It's a surprising thought that in the quiet back streets of Oldham here in the North West just yards from the M60 there is a truly inspiring collection of materials, ideas, layouts and design thinking going on. The collection, badged as The Venue is aimed at boutique hotels, restaurants and clubs and is underpinned by a highly regarded steel fabrication business that do kitchen fit out and bar fit out work nationally. They can actually build solutions not just sell attractive ideas.
Great customer service hinges off four key factors;
The behaviour of the staff,
The processes of how we meet customer needs,
The personal touch points and
The physical environment where the service is being delivered
The Venue with the des res address of Unit 3, Albert Street! carries the physical envionment and touch point game to a very high standard. When I ran venues it was all too easy to become building blind, I was unable to see what new customers see because I saw it every day, "practice makes mindless" as the saying goes. What The Venue does is provide some bright ideas in real physical settings. You would think in this day and age when you can survey Wallpaper, Coolhunter, Trendwatch and the like from your favourite screen that there would be no place for an physical think tank like this. Yet, as Neil Guest proved to me today, you would be wrong. Seeing and touching is inspiring; understanding how materials feel and look together in multiple colourways made me think. The new layouts made me think about what's possibl and what's next.
It's a great place to visit with your team or even meet. You don't have to be designing or specifying a venue to get the point. They also offer bar skills training. If you're as intrigued as I was, here's the start point....
http://www.thevenue.uk.com/index.php/gallery/53-the-venue-building.html
It's also worth noting that the rather modest location means that you aren't paying a fortune for a glamorous showroom that your customers will never see. I think The Venue is a space to watch and even better visit.
No comments:
Post a Comment