Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2011-02-09 07:02:40 - Graham Ellis
If your shopfront say "9 to 6" but a customer finds you in darkness and locked up at 5:30, you'll have lost his business - then and perhaps into the future.
If your staff are whiling away the hours on computer games behind the counter, and continue to do so when you have customers who are seeking help, you may still have the business on this visit, but the customer probably won't be back.
And if you have big boards behind the counter advertising one price, but then try to charge a higher one when someone orders off the board, you're encouraging them to go somewhere else next time.
At times, I get rather tired of complaints about how bad business is. People talk about the effect of road works that start in March, car parking charges that are increasing in April, and the new supermarket on the outskirts of the town that opens in May. Well - I have some news for certain shopkeepers. These changes haven't happened yet, so you can't lay the blame for your quietness onto them - you should consider these changes and how they will effect your business, yes - but you should also take a long hard inward look too, and see how you can help yourself by fixing issues like those that I've listed at the top.
Melksham has some fantastic shops - and you've only got to compare it with some of the other West Wilts town centres to realise this. I enjoy shopping in Melksham - it's friendly, you can get almost anything you need (and you'll be prepared to pay a bit more for the service and convenience), and you can save a lot of time and fuel shopping here rather than traveling to another town that's perhaps 10 to 20 miles away.
Please - if you run a business in the town - put yourself in your potential customer's shoes and see how YOU measure up to little things like I mentioned at the top of this article. A small change can make for a big business gain!
At Well House Manor our business hotel, we're manned from 06:30 to 21:00 Monday to Friday. On a quiet evening, we don't close early - we have plenty of routine work to do which can be put aside in an instant to service our customers. And I'll quote you £95.00 for a double, £85.00 for a single, per night to include breakfast and that's what you'll pay when you leave, no matter how many cups of coffee you have drunk, how much you've used the internet connection, and whether you came by train or have parked one or two cars. And, yesterday evening, our large conference room was filled nearly to capacity with a Chamber of Commerce meeting, and reception was buzzing with the friendly chatter of hotel guests, most of whom had stayed with us before and come back to us each time they're in town.