I have just returned from a 4 night break camping in St David’s in Pembrokeshire. It has been a busy first part of the year and I was looking forward to the break. A chance to leave much of the technology that fills my life behind. I will be honest and say that on almost every holiday or short break I go on, I take my big 17 inch laptop, in case I need to reply to emails and also to keep an eye on my business and what is happening. This time I was disciplined enought to leave my laptop in the office…. After all, sitting outside of my tent with a laptop on my reclining lounger isn’t really conducive to efficient working.
I did however sneak my iPad into the car and felt confident that my new Samsung S7 Edge would keep me in touch with the world. I get hundreds of emails every day and I confess that I did actually scan through every one over the four days but only replied to one and only made one call back to the office to discuss a few issues. For me this was more of a switch of than I normally have, even at Christmas.
Whilst I was away though, I became aware of just how painful it can be to plan a trip somewhere and find things to do whilst away.
This started with booking the campsite. Firstly, I only decided to go away 48 hours before I actually went. Sadly, the campsite didn’t offer online booking (why do campsites lag behind with online booking when compared to hotels and bed and breakfasts?). So I sent a quick email, to check availability. No response after 24 hours and so I picked up the telephone. I know some of you will be thinking that I should have done this straight away. However, you have to bear in mind that I was making enquiries over the Website and email late in the evening, when the campsite office was closed. Therefore phoning was not convenient.
Anyway, pitch booked, I set off. First step was to put the post code into my sat nav. So, I pulled up the Website on my phone and hunted for the postcode. Eventually I found it but it was not on every page, or on the contact page. The Website was slow to and so it took me a while…
Now, I wont name this campsite but from a previous experience, paying £15 for a couple of day’s WiFi access, the service was abysmal. Barely fast enough to load a Website. I really don’t like paying for WiFi anyway but if you are going to charge me, please at least make it work and be worth paying for! So I relied on patchy internet access via my phone and iPad, in order to find places to eat, things to do, opening hours and walking routes etc…
It wasn’t a pleasant or easy experience. Nearly all of the Websites I looked at were not mobile friendly. Even the Wales Coastal Path Website I looked at to plan a walk worked really badly on my phone and was not mobile friendly. Those that were mobile friendly simply dumped all of the content from the main Website in a long stream of information that was hard to navigate.
All in all it was a great break away and lovely to spend 4 days in the fresh air rather than stuck in an office. However, I do feel that there are some lessons to learn from this.
Lessons for me:
1. Try to be less dependent on technology whilst on holiday
2. Plan a trip more thoroughly before going
3. Try using a good old fashioned map and guide books!
Lessons for businesses:
1. Make sure your Website is mobile friendly
2. If your Website is mobile friendly, make sure it contains the important information in key places
3. Think about your customers and how they want to engage with you. Meet their needs.
4. If you sell anything, take bookings or orders, think about how your customers want to engage with you, not just what is convenient for you
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