“The review covers two aspects- Sykes and the property.”
1. Sykes.
I would not recommend Sykes because the customer service is terrible. Having read the other reviews I am not alone in what I say. You cannot get a response from their phone number, it offers a call back which I am still waiting for 2 months on. The email is not responded to, only the text system and that took a real push back on my part to get any response. I am not sure what has happened to them but they clearly are only in it for the money and not at all for the customer.
2. The property.
The property is lovely, and a beautiful location. However the customer service here is patchy. One one level you would think it is lovely, and yet the feel and tone of the information given to you at the property is negative. It feels like they spend far too much time telling you what not to do rather than what you can do.
We arrived on a Sunday at 5pm, which is a very late check in. You receive the information by text how to get in literally at 5pm and all of the supermarkets are shut at this time.
So we received our little welcome pack on arrival- 4 tea bags, 4 sachets of coffee, a couple of sachets of sugar and no milk, and for some bizarre reason you had to take your own tea towels. I cannot think why a small carton of milk and sugar would be difficult to provide- it was all so measured, and many of the notices in the house were negative in tone.
we didn't use the hot tub but would have been put off by all of the instructions- about 9 pages.
It is such a shame as they have a lovely property in a beautiful setting and a few little changes would make a massive difference in making you actually feel welcome at the property.
We are sorry to read about your experience with Sykes and having read your comments we have directly been in touch with our agent and have requested that this is investigated. So, as we ourselves weren’t involved or aware of your issues in contacting sykes until now we cannot comment on this further until we hear back from the agent.
We are pleased to read that you felt the property was “lovely and in a beautiful setting” however, we are disappointed that you felt our customer service was “patchy”.
We send out a welcome email to guests a few days prior to arrival which does include important health and safety information, the key collection information and our contact number so that guests can contact us prior to arrival or during the stay if there are any queries. You got in touch with us after receiving our email and asked for the twin bed configuration instead of the super king, which we responded to and thanked you for letting us know and that this was not a problem. Furthermore, during your stay we were contacted by another member of your party who asked for recommendations of places to walk and about how to turn on the heaters in the bathrooms for you to dry towels. We responded with directions and a map for walks we would suggest and also explained how to adjust the thermostat so that the towel rails would come on.
Our standard changeover day for Long Linney is a Friday however guests can book any day for the holiday to commence which in this instance you booked to arrive on the Sunday. Our check in time is 5pm and this is clearly stated in the property description for guests to see before any bookings are confirmed. We appreciate that all self catering cottage check in times vary across the board and for our circumstances we stipulate 5pm as we have multiple cottages that changeover on the same day and therefore cannot guarantee any earlier access then 5pm to be fair to all guests. We have tried many different methods over the years of giving out the key safe information. We send the key safe code via a pre set text that then gets sent at a specific time (5pm) so that guests have it ready upon arrival. We have found this as the most efficient way for us as then guests always have it to hand and won’t forget it or lose it if they wish to use the keysafe during their stay.
Regarding your comment about arriving after the supermarkets shut on a Sunday. I’m sure this would have been a factor that you would have been aware about at the time of booking. Therefore, if you had been in touch with us over this we would have more than happily provided information of which of our local supermarkets offer delivery up until 10pm on Sundays or we could have let you know about the smaller local stores who also stay open until 10pm on a Sunday. Unfortunately, we were never asked.
As a self catering cottage we are under no obligation to provide welcome packs. As a result of this, we appreciate every cottage owner will provide different things based on their circumstances. In our cottages we provide all guests with: bedding and towels, 2 toilet rolls per bathroom, hand soap pumps, toilet gel, oven gloves, tea towel, kitchen roll, j cloth, dish sponge/brush, Dettol wipes, washing up liquid, anti bac spray, a handful of dishwasher tabs, a spare bin bag, a handful of laundry pods, dishwasher salt, rinse aid. We also leave a refreshment pack for guests’ arrival which includes salt and pepper, a tea bag and coffee stick per person, sugar sticks and biscuits. We feel that what we provide covers the basic items and are also there as a backup in case people may have forgotten something. We don’t provide fresh milk due to the health and safety regulations of providing fresh produce. Also, we respect that many people have dietary requirements or preferences so therefore it would be difficult to provide something that would suit everyone.
Finally we are sad that you felt “the notices in the house were in a negative tone”. We are legally obliged to display notices such as fire health and safety protocols and also the safety information for the hot tubs. It is our duty to provide this information for guests to familiarise themselves with during their stay to keep all guests safe, to conform with all insurance policies and to avoid a potentially catastrophic event.
In regards to the hot tub, we have 3 key pieces of information that we give to all guests. We provide the health and safety recommendations of use (1 side of A4) which legally we must provide. We then have a photo with descriptions of what the controls do. Having several cottages with hot tubs we know that they all work slightly differently so provide each cottage with a basic ‘user manual’ (1 side of A4) so that people then don’t feel embarrassed about having to ask for help if they have never used one before. Thirdly, we provide a how to guide on how to correctly operate the lifting bar that safely holds the lid whilst the tub is in use. There is additional information in the cottage folder which just lets guests know that we need to come onto site to carry out additional water quality checks during the week. We can confirm that there is not 9 pages of instructions for the hot tub, which is a little unfair to have been exaggerated as such and the instructions are there purely for the guests benefit.
Overall, we are glad that you liked the cottage and the surrounding area, but we are disappointed by your comment that our customer service was “patchy”, as we responded to every message we received and facilitated every request asked of us. Obviously you felt there were other issues which you didn’t bring to our attention, which we encourage all guests to do during their stay, as we are always happy to help all of our guests to have the most enjoyable stay possible.
Property Owner
