A re-visit. So what exactly is an Extra Mile?
by - 20:45 on 17 August 2008
This is a picture of a plate of dog biscuits. OK, it might not be a brilliant picture – but the biscuits are good. Our dogs think so. But no matter how good they are they are not an extra mile. They’re just biscuits that fulfil a function.
This is a different plate of dog biscuits. Now they constitute an extra mile. They are outside a pet shop in Crieff, Perthshire. It’s just an everyday shop but the owner puts a bowl of biscuits and a drinking bowl for any passing dog. He doesn’t have to do this. So this is the best kind of extra mile – when service exceeds expectations. (I mean, I can’t think of another pet shop that does this.) I’m hoping somebody will extra mile them. I should point out, incidentally, that the dog in the second picture is, uhmm, stuffed. But not with biscuits.
You’d be surprised at the number of comments that we get that are like the first picture. They say that a place is good. Well, we would hope so. (Incidentally, sometimes we get comments along the lines of ‘the place was tidy and the beds were clean’. Good grief. Where do these people normally stay?) More to the point, there are really helpful feedback websites, of which tripadvisor is the best known, that are ideal for this sort of feedback. Call us perverse, if you will, but we’re looking for something a little different.
Our site is the place where you can record your thanks or appreciation by sharing your experience of (preferably) a specific instance of extra service. Yes, we have let some comments in that describe a place that is obviously excellent in general. But they’re not our favourites. Finally, we like comments from visitors more than input from other members of the tourism trade as well, though we recognise it can be hard to tell them apart.
Thanks for everyone’s input so far.
Add your comment