Choosing your Serviced Apartment - how to do it??

Unsurprisingly, here at Nook & Cranny we are travellers as well as hosts in the short stay serviced apartment world, so we do get to choose places to stay ourselves too, and we know some of the pitfalls.

So we understand how difficult it can be to really get a view of a serviced apartment from photos and a description on a website.  We've tried to add featured which give comfort to our potential guests, that the place that they book will be exactly what they're expecting or better - we do love to exceed expectations. Sometimes people ask to view the apartments before they book, but we are almost always at capacity and the chances of it being a changeover day for the flat they that are interested in is low, which makes viewing in person difficult in our industry. Of course, if there is an option to do so we will.

Criteria which we go through when we are booking a holiday sort stay apartment ourselves:

• location, is it near where I will be working/visiting?
  
• quality of apartment & furnishings, availability of white goods and optional extras
  
• is car parking right outside the property? 
• transport links - if I don't have a car, will I be able to really get around?
  
• quality of the neighbourhood - is it an area with access to leisure activities?
• will I get quick response if I need anything during my stay?
  
• Can I arrive late at night and still get the key easily?

Putting your mind a rest before booking:

1. Right from the start we understood that top quality realistic photography was really important to people when choosing to book their apartment. We try to make the photos both informative and easy on the eye. So some of them are just showing equipment which you can expect in the flat when you arrive.
2. We've recently added guest reviews of our apartments which people are kind enough to leave us after their stay. We feel that these are important, as they tell you things that we can't say ourselves.
3. We commit to personally answering all contact forms within 12 hours and usually much faster. We are always happy to take phone calls and to try to fulfil all reasonable requests however unusual they may be. Cots and high chairs, toddler feeding equipment etc are a very popular request which we are happy to fulfil.
4. We send out an "e welcome pack" before people arrive - this gives lots of local information as well as extra info about the flat and directions, wifi codes etc to put guests mind at ease. We find that sending it as an e-doc is more useful than leaving it in the flat as then we can use internet links to lots more local info which can come in very handy from your phone on arrival or from your laptop.
   

Always looking to improve

So in an attempt to give you more then you expect we have decided to make walk through videos of the apartments so that people can get a feel of the layout too. We've had a bit of fun shooting them & we've added some crazy music but they al only 45s long, so you certainly won't get bored. I hope you love them - please do comment and let us know your views, as we gradually film all the apartments we want to be making sure that you see what you are looking for.