Chris Maclean: A service champion

Last week I fancied a trip out and decided to visit the Whitmore Arms in Essex. It seemed a nice trip out. I was curious to visit the pub awarded Customer Service Pub of the Year in this year's Publican Awards and was ready to be impressed. But my first response was simply recognising the Whitmore Arms is simply a pub. A nice one, I grant you. But it wasn't some grandiose monster. This was a proper pub with ordinary people offering a good range of what pubs do best. I was expecting to be humbled. Instead I was simply warmly welcomed.

The lady who served us wasn't in a hurry. I initially took this to mean she was slow but then realised she wasn't. She was asking simple questions and listening to the answers. She was finding out what my wife, the customer, wanted and was doing her best to help her achieve it ~ something I never do. But what was evident about such attentive customer service was that it wasn't some aberration. This wasn't an isolated odd incident of thoughtful and considerate delivery. This was good, old-fashioned, gentle service. What made it all the more impressive was how it manifestly engaged everyone in the business. It was a nice day, my wife wanted her food in the garden, I wanted to pay by card and there were other little demands ~ but nothing was too much trouble. We weren't being fussed over but, equally, we felt we were important enough for them to make the effort. We were attended to by several staff but the effort seemed seamless.

The Whitmore Arms is a deserved holder of the Customer Service Pub of the Year and I was suitably impressed. Food and beer were great too.

On the way home I popped into one of those giant retail parks to buy a new mobile phone. I had lost my other one. Transaction completed I visited an attractive newly-built pub on a retail park to have refreshing pint on a hot day. What a mistake.

If you were seeking a pub to contrast completely with the Whitmore Arms you could scarcely have found a better example. I stood quietly at the bar for several minutes as the staff chatted idly with each other. When they finally broke off for one of them to serve me I apologised for inconveniencing them. The irony was wasted. I ordered a pot of tea for my wife and watched as the barmaid boiled the milk with a steam jet. Unusual, I thought. I was served a pint of tepid and cloudy bitter. I didn't complain. There seemed no point.

Tables remained uncleared. The whole place oozed disdain. I could find nothing I liked other than the rather beautiful location.

In these difficult trading times, and it is difficult to consider anything without putting it into this context, attention to detail is crucial for any business to succeed. The Whitmore Arms shone like a beacon of good service and I felt whatever the economic or political storms thrown its way it could weather them in the knowledge its future was assured.

The second pub looked like it was waiting for the bailiffs.

I often advise new licensees that when they take over their pub they need to copy their experiences of what they consider to be good pubs and avoid the practices of the bad pubs. New licensees could learn a lot from visiting these two.