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MEWS January 2020

We hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas and New Year with family and friends. We wanted to start 2020 with a quick update on all things Longcroft.  We have continued to receive some fantastic recognition through awards and press coverage in the past few months, all of which help to raise the profile of our hotels. We’re also excited to have more hotels opening soon, continuing to grow the Longcroft family. 

You’ll see that this is a fairly long update. We have included a check-list of points for hotel maintenance and business housekeeping to help your business to start the year purring along nicely. We’ve also asked you to give some thought to how you market your hotel this year (see tips below) and to think about your approach to Christmas bookings for 2020. We hope you’ll find this guidance helpful and informative. But as always, if you have any questions, please do contact us at Longcroft HQ …

Some exciting mews …

The Longcroft family continues to grow and we are delighted to announce that Longcroft Flitwick will be opening at the end of February 2020 and Longcroft Tring will open in April. A warm welcome to our new hotel owners Lou and Jenny.

Longcroft headlined a fantastic article in the Daily Mail in October, about 2019 finalists in the Aphrodite ‘Mumpreneur’ Award category at the 2019 Natwest Every Woman Awards. Abi attended a glamorous Daily Mail photo shoot and was interviewed about her experience setting up Longcroft for the piece. This is great one to share with friends and family:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7619603/The-Mails-2019-Mumpreneur-Year-award.html

As you all know Abi is fairly determined to influence licensing for us all and as a result has managed to bag herself a spot on the board of directors of the Pet Industry Federation (PIF). As you probably know, the PIF is the membership association for pet industry specialists in the UK. It represents all types of businesses in the pet industry. Abi will assist the PIF in spearheading best practice and improving standards throughout the pet care sector. It’s a great chance for Abi to bring her expertise in animal welfare and all things feline to help shape the industry we are part of. And it all helps to build awareness and credibility for our brand.

Abi also bought home the Silver Award for ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ at this year’s prestigious National SME Business Awards.. another great win for all of us!   She attended the National Grand Final at Wembley Stadium on Friday 6th December 2019. Leading business figures from throughout the country gathered in Wembley’s Bobby Moore Suite. It was a great end to the year and another fab opportunity to raise the profile of our brand and has led to lots of press which in turn leads to more enquiries and new customers that want to try us. 

Make a PAWsitive start to the New Year!

Here at Longcroft HQ, we think the new year is the purrrfect time to take stock and do a little meow-tenance! We’ve come up with a housekeeping checklist to make sure your hotel starts the year in great shape. Enquiries are already coming in thick and fast. We think 2020 is going to be our busiest and best yet …

Hotel maintenance:

  • Clean or replace scratch posts. Longcroft scratch posts can be detail cleaned with a carpet cleaner with an upholstery attachment. However, please don’t attempt to steam clean other scratch post brands (such as ones purchased from Zooplus) as they are made of cardboard/chipboard so will disintegrate. Carpet cleaners can be hired from most supermarkets. Why not phone a friend and hire one between you for the weekend or double up and clean your own upholstery or carpets at the same time!
  • Add colour to your planters… perhaps with some pretty winter blooms. Winter flowering pansies in deep pink or violet will add a lovely pop of colour. Replace artificial hanging baskets or rejuvenate any faded plants with fresh ones.
  • Clean your roof: use a gentle jet wash or schedule your window cleaner with his long poles to scrub those roof panels.
  • Deep clean windows : inside and out!
  • Clean flooring and grout. Most pound shops and Sainsbury’s sell a product called “Pink Stuff” miracle cleaning paste, which is fantastic for cleaning up grout. Steam cleaners are great for this too.
  • Check window films and graphics– do any need replacing? Please let us know and we can pop these on order for you.
  • Stock check. Please check the sell by dates on all sundries including food and milk. Why not donate any unwanted in date food (such as Whiskas!) to Cats Protection.
  • Spring clean your cat kitchen… clean out your drawers!
  • Crockery check. Bin your chipped bowls and replenish any tired items. Please give water bowls a thorough clean to remove any built up limescale.  
  • Refresh branded linen – let us know if you need any new linen.
  • Walk your own customer journey. Take a fresh look at the front of your house. Does the garden need weeding, fence panels need a lick of paint, paths need sweeping or do shrubs need pruning back? Make the jet wash your favourite friend for the weekend!

Business housekeeping:

  • Spring clean your spreadsheet! Confirm dates for all red unconfirmed bookings with your customers. Chat with any Longcroft regulars to ask if they would like to book in 2020. 
  • Organise your spreadsheet. Help us take the best bookings for you!  Now is a great time to look over the coming year and add any 2020 personal commitments to the left-hand side of your spreadsheet. Then we can ensure we don’t make bookings that clash with them. Add what your ideal bookings look like – is that 2 guests minimum at peak times? Check school holiday dates in your area as they often differ regionally. Add a reminder every week for ‘photo Friday’ and to send out postcards to our lovely customers. Add a fortnightly reminder to request reviews. 
  • Bank holidays. Below are the bank holidays for England and Wales in 2020 – we have highlighted those that should be charged as double rate days. The major change this year is that the early May bank holiday, typically on a Monday, has been moved to a Friday to mark the 75thanniversary of VE Day.
    • Wednesday 1st January – New Year’s Day: Double rate day
    • Friday 10th April – Good Friday
    • Sunday 12th April Easter Sunday: Double rate day
    • Monday 13th April – Easter Monday
    • Friday 8th May – Early May bank holiday (the one that has changed)
    • Monday 25th May – Spring bank holiday
    • Monday 31st August – Summer bank holiday
    • Friday 25th December – Christmas Day: Double rate day
    • Monday 28th December – Boxing Day: Double rate day
  • Please squish your spreadsheet! When we check availability for our lovely customers at all locations, particularly on a mobile phone, it is much quicker and easier if only 2020 dates are showing. This does not mean that the previous years’ bookings disappear, it simply hides the cells and they can be seen again with the click of a button. Bear in mind that the command/ CTRL F (find) function will not work for any cells that are hidden when your spreadsheet is squished. Please do message Lucy if you need help on how to hide and show cells in Excel either on a mac or PC. 
  • Please use canned responses. Please make sure you are using the canned responses provided for email confirmations and further correspondence with customers. This not only makes less work for you, but also ensures we are maintaining a consistent style of communication across the Longcroft business. Please CLICK HERE for the most up to date canned responses. Please let Lucy know if you would like a hand in updating these in Gmail and Drive.
  • Check stock levels for all grooming products.  This includes brushes, combs, cotton wool for eye wiping etc. Also check your John Paul Pet stand and supplies. Link to JPP presentation.
  • Get your goody bags in good order! Order items for goody bags by using up your Zooplus points if you have any left and make them up ready for guest departures. Every guest should receive a goody bag even if they are only staying for one day! Do you need to top up onLongcroft ‘g’ stickers for goody bags? Please see the useful links for goody bag content and other business items below. As a guide we use around 4 goody bags per suite per month so a 6 month supply is around 25 per suite x the number of suites. This parting gift leaves a great last impression and is another example of what sets us apart from the competition. 

See below for useful links for ordering …

Establish your strategy for Christmas 2020/21 now!

Now is a good time to establish your strategy for bookings over the Christmas and New Year period in 2020/ 21. Many of us have chosen not to accept check ins or check outs over the period covering Christmas, New Year and the days in between.. This is perfectly okay and we support this!  It would be awesome if you could help us by defining the dates (note on spreadsheets) for which this will apply to your hotel. It is then totally acceptable to respond to customer enquiries, explaining that you are closed to humans in between Christmas and New Year but are of course still taking care of your guests!. With this in mind if your customers request something like the 24th – 28th of December we recommend you offer the option to extend the number of days originally requested. If you can’t help or would prefer not to apply this approach please do send out the standard fully booked canned response and we will try to accommodate them at another location. We have already been successful in using this approach for 2020/ 21. Please see a sample email response below …

Hello Xxxx,

Thanks so much for getting in touch with us here at Longcroft Xxxxx.

I am delighted to confirm that I have one suite available for the Christmas period. However, because of the sheer number of requests we receive over Christmas and New Year, we apply a slightly different booking approach.  We are actually closed for check ins and outs from Saturday 20th December until the New Year (January 2nd) so I’d be more than happy to offer xxx a suite between 20th December and 2nd January. Equally, I fully understand if these dates don’t suit and in this case would recommend contacting our fabulous global availability team on 020 3887 2443 or by email on lily@longcroftcathotel.co.uk

Sending purrs

Abi =^^=

Annual Longcroft get together

We love a get together and can’t wait to get the whole Longcroft family all under one roof again for our annual meet up !

We have popped a poll on Love Longcroft with a few suggested dates. We know Sundays tend to work well and we welcome your input. The suggested dates are below. Please let us know all of the dates that you can attend and hopefully there will be a date that suits …
3rd May / 17th May / 7th June

New Year – new customers – great retention!

The New Year is also the purrfect time to make the most of opportunities to market your business to existing and new clients. 
Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits from 25-95%. The success rate of up selling to a customer you already have is 60-70%, while the success rate of up selling to a new customer is 5-20%.

We continue to build on last year’s success with our marketing policy for 2020: encouraging new customers to contact us at LLCH and importantly retaining our existing customers.

Our marketing strategy:

  • Social Media: We show our customers what 5-star service at LLCH looks like through our consistent, educational and witty approach to our social media channels. We ensure Longcroft receives a high level of engagement on social media with two unique posts a day on Facebook, Twitter; thrice weekly posts on Instagram, and regular posts on LinkedIn. Content is unique to LLCH. 
  • Blog: Our blog is regularly updated to demonstrate that we are a team of expert cat lovers, sharing our success as an award-winning pet brand and engaging our cat loving audience in what we do well. 
  • Press and Media: We continue to raise the profile of Longcroft, setting us apart from the mass of ordinary and everyday catteries by working hard to keep the press engaged, joining the PIF at board level and creating stories that we can share with our cat loving followers and community.  We send out regular press releases to regional and national media, to help us continue to be featured regularly raising the awareness of what we offer. 
  • Remarketing: We use remarketing techniques, where Longcroft pops up on the web pages of items your customer has googled, reminding them to book with us. This method is discreet, classy and focused on encouraging customers to contact us. 
  • Email marketing: We use email marketing to celebrate key dates in a friendly way with clients, focusing on our great customer service and encouraging customers to ‘get in touch.’ 
  • We promote our consistent approach … we offer the same 5 star experience at all of our hotels. This is critical to keeping customers loyal to Longcroft. Customers want to know that the experience at each of our hotels is the same.

Three top tips to help market your business:

1. Help us stay one step ahead by sharing all of your newsworthy photos – so that we can send a press release or photo story to your local press. Perhaps you have donated some food or cat trees to cats protection or want to hold a charity cake sale at home one morning? All of these things are great, cost-effective ways to ensure you are at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

2. Replenish leaflets at local vets – a great way to reach out to new customers. The leaflets are designed to highlight the unique benefits of Longcroft, while answering many of the new customers’ potential worry points. Take drawing pins with you and pop a leaflet on the notice board. Leave leaflets out or take them into the vets in an A5 plastic holder  – no one will see them if they are left behind the counter. 

3. ‘Share the Love’ cards are great incentives for existing customers to tell a friend about us. These customer referral cards offer a complimentary upgrade (of your choice) to those that use them. Both the referee and the referred receive the upgrade on their next stay booked. The upgrades that you offer might include two A La Cat meals, a mini groom or extra play sessions or perhaps a Longcroft postcard. Upgrades are available for up to 18 months after the time of ‘the friend’ confirming their booking by paying their deposit and when they mention the referee at the time of booking. There is no need to upgrade the entire stay to all inclusive  – the upgrade should be a small service based gesture.

3. Reviews … are one of the most important ways of letting our customers know what makes us special. Schedule a day a month and send out review requests!

Global line transfer

We are keen to continue to exceed our customers’ expectations this year with our exceptional customer service whilst giving you the opportunity to juggle the many priorities that you have. With this in mind we are happy for you to transfer your phones to the global line as often as you would like. This might be over the weekend if you have several check ins and viewings to organise, or over the holidays as you have kids and cats to juggle. We will check availability on your behalf and take a message, then What’s app you with the details. 

This way the customer does not have to wait for a response and you can focus on the different demands of your business. We just ask that you let us know when you are doing this and keep your spreadsheet up to date so we can respond accordingly. 

GO Team Longcroft!

Here are some memorable moments and interesting insights from the last few months. It’s fantastic to see everyone working together and supporting each other …

  • Judith had an enquiry for a 17-guest booking … which made Gill think of all that ‘output!’
  • We sent a gorgeous Christmas e-card to all of our customers.
  • Our Christmas guests received beautifully designed postcards and hampers. 
  • We introduced our new Longcroft cat carrier straps which were well and truly put to the test! (These are available to reorder at £3.50 inc VAT as needed.)
  • Several cat ladies celebrated in style.
  • Mornings at Longcroft Fontwell were cold but beautiful!
  • We survived the Thomas Cook chaos.
  • We focused on offering outstanding care to our human and feline guests and now have over 2,000 5 star reviews. 
  • We captured Longcroft guests wearing our logo! 
  • We shared a handy price list and deposit request calculation spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x-dfEKf-DmAeWRykssA0X3T3Ams6zFx1/view?usp=sharing

In the press …

Sharing our story helps us engage with new customers and strengthens our brand with existing customers.

Wishing you all a fabulous few months! Remember we’re always here to help, so do get in touch …

Useful links:

Goody bag contents – to be ordered direct yourself (except pens):

Bags – order direct: we use the XS ones …115 x 145 x 65 mm

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LUXURY-WHITE-GLOSS-PAPER-BAGS-WITH-ROPE-HANDLES-CHRISTMAS-BIRTHDAY-GIFT-BAGS-/321223817583

Branded items and marketing materials to order via HQ:

  • Longcroft g’s – 50 for £5.00
  • Longcroft pens – £20 for 50 pens 
  • Longcroft tote bags – £1 each
  • Cat carrier wallets and ties – £7.50 for 50
  • John Paul Pet – circa £6 a bottle
  • Canadian catnip love hearts – £2.16 each

Postage is a one-off payment of £4.99 for the following items:

  • Business cards are often on special offer. At the moment: 500 £26, 1000 £32 but this does flex up and down depending on the month.
  • A5 leaflets: 250 £31, 500 £39
  • Welcome home cards: 500 £26, 1000 £32
  • Share the Love cards (refer a friend): 500 £26, 1000 £32