How to Start & Run a B&B BandBED2eBook-1 | Page 88

Wrong room
We showed a married couple to their room – a double. They mentioned that they had
requested our twin room. David apologised – we had missed this mention in their
letter – and said that unfortunately it was not possible to move them as the other two
rooms were full. He asked if this was OK, and they said yes. It was not mentioned
again during their two-day stay, and when they left they thanked us for an enjoyable
stay and wrote a positive comment in our visitors’ book. A week later, we received an
email from the couple asking for a substantial refund because they had not had the
room they had wanted.
We dealt with this by replying to explain that we had apologised if we had missed their
room request, and that they had accepted this; at that point they could have left. They
had also said their stay was enjoyable – so, we wrote, they had received the service they
had booked from us: two day’s bed and breakfast accommodation. We did not feel that
a refund was justified.
This couple, we later found out, then contacted our local tourist office to ask whether
other complaints had been received about our B&B. The tourist office told them that
they had only had good reports about The Pheasants.
After another indignant email from them criticising us for not agreeing to a refund, the
couple gave up.
Lessons: (1) read booking letters carefully and note specific requests, (2) apologise and
ask if it is OK (ie does the customer still want to stay) if something like that does
happen, and (3) explain carefully, and stick to your guns, if you genuinely feel a refund
is not justified.
Missing Fork
Another, long-married, couple seemed clearly not to be enjoying themselves. They
were not chatty, they sat in silence, and Mrs made a disparaging comment about the
flowers in our drawing room – she said they were “dead, dead, dead – very
depressing”. As it happens they were a little faded – but it is a subjective judgement as
to when fresh flowers no longer look attractive and should be binned. We were a little
stung by this comment and immediately replaced all the flowers in our public rooms.
At breakfast, Mr had to ask for a fork as it had been missed from his table setting – the
first and only time this has ever happened. They also seemed very surprised that their
room had not been “serviced” – ie the linen and towels changed – after their first night.
We explained that as a B&B rather than a hotel, we did not change linen daily.
When they left, this somewhat sour-faced couple made no comment but, again a week
or so later, they wrote us a letter saying that they felt we ran the B&B “for your own
convenience rather than for your guests”.
As we take huge pains to make our guests feel welcome, this comment really hurt. It is
very hard not to take these things personally, and we did feel that personally. We
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