photo : Justin Brown
Carol H. recently provided really useful feedback about her holiday in Austria. It identified 4 things to think about when trying to help guests to Chalet Lowonahill have a memorable holiday – for all the right reasons!
Here’s what Carol had to say (abridged):
No instructions for any appliances, well not in English anyway we had no idea what cycle we were putting on in the washing machine and tumble dryer, this must be costing you extra electric especially since it was day 4 before we realised we needed to empty the water from the condenser!
All the leaflets we out of date in the chalet, could ***** not go to the tourist info and get some up to date leaflets to give guests and idea of where to go as we felt very isolated when we arrived.
The telly (the TV wasn’t working during Carol’s stay, but no-one had previously reported the problem so it wasn’t available for use!) … it was harder than I imagined, just having some back ground noise and something to look at, we found this hard….
Cooking was very hard, not enough utensils to cook a proper meal and a supply of cling film etc would of been great. I found the kitchen very basic and quite frustrating also there were chips in a few of the glasses.
We appreciate Carol’s honesty and pointing out that things don’t always run as smoothly as they should. These are the things we are now working at improving at Chalet Lowonahill:
- Communicate clearly - . All available information relating to the electrical equipment in the chalet is written in either German or an Eastern European language. Great if your Polish, Slovenian or Czechoslovakian is up to date – a bit of a problem if it isn’t! Most of the visitors to Chalet Lowonahill are proficient in German, which is a help to them but not to our English speaking guests.So we have arranged for some plain English instructions to be made available both in the information pack we send out to guests and at the chalet for ease of consultation when (and if) needed. Hopefully, this will help keep the gas bills down!
- Explain the existence and purpose of this website more clearly - keeping leaflets up-to-date and available is very difficult when the chalet is located in another country. To try to overcome the problem this website has been developed. We are in regular contact with attractions in Austria and get news and information from them as it becomes available. What we need to get better at is telling people about the website and its purpose. For those people who do not have access to the internet, we provide them with directions to the nearest Tourist information Offices. Whilst this might not be ideal at least it means the information they get is up-to-date and they are able to choose things that are of interest to them. Carol has also suggested we make printed copies of blog posts available at the chalet in a folder. What a good idea – I’m on it!
- Introducing ways of ensuring equipment is working - relying on guests to report problems with electrical equipment doesn’t seem to be working very well. All guests are asked to report any problems as soon as they occur, so that they can be corrected without undue delay and not impact on the enjoyment of anyone’s holiday any more than is necessary. Clearly this didn’t happen before Carol’s holiday, resulting in difficulties she (and we!) would rather not have encountered. Who wouldn’t be frustrated under such circumstances? Unfortunately, when the chalet manager went round to change the TV for a working one, Carol and her family had gone out. But, based on Carol’s comments, we have asked the Chalet Manager to check all appliances are working before each rental period begins. This isn’t a ‘foolproof’ solution. Hopefully in conjunction with stressing to guests that they should report any appliance problems, future difficulties can be avoided.
- Increasing the amount of equipment available - regrettably things do ‘go astray’ and equipment gets damaged from time to time. The kitchen at Chalet Lowonahill was originally equipped to cater for 10 people, but it seems like things have ‘strayed’ over time and no-one has reported it until Carol spoke out. We have asked the Chalet Manager to compile an inventory of items in the kitchen, which we will provide to guests at the start of their holiday. If anything is missing or damaged we will take action as soon as is reasonably possible to make good the shortcoming. It must have been really frustrating for Carol with her 6 guests to find that 2 glasses were chipped. Fortunately the other 12 glasses were fine, so I guess they must have been able to muddle through somehow. The other side of this is that the Chalet Manager will be checking the inventory too, so we will have a better idea of where things might be ‘straying’ to!
Hopefully our future guests (as well as the chalet) will benefit from our learning from Carol’s comments.
