• Our destinations

| Make an enquiry | My shortlist

Our purpose, vision, ethics and values

Our purpose

What is the point of SilverDoor? What are we here for? The answer is simple: we exist to provide an independent, alternative and consistent way for our clients to book and use serviced apartments. That is our only business interest and so we are able to focus all of our time and energy on being the best independent serviced apartment agent in our industry.

 

Our vision

We know it sounds cheesy but our long term vision is to be the world's favourite serviced apartment agent. We're constantly striving to ensure that we're providing our clients with the best service we can and that we have the widest range of serviced apartments available, but it's not just about the numbers for us. We also try and regularly review in person all of the serviced apartments we represent, to ensure that standards are consistent and maintained, and that our guests stays turn out at least as well as expected and hopefully exceed their expectations.

 

Our ethics

Over the past two or three years we've been asked more and more often to provide a copy of our company's corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy. We've never been comfortable with the idea that we should write one just because it's expected. We want to be honest and open about what it really means to us.

 

What is a CSR policy anyway, and what is it for? In simple terms, we see it as a statement of a company's awareness of the impact their activities have on others. Supporters of CSR generally seem to believe that companies with a CSR policy potentially benefit by operating with a broader perspective than the narrow goal of short-term profitability. Critics of CSR tend to argue that it's just politically correct window dressing and incompatible with the fundamental economic purpose of businesses.

 

We're not politicians and we don't think it's our job to set social agenda or to take sides in the global warming debate. We're realistic about the fact that whatever we do as a company it will likely have an insignificant impact on the environment, when compared to the combined impact of the major developed and developing countries. We don't beat ourselves up about it. We do, however, recognise that our activities potentially impact in a small way on the planet and on others. We don't think there is anything we can do to stop that impact from occurring, other than not existing, so we think the right thing to do is to be open and honest about our business ethics.

 

This is what we think.

 

We treat all people equally and we're not obsessed with diversity for diversity's sake. We meet and work with people from many different cultural and social backgrounds, we respect them and we like to think we embrace them all. When it comes to working at SilverDoor, we take the view that the best man or woman always gets the job. We're proud of the fact that despite being based in leafy west London, we have people from many different countries and cultural backgrounds working at the company. Between us all we speak more than a dozen languages.

 

We support the education system, and work closely with a number of UK universities to provide several annual placement positions for undergraduates to work in our industry, and to help them develop their business and life skills.

 

We don't make waste for the sake of it. If nothing else, it's not compatible with being as profitable as we can be. We're based in an office and we try hard not to waste paper by printing things out that we can just as easily read on our computer screens. Our reservation system is paperless and we are constantly striving to improve our business processes. We collect all of our empty printer and copier cartridges and send them away for recycling.

 

When it's cold and the heating is on, we don't open all the windows and wave the heat goodbye. Equally, when it's hot and the air conditioning is on, we don't let all the lovely cool air escape. We recognise that energy waste is unnecessary and can be avoided to both our benefit and that of the environment as a whole.

 

We encourage our staff and visitors to come to our office on public transport and chose an office right next to Chiswick Park underground station to make it easy for everyone. We also provide secure bike storage for those that want to cycle to work and, importantly, a shower room to freshen up afterwards. However, we also recognise that sometimes it's just more practical for individuals to commute in the sanctuary and calm of their own car and for those that do drive into work we encourage them to consider car sharing when that's possible.

 

We redesigned and refurbished our office in a careful and thoughtful way, reusing materials where possible and refurbishing where practical. We provide our staff with proper kitchen and dining facilities so that they don't have to throw away disposable cutlery and cartons every day and we recycle all the empty bottles we create. We have proper mugs for tea and coffee which we wash and reuse, not use-once paper ones in an automatic drinks dispenser. We think our brews taste better for this, too.

 

So all in all we think we take a balanced, reasonable, decent and common sense approach to business, the environment around us and to the individuals and businesses we come into contact with. Further to this, there are four core values that we fully believe in and instil in our staff.

 

Our company values

To be friendly and approachable. We try and go about our daily working lives with a positive outlook and we want our clients and our business partners to look forward to meeting us, speaking to us and working with us. We consider ourselves to be a group of very hard working but gracious professionals.

 

To be honest. We always strive to tell the truth, even when it's a difficult truth to hear. It's never easy giving someone bad news or having to saying 'no' when someone wants to hear 'yes'. We don't promise what we can't deliver and when we do promise something then we always go out of our way to make sure it happens.

 

To be entrepreneurial. We're always ready to challenge conventional wisdom when we think it's necessary. We push ourselves to be innovative and to constantly look for ways to improve our business processes.

 

To be commercially minded. As with most companies, our central aim is to be profitable and to grow. We believe that by reinvesting our profits in growth we're able to continually improve our service to our clients. We sometimes have to be tough in business and make tough decisions but we always try to be fair, too, and we expect all our business partners to do the same.

 

If your personal experience of SilverDoor does not tally with our stated vision, ethics and values then please contact me. I promise to do something about it.

Marcus Angell