Client Engagement: The Road Ahead

The hotel industry is in a state of constant change and evolution. As a result, our software must keep pace and in many ways, stay ahead of this change. An area where we can improve our development cycle is engaging current clients/users of our product, gaining your insights and suggestions and incorporating these changes to our product going forward. 

Communication with our clients has, up to now, been focused on a subset of our overall user base. Going forward we are going to change this! Every one of you is important to us and we want your insights into our software and its corresponding strengths and weaknesses.  Your feedback is extremely valuable.  

Starting in the coming weeks watch your email inbox as I will be contacting you to set up a time to have a chat regarding how you feel our software is functioning within your business.  I realize you are all very busy, and I will work around your schedule to find a time which works for you. Initiating a dialogue is a great way for us to learn about the real world application of our feature set, and who knows; perhaps you will learn something during the process as well!

Thank you all in advance for your cooperation and I look forward to speaking with each of you in the coming weeks/months.

The Notes Of Summer

With the summer season approaching isn’t it a good time to search for a new Property Management System? As much as we would love your business, we feel summer presents a great opportunity for you evaluate your current system and it’s potential to fill your future needs – not necessarily switch to a new system.

With your hotel at its busiest, your Guest Services Agents stressed, your lobby bustling with current and potential guests; these are the times when you need your software to function flawlessly. 

While your time is precious, especially in high occupancy situations, a note here and there can make all the difference when it comes time to implement new software. Take the time to make quick notes on what does and does not work. Additionally, have your staff do the same when they notice operational issues. Have the staff subsequently pass these notes along to the appropriate person(s). 

Upon the conclusion of your busy season these notes will form the foundation for an analysis or your current system and its adequacy at meeting your needs. Any potential failure points – contained in your current software – should be immediately addressed should you decide to search for new software. 

You can never have too many questions for a software sales team. Remember having current issues/questions ready will pay dividends when it comes to finding software which fits within your organization. 

Should you ever have any questions please do not hesitate to check out our website here, or send us an email. 

June Webinar - Housekeeping Management

Smart Hotel Software, as a method to deliver added value to clients, has started hosting monthly webinars. Our first webinar dealt with maintenance strategies and issues. As an extension of this topic, June's webinar is going to deal with housekeeping management. 

Join Doug Ash and  learn how to leverage our housekeeping modules and reporting to bring your housekeeping staff into the 21st century.  Speed up communication with the front desk, simplify housekeeper allocation and improve tracking/results are some of the topics which will be covered We hope you will gain some valuable tools which you can apply on a daily basis in your property!

The webinar takes place June 14 at 10AM (PST). If you would like to reserve a spot please email us here. 

We look forward to seeing you then!

Redundancy Is Never Redundant

Every minute, every hour, every day you and your GSA’s use your Property Management System. If your system were to fail, would they even know how to make a reservation on paper? 

When we first got the call from their I/T team lead the server was DOA and all work stations were frozen. Upon a quick chat, our top priority was to get a computer up and running to minimize disruptions to their daily routine. Once the I/T team had freed a workstation we opened up a remote connection and proceeded to install our software. While we do not recommend running the database on a work station, drastic times call for drastic measures. Following the install they were up and running and they could operate in a familiar – software- centric environment.

The properties I/T team sourced a new server and had it ready the following day, where the install process began again to bring their entire system online. While a major inconvenience, it could have been a lot worse – imagine if the property was not able to gain a functional workstation, they would have been severely handicapped for 24 hours. Not to mention some potential clients would have been off put by the arising inefficiencies.  

In conclusion I hope you take heed of these words, and learn from the misfortune of others. Use this as an opportunity to discuss this issue with your I/T team. Are you making regular backs ups? What is the time to source a new server? Can you reach your I/T team 24 hours a day? These are questions I cannot answer but I hope you have the urge to ask.

The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall

What do Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Sheraton have in common? Besides being some of the largest hotel chains in the world, all four recently failed the Travel Website Functionality Benchmark. This test was developed and instituted by Forrester Research and evaluated the hotels on 63 individual benchmarks. 

The study sought to determine how companies' websites presents the "discovery of opportunities in search and navigation that inspire the traveler to choose planned and unplanned options." Upon the conclusion of the investigation Forrester determined that the websites were not worthy of a passing grade.

Vijay Dandapani mentioned this study in his writings on May 14. I found the article interesting and jarring to say the least. If four of the biggest hotel companies in the world have subpar websites, how does your fair? At the very least giving this article a quick read will make your website salient in your thoughts as you determine new and innovative ways to appeal guests and their ever changing preferences. 

The full article is available here

Working For The Weekend

It’s Friday afternoon. For most of us the week is winding down. The sight of the hour hand striking five o’clock is repeatedly flashing through our mind as we try to finish the week strong. However, for most hoteliers, and your GSA’s, the busy part of the week is just beginning. 

Having dabbled in the front desk myself I can attest to the fact that Friday and Saturday were always action packed and, my week, was anything but winding down. Conversely, it was about to get crazy. The key question for hoteliers in many markets is how to minimize the weekly cyclical fluctuations in demand and have a more consistent and higher occupancy, week in and week out. 

Some proven strategies to drive weekly occupancy which I have come across in my career have been:

            3^rd Party Travel Agent Discounts

o   As much as the third parties take a sizable percentage of your gross room revenue/reservation booked, room nights are perishable and need to be sold. Third party agents and engines are still a major driver of traffic to hotel properties and offering lower rates on days when your occupancy percentage is suffering can be a major driver of sales.

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        Internal Promotional Initiatives

o   Promotional offerings such as stay two nights - get one free, with a Sunday to Tuesday booking stipulation, may be a good way to raise your occupancy percentage and, as a result, you’re RevPar. As a hotel property you will have to decide which days require an increase in traffic and determine initiatives which offer superior value to consumers, value to which they can’t help but say yes.

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        Social Media Initiatives

o   As much as I loathe mentioning social media, as I believe it is somewhat overhyped in today’s marketing discussions, it can be a valuable way to reach your client base and create a minor buzz. Getting the word out to customers who know and “like” your product, can be a valuable way to add traction to various promotional activities.

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        Courting Of The Corporates

o   Re-allocation of your sales team to focus more on the corporate travellers, whether it is through relationship building, discounting or value added supplementary offerings, this market is one of the most desirable ways to drive your business.  They usually check out early, make very little mess and offer business during the Sunday – Thursday portion of the week.

These are just some preliminary ideas which again, I have seen used during my time in hotels. It is ultimately up to you and your sales team to sit down and decide which days you need to increase occupancy and the corresponding strategies to address this need.

We wish you a great weekend and continued success.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

As many of you know we are located in beautiful West Vancouver BC. I read an interesting and promising article yesterday for Western Canadian hoteliers whose trends, we hope, can be extrapolated to 2011. 

According to PFK Consulting, 2010 ADR increased $4 (to $133), and RevPar $3 (to $80) among Western Canadian hotels. It should be noted that occupancy level maintained constant with those reported the previous year. While not the growth, in terms of gross number of travellers, the industry was hoping for, the increases in ADR and RevPar helped 2010 improved over the revenue numbers reported at year end 2009. 

How did the rest of the continent and world fare? Did you find your numbers matched those reported by PFK or is Western Canada an outlier in the greater scheme of the hospitality industry? I will have to consult the reports to be certain, but it seems 2011 is shaping up to be the best year in recent memory.