One of the mantras that have been drilled into me for almost my entire life is “buy cheap;pay twice”. During the four years that I lived and worked in Trinidad they taught me another way of saying the same thing “cheap ‘ting no good; good ‘ting no cheap”. Of course the reality is that we can almost never live by our mantras and necessity means that we constantly accept compromises and buy the cheaper alternatives. This weekend, however, I was given an excellent lesson in how much we loose by accepting these compromises.
As a combined birthday and anniversary treat my wife and I spent Saturday night in the Savoy Hotel, London and ate at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant there. Now clearly this was not cheap but the difference in every level of service, care and produce was so palpable that it left me in no doubt just how much compromise I have been accepting. The ability of ever front line member of the Savoy “team” to make you feel welcome and valued as a customer was exceptional. The personal touch was evident at every level; the use of first name introductions, the turning down of the room (complete with slippers by the bed and a weather forecast card on your pillow) to the welcome at the restaurant with a personal greeting and a “happy birthday” for my wife. All this went to show that a well organised and dedicated team were concentrating on making every persons stay special.
Of course the next time I need to stay in London it won’t be at the Savoy (although I wish it could be). But I will be judging the next hotel very harshly and I will know if I got great value for money or just got something cheap. Any company that can offer five star service not matter what business they are in and can do so at a competitive level will succeed and it is my hope that this is what we are doing at StoneRock. I guess that only our customers can tell us this and I welcome any input that we receive.
