A bed and breakfast is the ultimate home business – your home is your business. Bed and breakfasts provide their customers with a service that’s half way between hotel and staying with a friend.

How much can you make running a bed and breakfast

There is a wide range of potential earnings in the industry. How much you can expect to make running a bed and breakfast will depend on your location, the market you target, the number of rooms you have available and your ability to market the business.

A typical Bed and Breakfast in London might be able to offer 10 rooms, achieving 90% occupancy and averaging £40 per night per room, thus generating a turnover of £131,400 per year. However the size of the bed and breakfast and the high occupancy will probably mean that staff are required to help run it and the overall profit achieved is only around 10% or £13,140.

On the other hand a sleepy country bed and breakfast in a summer tourist location might have 5 rooms achieving 50% occupancy and averaging £100 per night per room, thus generating a turnover of £91,250 but due to lower overheads such a bed and breakfast might be able to achieve around 30% profit margin or £27,375 per year.

On top of that, if you’ve started the bed and breakfast from scratch, or built a failing bed and breakfast back up, then when you decide to sell the business you should be able to realise a sizeable capital gain, achieving a premium over the value of the property alone. So a property that originally cost you £400,000 on which you spent £50,000 converting it to a bed and breakfast might sell a few years later for around £800,000 taking into account a growth in house prices and a premium for the business.

How much does it cost to start a bed and breakfast

The cost of starting a bed and breakfast business will vary hugely ranging from a few thousand pounds if you’re going to covert your current home (and your home is suitable), to over a million pounds if you’re looking for a larger property in a premium location.

Starting a bed and breakfast from scratch will involve buying a suitable property which is likely to cost anywhere from a few hundred thousand to over a million pounds depending in the size and location.

As well as purchasing the property you may need to invest in adapting it, fitting it out and marketing the business. All of which will required a budget of anywhere from a few thousand pounds to tens of thousands of pounds depending on the level of work that needs to be done.

As an alternate option you can buy a bed and breakfast that is already trading in which case your start-up costs will be the cost of buying the business and financing the purchase.

How to start a bed and breakfast business

Once you’ve made the decision to become a bed and breakfast owner your next step is to decide whether you are going to buy an existing bed and breakfast – you’ll need more cash, but it already has an income – or start your own bed and breakfast from scratch. I’ll deal with buying a bed and breakfast later in this article so first lets look at the steps involved in starting a bed and breakfast business.

Firstly you’ll need to decide what type of bed and breakfast you would like to start. Be that the simple boarding house catering to travelling businessmen, the boutique weekend getaway or something in between. Then be clear about your goals, is this a full time business to support your family or a business you’re running to provide supplemental income during your retirement? Your goals will impact the market you should be aiming for and you’ll need to focus on one particular market to succeed. Trying to be all things to all people is likely to be a costly mistake and you’ll probably do everything badly rather than one thing well. There is a balance to be struck on the size of your bed and breakfast, the bigger it is the more potential income, however with that comes more work which may mean employing people which introduces more overheads and the bureaucracy of having employees.

Once you’ve chosen your market you’ll then need to find a suitable property in a suitable location. As with opening a shop, one of the keys to starting a successful bed and breakfast is the location. If you’re going to aim at the holiday market then you need to be in or near a holiday destination, if you’re aiming at business travellers then being near to local business districts and good road and rail connections will be essential.

It’s then worth spending some time on market research and competitor analysis – is there enough demand to support another bed and breakfast in that location and can you offer something that competes with the existing businesses.

When it comes to finding a property you’ll need to factor in how many bedrooms you’d like to use for the business and how many rooms you’d like to maintain as a family home. When looking for a property you might find some bargains in old nursing homes or disused pubs. When considering residential property do keep in mind that changing the use of a residential property to a bed and breakfast will require planning permission so you’d be well advised to talk to the local planning authority and find out if it’s going to be possible to obtain the relevant planning permissions before you buy the property. Then speak to them again once you own the property to obtain the relevant planning permissions.

When it comes to buying a bed and breakfast or buying a property to convert into a bed and breakfast you’ll need to speak to specialist finance brokers – an ordinary high street mortgage is unlike to cover it. As such you’ll need to present a business plan explaining how you’re going to operate the business, why it’s a good investment and what experience you have that will enable you to make it a success. Expect the costs of purchasing the property and arranging finance to be around 5% of the cost of the property.

Once you’ve brought a suitable property for your bed and breakfast you should also talk to the local environmental health officers and ensure that you comply with the relevant rules and regulations. In particular they will want to ensure that your kitchen is up to scratch. You should also book yourself on a food hygiene course. The Pink Booklet  provides full guidance to the legal issues you need to be familiar with as an accommodation provider.

Whilst you’re getting the building and legalities sorted be sure to spend some time putting in place a marketing plan and the systems and processes you’ll need to keep your marketing plan in action, take and manage bookings and manage the smooth running of your bed and breakfast.

In particular sort out your terms and conditions and make sure that your booking process will ensure that guests are aware of them. Make sure you have all the relevant insurances in place – speak to a good insurance broker to find out what is on offer.

Then set a date for opening and make sure you’re able to hit it.

Writing a business plan for a bed and breakfast

Due to the capital intensive nature of a bed and breakfast, I strongly suggest you write a proper business plan before spending a single penny on starting a bed a breakfast.

When preparing the financial sections of your business plan try to ensure that your break even point is no more than 40% occupancy, as at best you’ll achieve only around 75% occupancy and you need some margin to generate a profit. Equally make sure you’ve factored into your financial plans sufficient working capital to see you through the first year as building a customer list and a marketing process can take time. For the same reason you should plan to keep costs low during the early years by doing a lot of the work yourself and if possible keep a part-time job on the go too.

Buying a bed and breakfast

Buying a bed and breakfast allows you to enter the bed and breakfast business without having to go through the hardship of starting from scratch. On the other hand you’ll pay a premium to cover the hard work and investment that someone else has already put it.

When it comes to looking for a bed and breakfast for sale, as web as looking on the business for sale websites consider approaching the bed and breakfasts in the area that you wish to buy one and asking them if they are interested in selling. There’s a good chance you’ll find one that is and you may well be able to negotiate a lower price with a business transfer agent’s commission to cover or the over-inflated prices they advise their clients to ask for. If you need help determining a value for a bed and breakfast you’re buying then please read the post How To Value A Small Business.

Marketing a bed and breakfast

The success of a bed and breakfast rest heavily on it’s ability to attract repeat custom. There are therefore two areas you need to focus your marketing on:

1. Winning new customers.
2. Retaining existing customers.

Let’s look at each in turn.

Winning new customers for your bed and breakfast

Unless you’re going to create something more than a bed and breakfast, i.e. you’re going to offer so sort of packaged holiday such a guided walks, finding new customers for your bed and breakfast will be all about making it easy for customers to find out about your bed and breakfast. Basically new customers aren’t going to be looking for you by name, instead they’re going to be looking for ‘a bed and breakfast in central Bath’ and the like. Your job then is to indentify all the possible places that a customer could look in order to satisfy their requirement and make sure that your bed and breakfast is listed there. Then once listed make sure you stand out.

So where will new customers look? Well online using search engines and directories such as findmeabnb.co.uk, and offline via: the tourist board, printed bed and breakfast directories and guidebooks.

Network with the local community and local businesses can help too. Whilst few of them are likely to need a bed and breakfast near their own home, they are likely to be asked to suggest places to stay near them so could become a good source of referrals. You could therefore consider joining some of the local networking organisations.

Also consider membership of local and national tourist associations include things like the ramblers association and the AA guidebooks – talk to other local bed and breakfast owners about what works for them and network with them to help each other by providing referrals when you/they are full.

Always track what works – find out from every guest how they heard about you and measure the ROI of each bit of marketing.

Retaining your bed and breakfast’s existing customers

Repeat business is a key driver of success in the bed and breakfast industry. There are two aspects of repeat business:

1. Making customers want to return, the secret to this is getting the basics right:

   • good comfortable beds

   • a high level of cleanliness

   • excellent breakfast

   • a warm welcoming attitude

2. Making sure customers remember you and can find you again. Printed leaflets and business cards as will creating a strong brand and continually marketing yourself to past customers.

Running a bed and breakfast business

Once up and running your main costs will be breakfast, marketing and finance. Managing these costs will be important if you want to succeed. And no matter how well you’re doing never stop marketing. It’s better to have too much business than too little and if you have too much business you can always up your price a little until the demand levels off. You might also like to consider variable pricing can be profitable – raise prices at peak times and lower them in the offseason.

Once you’re up and running and have gained a few years worth of experience, you can use the free time in the afternoons and evenings to expand the business by offering training to other would-be bed and breakfast owners.

Useful books on starting a bed and breakfast

• Just Six Guests: How to Set Up and Run a Small Bed and Breakfast
• Full English: Or How to Run a Bed and Breakfast and Keep Your Sense of Humour
• Buying and Running a Guesthouse or Small Hotel: How to Build a Valuable Business and Enjoy a Great Lifestyle
• Running a Bed and Breakfast for Dummies

Have you started or run a bed and breakfast? If so share your advice below.

Related posts at Business Opportunities And Ideas:

• Become a Micro Internet Service Provider
• Internet Business Ideas
• An Introduction To Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – Part Three – Off Page Factors
• JUST What It Says On The Tin
• Define Your Target Market

One of our challenges in getting a sales message across is that we often pitch too early, or we use the same pitch every time without considering the person we are speaking to.

This causes us problems because most people apply their own experiences and pre-existing understanding (paradigms) as filters to mould our carefully crafted pitch to their world.

Pitch + Listener Paradigms = Unique understanding

This can create a unique understanding of our pitch – and it might be one that stops them buying.

If we start by listening before pitching, and checking for their personal understanding as we go, we can improve the degree to which prospects understand our offer.

In general terms, we could all improve our sales prospects if we worked on our listening skills.

• Listen

  • With intent to understand, rather than

  • With intent to reply.

• Most people are either speaking, or preparing to speak, filtering everything through their own paradigms.

• We tend to listen autobiographically

• We evaluate; we probe; we advise; or we interpret.

• We try to figure people out, to explain their motives, their behaviour, based on our own motives and behaviour.

• Diagnose – before you prescribe

“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I’m not sure that what you heard is what I meant”

8 Habits of Good Listeners

1. Positive body language

2. Appropriate non-words

3. Empathise

4. Ask relevant questions

5. Listen without interruption

6. Clarify to check understanding

7. Summarise and paraphrase

8. Stand in their shoes (metaphorically)

Take a tip from nature:
Your ears are not made to shut, but your mouth is.

Further reading:

• Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

This was a guest post by Paul Fileman of Results-Zone. Results-Zone bring extensive knowledge and experience gained in Blue Chip organisations to businesses like yours. They ensure that your business is fully exploiting a well thought through operating plan. They work alongside you and your team – as business results managers. They ensure that your team and your business are elevated to the results-zone. They bring you “hands-on” experience – similar to employing high quality management skills without the risk or costs in recruiting full time employees.

Related posts at Business Opportunities And Ideas:

• We Don’t Serve Chips – Customer Service With An Insult
• How To Get Rich – Felix Dennis
• Business Ideas Don’t Have To Be New To Succeed!
• The Customer Is ALWAYS Wrong!
• Does Seth Godin Understand Marketing?

In order to compile the case studies and advice, I need around 400 small business owners to answer a simple questionnaire.

What’s in it for the business owners?

It’s an opportunity to get a bit of free publicity, both in the book and on the book’s website.

So how can you help?

If you have started a business in the last five years please help me by completing the questionnaire.

If you know anyone who has started a business in the last five years, please ask them if they could spare a few minutes to help me out, they can do so by completing the questionnaire.

If you own a blog please consider writing a post about the book and asking any of your readers who have started a business in the last five years to complete the questionnaire.

Finally please consider mentioning it to your Facebook friends or tweeting about it.

Thanks!

Related posts at Business Opportunities And Ideas:

• No related posts

Every business has to make sales, deliver a product or service and then collect payment – making a profit along the way. Most of the time these business elements work together – until we take our eye off the details. Perhaps we add something to our business to aid, for example, cash collection. At the same time, we inadvertently create a barrier to new sales. In this way, we all run the risk of inadvertently adding Sales Prevention elements to our businesses. We may regard what we are doing as common sense at the time – to boost service levels, improve efficiency or to improve cash collection. However, there is an inevitable creeping of issues that takes place over time which can lead to the common sense reason being forgotten. Here are some examples.

Contracts

Ideally, your contract documentation (which you will have had legally vetted) will be written in such a way that it assists the sales process. This means:

• Clear, unambiguous and fair termination clauses – avoiding the dubious clauses favoured by some major companies (e.g. “Your cancellation letter must arrive on this <<specific date>> or you are deemed to have renewed for a further three years.”);

• Avoiding petty limits on service – a classic being “Only 1 day of on site support time is allowed for in this maintenance contract”;

• Ideally, your contract documentation should assist the sales process – enabling you to send the contracts along with the proposal or quotation “so that people can check the small print” and be sure that this will improve the odd of a successful conversion.

Small Print

• Anything less than a 10 point font is an obstacle to sales!

• In addition to a legal review to protect your interests, make sure you conduct a commercial review to ensure that your small print is sales friendly – John covered this point in his post.

Customer/ Prospect Meetings

• Be alert to your prospects expressing an interest in supplying services to your business on occasions – and these can be easy to miss when we are focussed on our own agenda and issues;

• Make sure your reaction is measured and not a quick dismissal – as perceived by your customer or prospect.

Advertising/ Marketing of “Special Offers”

• Avoid petty terms and conditions – extended warranties on cars are classic examples here;

• Make it easy to meet any customer obligations – or at least easy to understand.

This was a guest post by Paul Fileman of Results-Zone. Results-Zone bring extensive knowledge and experience gained in Blue Chip organisations to businesses like yours. They ensure that your business is fully exploiting a well thought through operating plan. They work alongside you and your team – as business results managers. They ensure that your team and your business are elevated to the results-zone. They bring you “hands-on” experience – similar to employing high quality management skills without the risk or costs in recruiting full time employees.

Related posts at Business Opportunities And Ideas:

• Written English As A Sales Prevention Tool
• Ask and Listen (Market Research is Free)
• Carnival Of Small Business Issues #26
• Get Sales and Technical Staff Working Together
• Sales Lessons From The Apprentice

That communication includes legal contracts too. It’s no good creating mission statements, marketing literature and websites that say things like:

We value our suppliers/customers as the cornerstone of our business.

If when it comes to actually entering into a legal relationship with your customers/suppliers your contract or standard terms and conditions send out a very different message. In fact it’s probably worse. Having set a standard for your business to measure up to, to then find that your contract does not reflect your claimed values makes your business look bad.

Yet I’ve seen this happen time and again. When the company sends over it’s proposed contract it does not reflect their supposed values. Instead the contract is very one sided.

There are two possible reasons for this:

1. It’s a negotiating strategy – they ask for as much as possible expecting to have to negotiate from there.
2. the lawyers wrote the contract – and the lawyers did what they viewed as their duty to protect their client’s interests without reflecting on how what they wrote in the contract may reflect on their client.

I don’t think that 1. is the right way to negotiate, agree terms first then write the contract to reflect the agreed terms. However 2. is in many cases the most likely cause and it’s one reason why you should never let lawyers write your contracts.

There’s another reason not to let the lawyers write the contracts. Often they’ll write a contract term designed to protect their client’s interests, but that actually harms their interests. This happens because the lawyers do not understand how the relationship works or how the market that the client operates in works. Again I’ve seen several contracts that forbid one party from actually doing something that is crucial to the success of the relationship they are trying to create.

So instead of letting lawyers damage your brand and create contracts that don’t reflect the relationship you want to enter into, have a manager with relevant experience in the business write your contract in plain English. Then and only then, have a lawyer review it to make sure that it complies with the law and to catch any omissions. Then have it reviewed by a panel of managers to check it reflects how they expect to work. And don’t tell me that your managers are not legally qualified or able to understand a legal document because if they need to be a lawyer to understand your contract then there’s something very, very wrong with your contract.

On top of that, if you’re a big enough company mistakes in your terms and conditions can attract negative publicity as in the case of Google’s launch of their Chrome web browser.

Related posts at Business Opportunities And Ideas:

• Avoiding Sales Prevention
• Written English As A Sales Prevention Tool
• Business Turnaround
• Where To Invest One Million Dollars
• How To Write A Business Plan That You’ll Actually Use.

I’d like to start an Internet dating site. Where can I get hold of the software to be able to start one?  How much is web dating software likely to cost me?

A quick Google suggests there’s quite a bit of free dating site software available, although how good it is, or how well it will fit your needs I can’t say.

If you’re prepared to pay for such software then pretty much any web developer should be able to put together a basic dating site. In their most basic form they are not particularly complex. My brother and I once built one in a little under six hours from concept to workable system. That said if we’d built the same site for a customer it would have taken considerably longer – customer work involves meetings, sales effort, acceptance and revision meetings etc. all of which take time and increase the cost. So a basic bespoke system will probably set you back several thousand pounds, then if you manage the grow the business you’ll need to invest tens of thousands of pounds into scaling the software (and hardware) to cope with the demand.

The reality is however that the cost of developing the software is insignificant compared to the cost of marketing a dating site. The figures I’ve seen suggested a typical customer acquisition cost in the dating industry of around $42 per customer and you need tens of thousands of customers, meaning you’ll need a marketing budget of several hundred thousand dollars. Which is why we binned the idea of a dating site.

Asking John:
Do you have a business question you would like me to answer? If so you can Ask John or or you can ask on the forums where you’ll get both my input and that of your fellow entrepreneurs.

Related posts at Business Opportunities And Ideas:

• Help People Meet People
• WinWeb Is Not Associated With WinWebSecurity
• FAQ
• ERP Software For SMEs
• Let’s Do It Online!

Just as our horse buying process is more knowledge based than before, so business buyers are much more “savvy” in 2010 than they were as few as five years ago. And this has implications for all of us in our sales cycles. These buyers do more research, much earlier in the process than before and make decisions at vastly different rates depending on the business case.

Why does this matter?

It matter because one or more of the following will apply a lot more often:

• Sales cycles are extending for purchases with low returns – meaning that there is a longer delay between each phase of the buying cycle from enquiry to quote to decision to order. This longer delay means that there is a much greater probability that either:

  • The project will be displaced by a project with a faster or better return;

  • There is a much greater probability that a competitor will sneak in at the last minute and exploit all our careful discovery and pain selling to beat us to the work with a lower price.

• For purchases with higher returns (or with costs below a threshold), decisions are being made more quickly.

  • Budget cycles have changed. In many organisations, the annual budget has been replaced by a plan coupled with a quarterly rolling forecast.

  • This means that critical spend is often brought forward with an accelerated buying cycle or that non-essential spend is deferred until much later.

• Buyers have read every detail on our web sites (and those of our competitors) and formed their own view of what they need – before we get into spin selling / solution selling/ discovery mode – depending on where we went for training.

  • Buyers are much more likely to self-qualify themselves for or against our services – often before we get to meet them.

  • Buyers will always have a view about how well what we are selling meets their needs – and the reality must line up with the web-site and the proposals in every detail when they start to question us – or they will move on to a competitor.

• Buyers are a lot more insecure in their own businesses or jobs than they were four years ago.

What can we do?

• Speak to people who buy from us and find out which characteristics have changed in their buying process in the last 6-12 months.

• Refine our offers to make them easier to buy. Something from the following list should provoke your thought process.

  • Entry level products

  • Rent rather than buy for capital goods

  • Tasters and free starting points

• Change our proposition to ensure that return on investment is faster than before – especially on the first purchase.

• Check our proposals, our literature and our web-sites to make sure that descriptions are complete and accurate.

• Be prepared to be much more open with buyers on price and on any drawbacks – much earlier in the sales cycle than we might be comfortable with.

• Provide a lot more supporting evidence

  • Case studies and testimonials

  • Facts and data about our products and services

  • Information that will re-assure an insecure buyer that they are making a good decision.

This was a guest post by Paul Fileman of Results-Zone. Results-Zone bring extensive knowledge and experience gained in Blue Chip organisations to businesses like yours. They ensure that your business is fully exploiting a well thought through operating plan. They work alongside you and your team – as business results managers. They ensure that your team and your business are elevated to the results-zone. They bring you “hands-on” experience – similar to employing high quality management skills without the risk or costs in recruiting full time employees.

Related posts at Business Opportunities And Ideas:

• Opportunities In The Property Business – The Property Expert / Trainer
• The Number One Secret To Negotiating A Discount
• How To Sell Your Website
• The Apprentice 2009 (UK) Episode Three
• How To Start An Art Gallery

For a while now I have had an idea about starting up my own business delivering locally sourced meat, vegetables, fruit etc. all sourced from my local farmers and deliver to the public.

I know there are a lot of large firms providing this service but they are in the main just organic. I would like to determine if there is a market for for this kind of business in my local area. What is the best approach?

Firstly I think this is a good business idea with potential. Whether or not there is enough demand in your local area is a different matter however, and one that can only really be answered by testing the business idea. So I’d suggest you work through the questions in my article on how to test your own business idea. If you still feel it’s a good idea, then it’s time to test the local market.

In order to test the local market I suggest you create a few thousand leaflets advertising the service and stick them through the letter boxes of the local residents. Include on each leaflet a phone number (get a cheap PAYG phone if you don’t want to include your personal number) and they see how many calls you get.

Overall that test shouldn’t cost you more than a night out down the pub and a day or so of your time to deliver the leaflets. After which you’ll have a good idea of how responsive the local market is to the business.

Asking John:
Do you have a business question you would like me to answer? If so you can Ask John or or you can ask on the forums where you’ll get both my input and that of your fellow entrepreneurs.

Related posts at Business Opportunities And Ideas:

• The Apprentice 2009 (UK) – Episode 5
• Newspaper Delivery
• Making Your Coffee Shop Stand Out
• The Baby Naming Ceremony
• Want to visit the Dragon’s Den?

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

10 Step Decision Making Process

If you are unsure, it pays to talk to experts at several points in this process. However, experts can only advise in the stages up to the point where you make a decision. Use experts to add possibilities and criteria. It is your business. It has to be your decision.

1. Make Time – find a quiet spot, away from PC’s, telephones and other distractions.

2. Create detachment – many decisions involve emotion. To avoid making an imperfect decision based on the emotional connections you have to some of the alternatives, you need to become detached from the decision. If you need another person who is not emotionally connected to the decision, ask a friend or colleague to help.

3. Objectives – start by writing down (objectivity always gets easier once things are written down) what you want to achieve – in what time-frame.

4. Criteria – now you understand your objectives, you can list the criteria that the chosen decision must meet (they can be “hard” criteria – like income must achieve X value by Y date, or they can be “soft” criteria – like “Must give me a better chance of learning to …..”)

5. Data – then jot down all the facts and data that you have linked to your decision making dilemma.

6. Alternatives – now write a list of the alternative options

7. Evaluate Alternatives – against each alternative option, write a list of for and against judgements – the criteria you listed are the starting point for these judgements. Some of your options will fail to meet one or more of your criteria. Others may meet all your criteria, but will still have negative aspects.

8. Make a decision – you make the decision based on your judgement and your criteria.

9. Test the decision – go back to your criteria and double check that the decision you have made is going to deliver the outcome you wanted. In all the ways you want. Without “the law of unintended consequences” taking over.

10. Tell people and Take Action – go out there and start to act on your decision. Step one is to tell people about your decision – make it real. Then start to plan the details of creating that reality in full.

Conclusions

Some business decisions are difficult to make – often those that affect people are the most difficult. When you are faced with a difficult decision in your business, it pays to make sure that you are basing your final decision on facts and data. And it is vital that you are as objective as you can be.

When you have to make difficult decisions, it is a good idea to review the impact and consequences of your decision at intervals – to make sure that you have really got the outcome you set out to achieve. On occasions, you may need to reverse a decision and deal with the consequences if things have not turned out as you planned. As long as you are objective in doing this and do not end up changing your mind every two months that is fine. The best decisions are the ones you stick to and make reality.

This was a guest post by Paul Fileman of Results-Zone. Results-Zone bring extensive knowledge and experience gained in Blue Chip organisations to businesses like yours. They ensure that your business is fully exploiting a well thought through operating plan. They work alongside you and your team – as business results managers. They ensure that your team and your business are elevated to the results-zone. They bring you “hands-on” experience – similar to employing high quality management skills without the risk or costs in recruiting full time employees.

Related posts at Business Opportunities And Ideas:

• Understand Your Audience
• The Restaurant
• The MBA For Entrepreneurs
• The Ideal Business Show
• The 12 Types Of Clients

I’m suffered countless other instances of bad service, including yet another today. So I sat down once again to write about the poor customer service I received, intending to offer advice on how to improve it. The I changed my mind, because on reflection, it seems to me that in the UK, for most businesses, offering good customer service is a complete waste of time and money.

So how do I arrive at this conclusion? It’s simple really. The business that let me down today is one I’ve used before. They let me down then too. Yet I still used them today. Why? Because the cost (time and inconvenience – the actual fee this place charges is higher) put me off going elsewhere.

The same of true of Lloyds TSB. Despite years of terrible service I still bank with them. I’ve thought of moving, but having also banked with many of the other high street banks, they all seem to be as bad as each other. So I’ve decided the no doubt considerable hassle of moving probably isn’t worthwhile.

As for the nameless organisation, yep, still with them too, the cost (time) of changing suppliers is just too high.

I did fire the letting agent who threatened to sue me (they didn’t), but they’re still going, so it seems that their lack of customer service isn’t hurting them.

So what do you think? Is customer service important? Is it a waste of time and money or is it just a luxury that we can’t afford in the current financial crisis?

Personally I blame us, the customers. We put up with poor service and reward businesses that offer poor service by continuing to buy from them. Until we stop doing so, good customer service will be an unnecessary expense for most businesses.

Related posts at Business Opportunities And Ideas:

• Remain A Customer Or We’ll Sue You
• Start A Scrap Business
• Direct Sales Advertising Design
• Wilful Waste
• Lloyds TSB Customer Dissatisfaction Guaranteed