out that the bar staff where very friendly, and the coffee was good.    I happened to have isolated a specific event, but I have encountered so many occasions lately where service has been lacking. When speaking to colleagues from all walks of life their complaints about service are all similar, from calls never being returned, people defending their staff when you do make a complaint (in other words it must be us) to people being ripped off.   So please if Shop4Training is lacking when it comes to providing you with a service, please let us know, it’s not always easy to swallow, but I promise that we will do our best to fix it.  

My tip for the day is to make it easy for your customers to complain, it gives you the chance to fix the problem, because believe me if they can’t tell you, they will certainly tell someone else.    

Tell us about any of your negative and Positive service experiences.

Hi everyone, I have just started to blog on www.Shop4Training.com and I am excited and nervous too, I really hope someone will read it!

Shop4Training is new, but it will make training accessible to everyone and as we go I will share my very ambitious vision with all of you.  

I am determined to make the web site a winner, the first place people will look at when they want to find a trainer. The feedback up to date has been great and that keeps me motivated and excited about building this great service.  

I look forward to getting to know everyone who visits shop4training, and please tell me what you think, and I mean anything from negatives to positives, we want the web site to be all about you.

I have suffered from teething problems along the way, I havent kept in touch as often as I should have, but we are working on a few options so that wont happen again.

Our newsletter will soon be out…. I promise and it will have some fantastic content, so make sure you sign up for it today.           

Thanks for reading me today!

Yours in Training

Helen

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