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Corinne Orde
My B&B is in the county of Kent in the southeast of England (UK), in a rural area near Biddenden, Benenden and Tenterden. For more details, please visit www.bressenden.uk
By a strange coincidence, I had a conversation this morning which confirms what I wrote above. After my guests finished breakfast, the man said that he'd stayed at hundreds of hotels all over the world, and this was the best place he'd ever been to, from the initial welcome through to the breakfast. I could hardly believe my ears when he then said "I never write reviews, but this time, I'm definitely going to write one, as this is a place I will never forget." No guest has ever said this to me before about writing reviews, and it had me wondering if he'd somehow managed to read this forum discussion! Or perhaps he is a psychic or mind reader! He wrote the same comments in my Visitors' Book, so I can send a photo of that page as evidence (in case you think I'm making this up).
So what's so special about my B&B? Why do I get these amazing reviews? To be honest, I don't know. Yes, it's in a great location, but it's just a moderately spacious house in an English country garden — there are no sea views, dramatic mountains or other fantastic scenery. My rooms are comfortable but not luxurious. No four-poster beds, etc. Only one of my rooms has an en-suite. I don't provide freebies or dinky toiletries or enormous fluffy bath sheets. Just basic liquid soap and shampoo in plastic dispensers and budget-range towels. My bed linen is cotton, but not more than 200 thread count.
My breakfasts are not gourmet and I don't do eggs benedict or other fancy stuff. Just ordinary, basic English breakfast with not much choice (apart from lots of different jams and spreads). I don't give baked beans, fried bread or hash browns. My bacon and sausages are ordinary supermarket ones. My eggs are from my chickens, but that's the only thing that's special, apart from my homemade bread and yoghurt. I do have nice table linen, though, as I hate paper napkins, and I do pay attention to decor, style and small details.
I feel the answer has to be in things that are not so tangible or materialistic. Care, kindness, attitude, a calm ambiance and a soothing atmosphere. Mostly, people want no hassle, no pressure, reassurance and making them feel relaxed and at ease. I am sure you do all these things, 88clifdenglen, and the good reviews will start to come soon.
My experience, both as a new B&B owner (with plenty of reviews coming in) and as a long-time user of hotels, is that people submit reviews when their experience is out of the ordinary — either very good or very bad. They don't bother to review what is middle of the road, bland, nothing special, just ordinary. Places like that are not worth the effort of reviewing, especially if I've been touring, stayed at many places and my email in-box is being bombarded with requests to submit reviews. When I've been really happy with a place I've stayed at, I wanted to reward the proprietor by sending a good review, so I made the effort to do so because that was a place that stood out from the crowd. Some places are so ordinary you forget what they're like as soon as you walk out of the door. How can you possibly review them if you can't even remember them? Similarly, I will remember a really bad place. However, if a place is bad, I often don't review it because I think, "where do I start?" And "Do I really want to hurt this person and create bad feeling?". Often a place is bad because the people who run it are unhelpful, so bad reviews often end up being unpleasant and personal. I don't like saying nasty things about people, so I often won't put in a bad review, unless it's something about noisy traffic, dirty premises or poor location rather than human failings. I'm more inclined to review the very good than the very bad. The English expression "nothing to write home about", is quite apt here. It's more trouble than it's worth to write a review, so I don't bother. The lesson to be learned here is that if you want reviews, you need to give people an experience to write home about.
I use Freetobook. They're based in Scotland. Very reasonably priced as long as you don't use too many OTAs. There's no commission for direct bookings to your own website. The system works really well, and I've ever had any conflicting bookings or errors. Their help line is fantastic too. I always get an answer, in easy-to-understand, comprehensible English, within a few hours. Their interface is a bit clunky and needs an update. If they had an app like Pulse for notifications, it would be totally awesome! Having said that, I can thoroughly recommend it as a UK-based solution.
The first option is of course possible, but I've discounted it because I do get "father/daughter" combinations who need to book separate rooms. The second option wouldn't solve the problem because one booker could still book the two-room unit for 4 people! I think the reason why the kind of algorithm I'm suggesting wouldn't be possible is that bookings from other sources show up as "closed" or "non-available" and b.com has no way of knowing how many other people have already booked rooms via other sources.
Thanks for these ideas. Sadly they wouldn't work with my set-up, and the advice from my channel manager is that there no other solution than to close off my fourth room if necessary, and if someone books all my rooms at maximum occupancy, to explain the situation and ask them to cancel the booking!
This just happened to me too. A booker claimed to have been told by booking.com that she would be allowed to book four people into a room with a max occupancy of three, but to check with me first. I never received her message, even though she says she sent it. So, as there’s no record of the conversation in extranet or Pulse, I can’t be sure she is telling the truth. When she phoned me to ask why I didn’t reply to the message I never received, she made me feel guilty at refusing her request for an extra bed and I’ve ended up letting her use a folding bed for the additional child, but I’m not very happy about it as it far exceeds my capacity as a small B&B without staff, not to mention contravening regulations. It worries me that this is happening to others. The whole point about using agencies like booking.com is to make it easier to avoid this kind of direct confrontation with desperate customers.
It means paying extra for extra visibility. If you’re in a location with very many competitors nearby, then it would be worth considering as it could be helpful to attract more bookings than you might otherwise get. If on the other hand you’re in an area with so few competitors that you come high up in the listings anyway, you don’t need the extra boost, so you’d probably be wasting your money. In other words, if you’re getting plenty of bookings you can ignore it. But if you’re struggling to get bookings, think about joining the scheme, but first make sure you’re getting excellent reviews and score ratings. That always has to be the most important aim, as that in itself will get you those bookings.
By a strange coincidence, I had a conversation this morning which confirms what I wrote above. After my guests finished breakfast, the man said that he'd stayed at hundreds of hotels all over the world, and this was the best place he'd ever been to, from the initial welcome through to the breakfast. I could hardly believe my ears when he then said "I never write reviews, but this time, I'm definitely going to write one, as this is a place I will never forget." No guest has ever said this to me before about writing reviews, and it had me wondering if he'd somehow managed to read this forum discussion! Or perhaps he is a psychic or mind reader! He wrote the same comments in my Visitors' Book, so I can send a photo of that page as evidence (in case you think I'm making this up).
So what's so special about my B&B? Why do I get these amazing reviews? To be honest, I don't know. Yes, it's in a great location, but it's just a moderately spacious house in an English country garden — there are no sea views, dramatic mountains or other fantastic scenery. My rooms are comfortable but not luxurious. No four-poster beds, etc. Only one of my rooms has an en-suite. I don't provide freebies or dinky toiletries or enormous fluffy bath sheets. Just basic liquid soap and shampoo in plastic dispensers and budget-range towels. My bed linen is cotton, but not more than 200 thread count.
My breakfasts are not gourmet and I don't do eggs benedict or other fancy stuff. Just ordinary, basic English breakfast with not much choice (apart from lots of different jams and spreads). I don't give baked beans, fried bread or hash browns. My bacon and sausages are ordinary supermarket ones. My eggs are from my chickens, but that's the only thing that's special, apart from my homemade bread and yoghurt. I do have nice table linen, though, as I hate paper napkins, and I do pay attention to decor, style and small details.
I feel the answer has to be in things that are not so tangible or materialistic. Care, kindness, attitude, a calm ambiance and a soothing atmosphere. Mostly, people want no hassle, no pressure, reassurance and making them feel relaxed and at ease. I am sure you do all these things, 88clifdenglen, and the good reviews will start to come soon.
I find it's not the extras that people want. It's the smile — as long as it's genuine of course!
My experience, both as a new B&B owner (with plenty of reviews coming in) and as a long-time user of hotels, is that people submit reviews when their experience is out of the ordinary — either very good or very bad. They don't bother to review what is middle of the road, bland, nothing special, just ordinary. Places like that are not worth the effort of reviewing, especially if I've been touring, stayed at many places and my email in-box is being bombarded with requests to submit reviews. When I've been really happy with a place I've stayed at, I wanted to reward the proprietor by sending a good review, so I made the effort to do so because that was a place that stood out from the crowd. Some places are so ordinary you forget what they're like as soon as you walk out of the door. How can you possibly review them if you can't even remember them? Similarly, I will remember a really bad place. However, if a place is bad, I often don't review it because I think, "where do I start?" And "Do I really want to hurt this person and create bad feeling?". Often a place is bad because the people who run it are unhelpful, so bad reviews often end up being unpleasant and personal. I don't like saying nasty things about people, so I often won't put in a bad review, unless it's something about noisy traffic, dirty premises or poor location rather than human failings. I'm more inclined to review the very good than the very bad. The English expression "nothing to write home about", is quite apt here. It's more trouble than it's worth to write a review, so I don't bother. The lesson to be learned here is that if you want reviews, you need to give people an experience to write home about.
I use Freetobook. They're based in Scotland. Very reasonably priced as long as you don't use too many OTAs. There's no commission for direct bookings to your own website. The system works really well, and I've ever had any conflicting bookings or errors. Their help line is fantastic too. I always get an answer, in easy-to-understand, comprehensible English, within a few hours. Their interface is a bit clunky and needs an update. If they had an app like Pulse for notifications, it would be totally awesome! Having said that, I can thoroughly recommend it as a UK-based solution.
The first option is of course possible, but I've discounted it because I do get "father/daughter" combinations who need to book separate rooms. The second option wouldn't solve the problem because one booker could still book the two-room unit for 4 people! I think the reason why the kind of algorithm I'm suggesting wouldn't be possible is that bookings from other sources show up as "closed" or "non-available" and b.com has no way of knowing how many other people have already booked rooms via other sources.
Thanks for these ideas. Sadly they wouldn't work with my set-up, and the advice from my channel manager is that there no other solution than to close off my fourth room if necessary, and if someone books all my rooms at maximum occupancy, to explain the situation and ask them to cancel the booking!
This just happened to me too. A booker claimed to have been told by booking.com that she would be allowed to book four people into a room with a max occupancy of three, but to check with me first. I never received her message, even though she says she sent it. So, as there’s no record of the conversation in extranet or Pulse, I can’t be sure she is telling the truth. When she phoned me to ask why I didn’t reply to the message I never received, she made me feel guilty at refusing her request for an extra bed and I’ve ended up letting her use a folding bed for the additional child, but I’m not very happy about it as it far exceeds my capacity as a small B&B without staff, not to mention contravening regulations. It worries me that this is happening to others. The whole point about using agencies like booking.com is to make it easier to avoid this kind of direct confrontation with desperate customers.
It means paying extra for extra visibility. If you’re in a location with very many competitors nearby, then it would be worth considering as it could be helpful to attract more bookings than you might otherwise get. If on the other hand you’re in an area with so few competitors that you come high up in the listings anyway, you don’t need the extra boost, so you’d probably be wasting your money. In other words, if you’re getting plenty of bookings you can ignore it. But if you’re struggling to get bookings, think about joining the scheme, but first make sure you’re getting excellent reviews and score ratings. That always has to be the most important aim, as that in itself will get you those bookings.