A Property Management System (PMS) helps hotels make significant cost and time savings, but only if it’s implemented efficiently. So how can you squeeze the maximum value from your PMS? There are three key areas to focus on.
A significant 91% of hotels have a PMS, and 86% of hoteliers say the PMS is the most important technology for their day-to-day operations. The benefits of a PMS are far-reaching. It can help hotels manage many aspects of their operations, including reservations, check-ins and billing. It can capture guest preferences, which helps improve the overall guest experience. It can automate processes and provide analytics to help with staff efficiency. And it can support revenue by managing rates, occupancy and sales channels.
With so many possible functionalities, hoteliers can sometimes feel they’re not maximising the potential value of the PMS. So what should you focus on to give the performance of your PMS a boost? There are three key things to start with.
1. Automate everyday tasks
One of the notable benefits of a PMS is the ability to automate tasks that are time-consuming for employees to do. It’s important to check you have automations set up within your PMS that will bring overall efficiencies to hotel operations.
Most hoteliers will have already automated reservation management, so that bookings are accepted and processed from multiple channels, allocating rooms and managing real-time room availability.
Another brilliant time-saver for staff that can be automated through the PMS includes check-in and check-out. For example, through SIHOT.PMS this functionality can be supported by SIHOT.KIOSK and the SIHOT.GO! app for guests, which has a Pre-Check-In functionality. Automating housekeeping and maintenance tasks is another quick-win for hotels, and this can be achieved with SIHOT through SIHOT. MOBILE.
2. Maximise the use pre- and post-stay emails
Another way that a hotel PMS can work harder for you is to set up consistent and engaging communications with guests. By setting up pre-stay emails, hotels can communicate key information about reservations, as well as promote on-site facilities and offers before guests arrive. This is a great way to build engagement with guests – which is a good idea for brand-building – but it can also drive ancillary revenue.
Post-stay emails can ask guests for feedback, which enables hotels to continuously improve service delivery. Post-stay emails are also crucial for keeping guests engaged with a hotel brand, supporting efforts to build customer loyalty and drive direct bookings in the future.
SIHOT.PRE & POST-STAY enables hotels to automate these communications, which improves the guest experience and reduces the time employees spend on manual tasks.
3. Train staff (and ask for their feedback)
Ensuring staff know how to use the PMS effectively is another important strand of improving the performance of the PMS. Implementing the technology into your hotel is one thing; but ensuring it is fully embedded takes consistent and continuous staff training.
Selecting a PMS with good customer support plus staff training opportunities is critical. Supplementing the 24/7 support available to all customers, SIHOT also gives hoteliers access to SIHOT.ACADEMY. This includes short eLearning videos to help hotel staff learn as they go, plus longer tutorials for more in-depth learning and development.
For some hoteliers, the missing piece of the puzzle is staff input. What tasks are employees still doing manually on a daily basis, and can the PMS help with this? And do staff have any feedback on how the PMS is currently being used, or suggestions for additional modules they would benefit from?
Every hotel is different, and this means the definition of a perfect PMS varies between hoteliers. By choosing a modular PMS such as SIHOT.PMS, hotels can use the modules and functionalities that add value to their specific property. Contact us to find out how we can help.