The Sandstone Team Building Blog

I went for a drink last night with a mate.  We went to a local hostelry – a pub in our village which has recently experienced no less than 3 changes of management within the past few months.  The first of those changes was by far the worst.  I was not alone in declaring that I would not return until the new Management had either left or offered a written apology for the awful attitude they brought with them into a previously well-renowned establishment, preferably the former.  Apart from several other customers venting similar frustrations to mine, I knew I wasn’t alone because the entire staff got up and walked.  In the end, the management did leave.  They were replaced at first by two temporary managers, one after the other, who each clearly focused on the word “temporary” rather than “manager” in their titles.  It has taken until now and a permanent manager appointment for me to relax my self-imposed exile.

I was amazed at the changes in the place in just the few short months since I was last inside.  The furniture and fittings were the same, the decor unchanged, the beer identical.  But the staff, well, someone had clearly done some kind of a reverse “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” job on them.  They looked the same but acted totally differently.  They seemed like they were pleased to see us and served us as though we were the only customers they had.  In fact, we almost were.  What was once a thriving, bustling, busy establishment is now almost derelict of customers.  But it won’t be long before that changes.  Word of mouth is a wonderful thing and I, for one, am playing at least as strong a part in encouraging people to go back as I did in keeping them away.

I’m a stickler for service.  When I get it, I am the most loyal customer anyone could hope for.  I don’t demand perfection – just that someone cares about it when something goes wrong and acts accordingly.

In many ways, the whole thing reminded me of one of our key strengths.  We have a fabulous portfolio of unique and effective team building activities that are, we believe, the envy of our industry and the delight of our clients.  But those are like the decor in the pub.  We have the very best equipment for those activities, whether that’s the computer equipment that lies at the heart of most of our options, the authentic Colt 45 replicas and holsters for Wild West, the fabulous 1950s-style skittle alleys we use in Memory Lane or our mobile TV broadcasting kit as used in Liberation.  But I guess those are our furniture and fittings.  We have a superb list of optional gifts to present to winners or every participant, such as our cute little 2x2x2 Rubik cubes that are replicas of the main centrepiece itself in Cube.  But they’re the closest thing we have to beer – if you don’t count the alcohol in Romanbar that is!

Nope – the real heart of this business is the same as that of the pub down the road – the attitude of the staff.  Most of our blogs are written specifically for people interested in what we do, whether that interest is casual, a precursor to considering us as a supplier or as an existing client.  Whilst I hope that all three of those types of reader find this entry of interest, I also hope that you will forgive me for aiming it mostly at our own team.  It’s about time I said “well done” in these pages to them for not only having, but also for continually improving, the world-class attitude they display in our client-facing work.  And that “well done” extends to and includes our managers, of course!  As the pub showed me, superb service and great staff attitudes do not happen by chance – it requires good management and we have it.

Alan