Personal approach is the best way to check a venue

Personal approach is the best way to check a venue - our Corporate Sales Manager Rachael Buttery explains why...

Re: The story 'Venue brands no longer trustworthy' citing Jacqui Kavanagh of Trinity Conferences;
Being part of a membership organisation can be reassuring for potential customers, but just glancing at a conference venue’s website and the industry bodies they are affiliated to is not enough.

The most important check any potential customer should run is to speak to the venue. Don’t be afraid to ask searching questions – these answers will reveal more than anything else.

One simple question is: ‘what is your repeat business figure?’ This will tell you a great deal about whether customers enjoy their conference experiences enough to return.

Another that Cotswold Conference Centre is often asked is ‘what is your staff turnover rate?’ A low figure will tend to mean you receive a consistent level of service and, in turn, will reassure clients who want to build a long-term relationship with a venue and its events team.

You can also ask about industry awards too, but perhaps focus more on awards won repeatedly over a number of years – which shows an ongoing commitment to excellent standards – rather than one-off successes.

As a final point, independent or family-owned venues will often provide a high level of personal service and will be used to these sorts of questions. Venues that can’t find this information or are reluctant to share it might be best to avoid.

Jilly's top 3 networking tips

Jilly Jones, Business Development Manager, has organised over 500 events for the Cotswold Conference Centre at Farncombe. She has attended countless networking events and made many great contacts and friends along the way. Here are her three top tips for networking:

• Engage in conversation about things other than business – if people like chatting to you as a person they will keep in contact
• Make introductions – helping other people to meet and do business together is a great way to strengthen relationship with your contacts
• Be relentlessly positive – discussing the gloomy economic situation or ‘bad-mouthing’ rival companies will give people a negative opinion of you and stop them keeping in contact

Open Morning with Breakfast at Cotswold Conference Centre

Join us for an Open Morning with Breakfast to find out how our residential conference, training and meeting venue can add something special to your event.

From 9.30 to 12.30, we’ll treat you to freshly-brewed coffee, full English breakfast and locally-produced breads and pastries (veggie options available.)

We’ll tell you a bit about our fantastic venue, with free parking, eleven flexible meetings spaces and 89 double or twin ensuite bedrooms.

And we’ll demonstrate how we can make a difference to your company, with our teambuilding activities, open courses, conference services and dedicated business focus.

Please RSVP to Rachael Buttery by 31st January. Call her on 0845 230 8580 or email
RachaelB@CotswoldConferenceCentre.com

Farncombe maintains gold standard for fourth year

A leading UK conference centre, near Broadway, has achieved a top nationwide customer service accreditation for the fourth year running.

Cotswold Conference Centre secured VenueVerdict Gold for 2012 and maintains its record of gaining the accreditation every year since the industry standard was launched in 2009. It is one of just four UK venues to have achieved Gold every year.

VenueVerdict is based on feedback from customers and only 26 conference venues and hotels – around seven per cent of those who participated – achieved the standard last year.

Richard Howdle, operations manager at Cotswold Conference Centre, said: “It’s an amazing achievement and shows the dedication of all our staff to the very highest levels of customer service.

“It’s especially satisfying to gain an accreditation based purely on customer feedback. We are dedicated to conferences, training and teambuilding and I think people really appreciate the efforts we make on their behalf.”

Market research agency BDRC Continental operates VenueVerdict, an independent customer feedback benchmarking programme for meetings and events. Its quarterly accreditation framework is based on responses from more than 20,000 customer surveys across UK venues. Conference centres and hotels are assessed over rolling 12 month periods and must record ‘consistently excellent’ results to secure Gold.

James Bland from VenueVerdict said: “Congratulations to everyone who achieved the prestigious Gold Standard and especially to those, like Cotswold Conference Centre, who have done so every year since 2009.

“Maintaining this standard requires excellent service delivery, hard work and real customer satisfaction so it’s a great stamp of approval for the venue.”

Cotswold Conference Centre is part of leading hospitality business Farncombe, which also includes the luxury Dormy House Hotel and popular residential learning centre Farncombe Courses.

Farncombe is located in 320 acres of picturesque parkland in the Cotswolds, between Cheltenham and Stratford-upon-Avon. For more information about Cotswold Conference Centre call 0845 230 8580 or visit www.cotswoldconferencecentre.com.

Teams need difference - Field Learning explains why.

Teams need difference

Great teams really know how to appreciate and use personal differences. Great teams also know that difference is essential for high-performance. Field Learning has partnered with The Cotswold Conference Centre to create the best possible learning environment for individual and team development. If you are a manager of a team then we can help you get the most out of each individual using the latest thinking in personal and professional development.

Amongst the many tools and concepts we use we find Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) particularly useful. This methodology asks why some people are better at performing certain things than others. For example why is one manager able to create a high-performance team culture while others struggle to deliver through teamwork. NLP explores the difference that makes a difference.

If you would like to find out more you might like our free 8-day ‘Introduction to NLP for Teams’ e-course. You can download that for free and with no obligation by clicking here. If, like us, you think NLP has a great deal to offer individual and team development perhaps we’ll see you on a course at the award-winning Cotswold Conference Centre soon. Remember you can find your free e-course by clicking here.

John and Samantha Field

Field Learning Ltd

Putting the 'team' into teambuilding

Teambuilding can be the perfect way to shake-up your staff and boost morale.

If you are holding a meeting or conference and can see staff begin to slouch in their chairs then it may be time for an energising teambuilding activity to re-invigorate your team.

Teambuilding events can often bring staff together who don't necessarily work that closely with each other, they can create lasting bonds and relationships and give staff something in common to talk about when they get back to the office.

Teambuilding activities are worth their weight in gold when they achieve a specific outcome whether that is to increase enthusiasm, mend rifts or strengthen teams.  Follow-up and analysis is key in making sure that the objectives of the activity have been met. Teambuilding can empower, motivate, create trust and increase productivity.

At Cotswold Conference Centre we offer both facilitated and self-facilitated teambuilding activities which range from ice-breakers to full day events.

For more information on teambuilding events, visit our website, where full details on all of our teambuilding activities can be found.

Cotswold Conference Centre Claims Tourism Awards

Cotswold Conference Centre continued its amazing year of awards after winning one category and being highly commended in a second at the Worcestershire Welcome Awards.

The ceremony, held on Thursday night at Sixways Stadium, saw the best businesses from across Worcestershire come together to celebrate the county’s visitor attractions and tourism industry.

Cotswold Conference Centre – part of the Farncombe group of businesses, near Broadway – won the Business Tourism Award for the second year in a row and was also highly commended in the Sustainable Tourism category.

The event was organised by Destination Worcestershire and each finalist was selected on the basis of customer nominations.

Nick Vincent, Chief Executive at the Three Counties Showground, judged the Business Tourism category.

He said: “I was particularly impressed with the website, facilities, policy of supporting and promoting local suppliers and the external methods of obtaining customer feedback. I had no idea Cotswold Conference Centre also won this award last year.”

Cotswold Conference Centre is a modern meeting, training and teambuilding venue. It holds dozens of conferences each year and also plays host to Farncombe Courses, which offers a wide range of leisure and activity weekends.

Richard Howdle, operations manager at Cotswold Conference Centre, said: “It’s been an incredible year for us, winning numerous awards at local, regional and national levels.

“The staff are rightly very proud of these accolades. As well as a morale boost, entering these categories is one of the ways that we constantly strive to maintain and drive up our performance by looking to improve each year.”

Cotswold Conference Centre has won four other prestigious awards in 2012, including the Visit England Award for Excellence, which recognised it as the best business tourism venue in the UK.

The three other titles were the Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS) highlighting the centre’s commitment to sustainability, the Cotswold Tourism award venue of the year and the VenueVerdict Gold Standard for outstanding customer service.

The business is situated on the 320-acre Farncombe Estate between Cheltenham and Stratford-upon-Avon. For more information www.cotswoldconferencecentre.com.