News Stories: Highgate House

Highgate House recognised nationally

20 Jan 2010

Meeting venue customers have placed Northamptonshire-based Sundial Group, owner of conference centre Highgate House, top of the league for customer service.  This is the third year that Sundial has been rated top out of the four years that BDRC's VenueVerdict programme has run in the United Kingdom.

This honour follows hot on the heels of last week's announcement that Sundial Group had again topped the ‘Value for Money' rating within the same survey, showing that quality and value need not be mutually exclusive.  Highgate House is located in Creaton but welcomes approximately 30,000 guests each year from companies based all over the world for conferences, meetings and training events.

VenueVerdict is an independently-administered customer feedback and benchmarking programme which surveys customers immediately following their event.  BDRC is a London-based market research firm that specialises in international hotel and meeting venue sectors.  In 2009 approximately 200 venues participated in the programme at any one time.  Some of the UK's best-known hotel brands and conference centre groups (both residential and non-residential) participate in the programme, with this year's result derived from over 11,000 total customer responses.

Tim Chudley, Sundial's managing director, noted that reclaiming the title the group won in 2006 and 2007 was a major strategic objective.  "Early in 2009 we identified a number of key things we wanted to achieve in the coming twelve months, and top of that list was again being the number one venue group.  Not only is it great for us as a business to know that our customers appreciate what we do, it also allows us to demonstrate to potential new clients that we offer unrivalled quality and value."

However, the chance to win an award was not what motivated Sundial to join VenueVerdict when it launched in the UK in 2006.  "With VenueVerdict, our customers get the chance to review our service to an independent source.  We get to see every review so that we can learn what works for our clients and what we could do better, but because they have the option of anonymity there is no pressure or influence exerted on their responses and the results are fair and accurate".