| Product: |
Butlins in general |
| Date: |
29/12/03 (192 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Family appeal, commited staff, getting better and better
Disadvantages: high staff turnover, transitional period, bad press
Having read some of the reviews on butlins I am posting this to ask you to
give butlins a chance. I worked for Butlins for 8 years and in the time I was
there (95 - 03) changes have come thick and fast. I have read reviews that
claim Bourne - Butlins parent company are a bunch of ........ well not very nice
people! I have also read about people not having a good holiday which I find
sad. If you dont mind I would like to put the record straight on a few matters.
Firstly yes I agree that at the moment Butlins aint what it used to be, but
Bourne acknowledge this and are making a point of trying to improve things.
Every guest receives an evaluation form so thay can score each and every
part of their holiday, the return of these forms is about 400 per break out of
around 5000 guests. If you dont fill in these forms how can Butlins provide
you with the service you are expecting????
Secondly the staff! Well what can I say you always remember the bad ones!
Butlins in summer employ about 1100 people per resort it costs over £200 per
staff member just to get them ready to work and as a lot of young people tend
to work at butlins some only stay a few weeks. So a resort that needs 1100
team members may end up employing 3000-4000 members of staff per
season. As you must understand it takes more than a few months to become
the ideal butlins worker, trained to deal with every eventuality. So only the
returning staff who work year after year are experienced enough to help out
fully and out of the 1100 team only 300-400 are continual returnees. The
guest sees a butlins worker and expects them to solve all their problems -
which in an ideal world would happen, but picture this you work at tesco and
you have a customer complaining about burger king you really cant help that
person but at butlins if you work on accom and you have a guest complaining
about the bar's you are
expected to know enough to help that person. So your
average butlins worker has to know a little bit about all of butlins and believe
me there are 100's of jobs.
With time Butlins will become the Butlins we all remember give it time a lot of
changes need to be made and when you go on your holiday spare a thought
for the poor team working hard - because we do care - a lot! When I worked
at Butlins I truly tried my best to provide the best holiday experience as do
1000's of others still working there, please dont let a few bad apples spoil a
very good quality barrel.
Summary:
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Last comments:
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- 05/01/04 Good comments. The issue about knowing a bit about everything is very true, however I think the main problem is a matter of training the staff in how to deal with complaints. As you will be aware it is not possible to know everything and I feel therefore they should train the staff in how to placate irate customers and where to get the best and quickest information for them.
As you say, and I have done also, through necessity Butlins is staffed with youngsters/students in the summer and many of these have never had to deal with customers before. A bit if training here would help the problem.
Butlins is a matter of attitude for staff. If you're willing to work hard, always with a smile and like to help people then you can get rewards. Good friends, great environment and brilliant memories. Glad you had a great time.
It changed my life really and I will always promote them. opefully Bourne will be able to change peoples attitudes.
Regar ds.
I did 7 years in Minehead and enjoyed every minute. I wish I could go back but famly etc meant moving away. |
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- 30/12/03 Dont think Butlins own it anymore, but I had some great days out, and weekends in the resort in Ayr. |
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- 29/12/03 Not all the reviews on Butlins are bad. I wrote one and we had a great time....Mandxx |
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