Again at the risk of stating the obvious, if you want an early start on your“ holiday” day, it means blocking off the previous day too, or you may be tied to a breakfast, checkout and even a changeover on the first day of your“ holiday” – not very useful if it is day one of a two day break.
Again, thinking through all this will bring home to you – if you haven’ t realised already – just how much of a time commitment you will be taking on when you start your B & B. If you are starting to get second thoughts, thank us – the price of this book is nothing compared to what you would have spent starting a business and then closing it down later. And if you are not having second thoughts, good – you are well prepared, and planning ahead clearly holds no worries for you. Running a B & B should not do, either.
Dealing with Difficult Customers and how to handle complaints …
If you haven’ t sold services to the public before, you are in for some interesting experiences, and a masterclass in human nature. You will realise that, however much care you take to make everything as near perfect as possible, there will be times when you get complaints. It is a fact of life in any service business.
The good news is that the vast majority of people( at least in our experience) are polite, understanding, well-behaved and appreciative; in short,“ nice”. The bad news is that the very small minority who are not will give you your fair share of headaches.
To put this in context, and to reassure you, in our first 400 paying customers from a standing start as B & B virgins, we had three problems and three unpleasant experiences. We learnt useful lessons from some, though others simply have to be put down to“ experience”, part of the wear and tear of life. It may help you to hear about them, because they must be fairly typical of what you may encounter:
The Absconder
This was our worst incident so far. A call came through one afternoon from the town’ s most expensive hotel, saying a Mr Baker * had arrived to stay the night but they were full; did we have a room free? We did. Mr Baker duly arrived by taxi five minutes later, saying that his car had broken down on his way back from Cornwall. He was fairly presentable, and polite and grateful to have found a room.
The next morning while we were serving breakfast to other guests we heard a noise which we later realised was our front door closing. Mr Baker had undone two bolts and slipped out by the exit he saw was unobserved. A quick check outside could yielded no trace of Mr Baker, who was clearly nimbler than he looked. His room held various debris, including a bag of assorted hotel soaps and shampoos, and the smell of cigarettes. The fact that he had been smoking in his room, oddly enough, angered us