THE MEWS – OCTOBER 2023
Hello lovely Longcrofters,
It’s been a fantastic summer at Longcroft with all of our fabulous hotels as busy as ever. A huge thank you to all of you for your “Totally Pawesome” efforts over the past months!
Everyone is doing an incredible job, offering the highest standard of kitty and customer care – as we can see from the five star reviews that keep pouring in! The caring and tailored approach you all take to your furry guests continues to have a hugely positive impact on our customers and their cats wellbeing. We are seeing that more and more customers are choosing our All Inclusive offering because they really appreciate the personal touches and attention to detail that you are providing.. It’s the small details that matter!. And customer enquiries are at all time high – so please do keep up the amazing work!
With all of that said, we are aware that times are still a little tricky, with rising food costs and bills. So we’ve been researching how we can help you with this and have come up with a few simple ways below to be as economical as possible in the day-to-day running of your hotels. We hope this helps ease things a little.
The Longcroft team continues to grow and we are pleased to extend a warm, official welcome to our newest members of the team, Amanda at Longcroft Walkern, and Fliss at Longcroft Crowthorne. They have both hit the ground running, with lots of contented customers from the very start!
And huge Longcroft congratulations go to Lou at Longcroft Flitwick on getting married this month! The photos are gorgeous!
Sending all the purrs, Abi x
Key dates …
With Halloween at the end of the month, why not have some fun decorating your hotels (but not your guests!) and sending us your pictures? We love sharing these on social media. We will also be running our annual pumpkin carving competition across all social platforms … so watch this space for more spooky news soon!
Bonfire Night: We want to help with any stress that our feline guests might experience with firework displays just around the corner. We have lots of new customers that have acquired their kitties over lockdown. They may have never left their pussycats before and some may not have considered this timing. So please reassure them if they are anxious, and remember to keep bedroom doors closed as much as possible to minimise any noise.
Feline festive yet?
Christmas feels like it’s just round the corner, so we have come up with some ways to make it feel less stressful by prepping ahead!
Try getting your Christmas day customer postcard photos done early! You can even set them up in your emails as scheduled to send at a time of your choice on Christmas Day so you have an admin free Festive Day!
We think offering an enhanced goody bag this year seems appropriate, particularly as we all have goody bags already … just offer some extra gifts / treats/ toys. We still have lots of cute toys you can add to make these Festive Ready! These include our lovely soft grey star blankets which fit really well into cat carriers and on Longcroft beds, we also have some catnip toast toys and reindeer. For your favorites and very special guests, you might want to consider ordering personalised blankets from company My Posh Paws. Click here to purchase
Tik Tok Tik Tok!
Longcroft’s Tik Tok following is growing by the second. Megs has been creating lots of short, fun clips to demo what makes Longcroft so special. Do share the links with your customers! Here are a couple of purrrfect examples …
Operational Updates:
Envirofresh Cherry Deodoriser has been discontinued so we have sourced a new product called Bio K20 which is cost effective and works very well. Click here to purchase Bio K20.
Anigene has now been reformulated and is now called “ disinfectant cleaner”and is DEFRA approved. Click here to purchase Anigene.
Our top cost saving tips this winter:
Remember to keep your doors closed when cleaning in winter to keep fuel bills down.
Where possible cat-flap train your guests.
Encourage customers to have Sensible 33 if this is the right thing to do for their kitties. This saves you having to buy a lot of different brands!
Try to bulk buy supplies where possible such as blue / white roll.
Lifelong litter offers savings on bulk buys and comes in bags of 10 litres rather than 7. Click here to purchase.
If you have accumulated them Zooplus points are a great way to get free stuff to fill your festive goody bags with!
Remember to also check for special offers from Zooplus, recently they had 15% off Royal Canin sensible 33.
Temu offers really great value and some fun kitty toys. New customers get great discounts on their first order. Visit Temu.
Nisbets is a great site for purchasing cleaning products, both for the hotel and if you like to bulk in buy for your household. www.nisbets.co.uk
Click here for 8.1 kg pack of Jantex Biological washing powder.
Click here for 5L Jantex fabric softener.
Click here for Jantex White Rolls.
REVIEWS & PICTURES
Here are some examples of the glowing praise you have all been receiving recently … and there have been sooooo many cute pics!
“Our cat was booked in at Longcroft Luxury Cat Hotel Walkern for a short mini-break for his first stay away from home. Amanda was welcoming and got to know our cat very quickly. The suites were amazing with a great view of the garden, and each suite came with a large cat tree which our cat thoroughly enjoyed. Amanda sent regular updates at the end of each day including photos. We are very happy to have found such a great place for our cat to stay when we go away for a longer break. With an extensive choice of services like the Spa day and the a la cat menu I cannot recommend this place enough.” – Mark
“When looking for a place for our 5 month old kitten to stay for the first time, I came across Longcroft Luxury Cat Hotel Crowthorne. From the moment I engaged with Fliss, she made me feel at ease, provided me with a wealth of information about Tilly’s stay and told me about the updates I would receive whilst on holiday. Fliss did not disappoint! Every two days, myself and the family would excitably be looking out for the updates from Fliss and Tilly which enabled us to enjoy our holiday even more so knowing that Tilly was in the best hands. We even received a postcard from Tilly which was such a special touch … Thank you so much Fliss. We really appreciate you taking care of our baby and Tilly will definitely be back for a holiday again soon!” – K.Sleet
100 CLUB …
Huge congratulations to those of you who have recently topped more than 100 excellent Google Reviews … Longcroft Kenley, Longcroft Cuffley, Longcroft Norbury, Longcroft Luton and Longcroft Welwyn. And Longcroft Tring, Longcroft Orpington and Longcroft Winchmore Hill are also just off the 100 mark too!
and 200 CLUB!
Incredibly two of you have topped 200 reviews … Longcroft Barnet and Longcroft Chelmsford … this is a truly amazing achievement !
Reviews really help to boost business for your hotels and the whole Longcroft group – we are at a total of almost 2,000 Google reviews alone, before we even consider counting reviews left on other platforms. These reviews are just one of the ways we can see how much hard work and passion you are all putting into caring for your feline guests. Thank you so much for all your ongoing efforts!
Further reading …
Some recent articles that we thought you might find interesting …
Can cats see colour? – read this article from Cats Protection about how our feline friends see colour.
The benefits of play for a cat’s wellbeing – International Cat Care article.
What makes someone a cat person? – link to Guardian article.
Persian cats are at high risk of health problems – link To Royal Veterinary College article.
An overview and guide to Feline Diabetes from the Blue Cross – click link.
Annual get-together
We would like to plan a get-together for all you lovely Longcrofters. But before we do, we’d like to hear from you about what format you would all prefer!! There are no big initiatives to roll out this time.. the last time we all got together was pre Covid and was centered around the new licensing regulations that were being implemented. Please drop us a line to let us know what your preferences are at info@longcroftcathotel.co.uk
The options we thought about could look like:
We love things the way they are! Let’s chat by phone, we know you are always there when you need us and we are happy with reading updates and keeping in touch virtually through Love Longcroft and The Mews.
OR
One big daytime meeting / lunch for all hotel owners, probably in the Herts area.
OR
Purely social occasion – let’s have a massive kitty jolly and celebrate with a Christmas party but probably on a Sunday in January!
OR
Scheduled 30 – 45 minute Video calls. We thought this might be a nice way to get you together to see and meet each other virtually. You can dip in and out whenever you see a topic you are interested in .. the calls will be very informal, you can choose to go on or or off video if you are still in your PJ’s or Cat onesie! We thought as a starter for 10 call topics could include:How to upgrade customers effectively to All Inclusive.
— ‘Licensing – a recap for those of you who may have this on the Horizon and have forgotten what to do.
— Effective spreadsheet management and how to make the most out of your precious availability.
— Diabetic guest recap- we seem to be seeing an increase in guests with this condition.
— We will also post on Love Longcroft a document that we can add topics to as and when. Do let us know your thoughts but we love this idea and think it will be great for us all to share our knowledge and help each other
Tell us if there are any particular points or content you would like us to cover / help with?
Let us know if you have any ideas for a team building day such as a boat trip or pony trekking !
