Bank Holiday Monday morning.
I was up with the Guardian and the morning cup of coffee.
Reading John Harris’s latest. About the crummy service the big corporations serve up. Starbucks gets top billing in this particular piece. The piece is here – it’s worth reading.
Phone rings. It’s some Australian gal who’d gone to King’s Cross for Simon’s Dy Trip to Cambridge. She was early. Wandered off for a cup of coffee. And then somehow managed to get on the wrong train. The one bound for Aberdeen.
Oops.
She got off it in time. But she had missed the Cambridge train that Simon and the rest of the group we’re on.
Got on the next one – half an hour behind the one “we” were on.
Rang here.
Repeat: it’s Bank Holiday Monday morning. Most businesses are closed. You ring you get an answering machine. Well, these days you usually get an answering machine even if you ring during “working hours”.
Ain’t so here, though. Not at London Walks. Ain’t so during“working hours”. And ain’t so– pretty much – in the evening, on weekends, on holidays. The phone rings we answer it. A real person. Evenings. Weekends. Holidays.
Anyway, she rang. Explained what happened.I managed to reach Simon. Mobile phones can come in very handy in this line of work. Simon came up with a plan – he couldn’t keep his group waiting at Cambridge for half an hour waiting for the Oz lass was on to pitch up – but he could tell her the best possible place – and time – to meet up with them in Cambridge when she did get in. Message was onpassed. Telephone numbers exchanged. Simon and she spoke. She found them in Cambridge come the appointed rendezvous time (and place). The whole thing worked a treat.
A few minutes later, another call. A couple were walking from their hotel near Victoria to the Abbey walk, the meeting point of which is Westminster Tube, exit 4. They’d got onto Parliament Square but couldn’t cross over the way to exit 4. There was a road race on, the police had sealed things off. They rang. I directed them to the opposite corner – they were on the corner where the Chuchill statue is. Got them off the square via the southwestern corner (by the Nelson Mandela statue). Got them over to the west front of the Abbey. And then “talked them in” – well, talked them round – to Dean’s Yard. Once they were there I told them to sit tight. Rang Mary, who was one of the four guides on duty for that walk. She went on ahead to Dean’s Yard. Found the couple. Got them hooked up. Pas de problem. The whole thing worked a treat.
Half an hour later. Another phone call. Someone on his way to the Hidden London Walk. He’s on King William Street and is “going to be a few minutes late”. Talked him in as well.
So, three for three. And, yes, I’m going to unashamedly, brazenly toot our horn. It was Bank Holiday Monday after all. I think that was pretty good customer service – Rasberry here to Starbucksand their ilk.
But again, if you think about it. We’re small. We’re nimble. We really do care – that’s not just some corporate ‘slogan” or marketing wheeze. We care because it’s our livelihood. No kid is being minimum wage-exploited – and in consequence couldn’t give much of a damn – at London Walks.
I’ve been around long enough to remember that book, Small Is Beautiful. Small does work.
As does independent and local – as opposed to galumphing great multi-national and local.
A London Walk costs £9 – £7 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.
