Dudes thank the Argonaut Gods for Blogs. Without this blog we at Argonaut Hostel in Riga would only have each other to enlighten on what we learn and experience running a hostel in New Europe :-)
The first topic of discussion is to do with Customers. We call you all Guests because you are our guest. We all have Latvian heritage and are keen to enable you to see more of Latvia than the average Joe. Here at Argonaut we have internal and external customers. Staff are internal and guests are external. Some external guests get so close to internals that they almost become internals. But that is another story.
Obnoxious guests that agrivate our lovely staff end up crossing the line where internal customers become more important that external customers. Not so many guests do this but the fact that the Staff know they have rights enables them to provide a better service to the guests that we like the most.
It is a challenge to attract the guests we like. We certainly write on our website www.argonauthostel.com that stags are Not Welcome. Hens are Welcome. But then how do we attract the people we can have fun with? You know - genuine travellers. People that want to see more than just a pub when in Latvia. Getting married to a Latvian is something we will support but Strip Clubs we work on exterminating.
So what do you think of our philosophy so far?
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So what exactly does Argonaut Hostel do for guests?
We at Argonaut have a core base of standard services that cover what people mostly expect from a hostel and then we have the unexpected extras that provide our guests with a pleasant unexpected surprise.
So for example of course you get a bed but our beds all have thick mattresses, are made of wood and made custom for us. The custom made part means that you can sit on the bottom bunk in a dorm room and not hit your head on the upper bunk. Thick legs means the upper bunk does not shake the whole bed when someone moves during the night. and there is area under the bunk where your free locker for your whole backpack is located. As they are made of wood they are much more pleasing and homely.
We get positive comments about the beds but maybe not enough to justify not to replace them with metal beds when they fall apart.
What do you think?
Another service we provide with a bed is of course a room. All our room doors use Smart Card locks. We think this is another unexpected positive service from Argonaut for guests. These locks enable us to not bother every guest with a key deposit. Each key is electronic and cut each time for each guest and the duration of the stay. This provides added security in that there are no metal keys falling in to the wrong hands.
Each key is printed on both sides with details that promotes our Beach Hostel www.beachhostel.lv in Liepaja Latvia.
We want all keys returned when guests sheckout but of course not all do get returned. So we spend around 1300 euros each year getting more keys made.
What do you think about our Smart Card Keys?
A surprise service:
In each room we have our own unique Argonaut Radio system. This system works so that you push a button in each room to turn it on or off and there is a dedicated volume control in each room. We are not aware of any other hostel in the world with a radio system like our Argonaut Radio.
Free of Charge services:
We opened the first hostel in Riga and set some standards that all hostels in Riga have to offer to be able to compete with us. Free Internet computers, Free WIFI, Free sheets and Towel. But most other hostels in Riga do not make each bed like we do.
Very rarely does anyone say that a ready made dorm bed has value to them. We think that making the beds saves hassle for each guest and keeps each bed more hygenic.
What do you think about ready made beds - should we bother to continue breaking our staff backs making them?
Free Locker Locks
We provide locks free of charge for lockers. Again we hope this is another unexpected pleasant surprise for guests. Every other hostel I have stayed at(owner) has charged a free for renting or forcing guests to buy locks. We never receive any positive comments about free locks.
Do you think we should just charge for locks like every other hostel?
Hostel Showers:
All our showers have dedicated boilers so that there will always be a shower with hot water. Yes one shower may go cold if many guests use it in a short period of time but never have all showers gone cold. We have One shower for every 6 guests when the stated requirement in Latvia is for every 10 people. But we know that in Latvia some other hostels have one shower for up to 20 people. We have seen comments for other hostels in Riga from guests stating that they were pissed off about there being too few showers. So we know our many showers are a bonus for our guests.
I will have to write more later as this is taking a lot of typing to list the things we do for the Argonaut Hostel guest.
Please post your comments to provide us valuable feedback.
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