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Apartment One at Worcester Street location just got a partial facelift. This is our smallest Bohemian apartment. As part of our upgrade we installed new larger flat screen TV, changed decorative pillows, installed new hardware in bathroom and in apartment and repainted walls. The results are very pleasing to my eye! Hope you agree.

We never stop thinking of ways to improve your stay. Even during a storm… During past storms, we noticed that all items needed during an emergency such as flashlights, disappear from store shelves. This causes all to feel panicky. With the comfort of our guests in mind, we already stocked up on flash lights and will distributing these FREE to our guests.

Here is a colorful collection of our guest flashlights…

Our townhouse on Tremont Street is 160 years old.  Our windows are just as old as the rest of the house. Over the years we have repaired and maintained all windows as best as we could. We realized this past winter that we could not keep up so we decided to completely restore and rebuild them. As part of my commitment to historical restoration and conservation, we hired Olde Bostonian Restoration. This rebuild and restoration will help make 150 year old windows look like new, it will also increase our energy conservation when colder days arrive. Yess!

Olde Bostonian in front of 677 Tremont Street – See top floor window removed.

We believe attention to details make for a superior stay at our short term apartments. Even the mundane keychain is getting a makeover. We have designed a solid steel keychain with our emblazoned logo.  If you like it, you can take it with you when your stay is over. We love that you will keep us with you forever… If you are a previous guest and would like one, please drop me an email at rent at cajhouse com and send me a postage paid envelope and I will gladly send you one.

Our CAJ House logo(ed) recyclable, re useable, beautiful tote bags have arrived! Serviced apartments taken to a new level.

Reading Hotelsmag.com this morning I found this article about guest satisfaction at Hotels and Extended Stay Apartments around the country.

The author cites JD Powers models and statistics that point to highest guest satisfaction for those establishments that offer free and reliable wireless internet and where they are happy with staff.

“The Staff Opinion Model, a new portion of the 2012 study, examines guest satisfaction with hotel staff by staff type across the guest experience. Overall, 56% of hotel guests have a high opinion of staff; 34% have an average opinion; and 10% have a low opinion of staff. Satisfaction is significantly higher among guests with a high opinion of hotel staff (average of 841 index points), compared with those with an average (673) or low (570) opinion of staff.

Yet it’s not just room rates that affect customer satisfaction with costs and fees; as more than one-half of guests use the Internet during their hotel stay, charges for access can drag down satisfaction. The study finds that 55% of hotel guests use the Internet during their hotel stay — an increase from 20% in 2006 — and 87% use Wi-Fi to connect. Among those that use the Internet, only 11% are charged an additional fee to connect.”

This made me reflect on how I am doing in this area. I know we offer great apartments at a great price, now I wanted to reflect on the wireless and services aspect of our offerings.  I am always trying to anticipate guest needs and likes and paying attention to anything we overlook and that is brought to our attention. Anyone who works at or with CAJ House knows I am a guest advocate. One of the ways I try to deliver the best experience is by anticipating what I would want in my apartment were I away from home. One such intuition came to me when I first saw and understood the implications of a wireless modem in 2003. I thought this would be a great service enhancement to offer to our guests. Wireless internet would differentiate us from our competition and free access would further increase our value proposition in the eyes of our guests.   I experimented immediately in our Worcester Street Guest House, but the coverage range of early routers was not enough to bring internet to all rooms. I did not give up: I kept following the evolution of the technology. In 2005, when more powerful extended range antennas became available, transmission coverage areas became large enough to reliably bring internet to all floors in our five story townhouses. I installed powerful and expensive antennas and in 2005 I started offering free wireless internet to all our guests. I believe I was one of the earliest adopters of free internet. I know this because at the time I was traveling a lot with my wife and every hotel, B and B  we stayed in was tested by us with mixed results. If they did offer internet, it was expensive and slow. This slowness brings me to the second part of free: reliable. To be a good experience, wireless has to be reliable. I understood this by listening to guest feedback.  Feedback is specially useful when things go wrong. In the early days of wireless, routers were not very reliable and I would field frequent calls for down or weak network. It was annoying and costly to call internet service providers, test and reset modems, enter endless sequences of code to change settings. This was a source of frustration for both me and my guests. I was beginning to sense that free with hassles was becoming a source of problems and maybe I should just pull the plug on free and outsource internet to an outside company. I did not want one non perfectly working element of our offerings, reflect negatively on our establishment. Plus I am a perfectionist, so I came up with the second customer service idea: a backup line from a competing service so internet would never be down at CAJ House! Now our service is free, reliable and part of the many small touches that make staying here a great experience.

Two bedroom Apartment available September 1

Here at CAJ House we provide high quality furnished apartments. We do also offer some selected not so furnished apartments in our newly renovated East Boston locations

Please check our beautiful Princeton Street apartment available September first and let us know if you or your friends may like to live in one of our properties.

CAJ House is a self – service furnished apartment community, this means we do not provide a front desk. But security and safety are uppermost in our minds. So we offer one extra security feature which distinguishes us from most furnished apartments: we greet you at check in. We do this so we match who are with the copy of the photo ID we requested during the reservation process, we also like to help you with your bags…All other amenities such as wireless internet and cable or Satellite TV and all accommodations you are used to, including your very own kitchen, are provided.