I’ve always been intrigued by the Japanese concept of the capsule hotel: the idea of squeezing yourself into a slightly over-sized coffin in a city where space is at such a premium as it is in Tokyo makes such great sense at one level, but feels so deeply alien at another. Our over-populated culture has glorified space to such an extent that more space has come to mean more luxury, even if we have no possible use for all that space. I for one, still get a thrill being upgraded to a junior suite in the old European hotels where the term usually means something resembling a football field-sized room. Even if I’m only staying for a few hours sleep between a workshop and a flight home, it still gives that sense of enviable luxury and the illogical belief that I will enjoy this night’s sleep more because I’m in a huge room!

One night last week as I was finishing groups late at the office, then flying out to Amsterdam at un-godly o’clock, I decided to trade a night at home in the luxury of my own bed for an extra hour’s sleep staying near Heathrow Airport. The Hilton was going to cost an arm and a leg for a few hours sleep, so I leapt at the chance to try out the Yotel in T4 instead.

It’s dead easy. You arrive, check in at an ATM-style screen and get a receipt with your ‘cabin’ details on, including a code to access the free in-room wi-fi. The cabin is tiny, but with just about adequate room to change, but the bathroom is en-suite (better than Formule 1 in France, then) and the bed is plenty long enough (although the duvet is a bit light for a freezing January night – take your jim-jams). The cabin is pretty well sound-proofed and there is multi-channel TV and radio.

There was, however, a problem. Reserving a room was easy – a few clicks of the mouse and a credit card and I reached a screen with my reservation code and a message reassuring me that this code would also be sent to my email and my phone as a text. I rashly decided not to make a note of the code, trusting the system to deliver it to my Blackberry. A couple of hours later, as no confirmation email had arrived, I phoned Yotel and asked for it to be sent again (this time taking the precaution of writing it down, just in case). Once again, nothing arrived.

Unlike lots of modern boutique hotels, where style definitely reigns over substance (what is the point of paying through the nose for a designer bath-tub if the room is so badly sound-proofed you can hear every single word of the late night phone conversation of the person in the room next to you?!?) Yotel is a fabulous concept – it delivers against a genuine need, providing a clean, comfortable place to get your head down when you don’t need the facilities of a hotel. If they could get the customer service detail right, it would be a great concept that actually works and have the right elements for a strong brand.