Technology is helping to digitalise many processes for hotels. Whether it’s sending automated emails to customers, collecting payments, or another important process – we all know this kind of efficiency is something hotels desperately need. But how exactly do hotel staff themselves benefit from hotel software?
The customer journey is a hot topic right now in the world of hotels. Truly understanding it is like a code every hotelier wants to crack to boost bookings, increase guest spend and nurture loyalty. Hotel software – usually including a hotel management system like SIHOT.PMS – is tangibly helping with this.
But how do employees benefit from using hotel software? Improving staff efficiency is an important pro of implementing hotel technology, but the advantages go beyond this. Here are three major issues hotel employees across the world are grappling with – and how software is helping.
Registering guests
Previously an onerous manual process using paper forms, being able to register guests digitally brings huge efficiencies to employees. It saves them time and stress at the front desk, and digitalisation makes this a guest-led process that customers are generally happy to do. After all, research shows that 73% of travellers want to use self-service technology when they visit a hotel (Hotel Business).
For hotels using self-check-in terminals such as SIHOT.KIOSK, the whole check-in process is guest-led – not just the registration part. Employees only need to be on hand to provide extra assistance, or to create an elevated experience such as providing free welcome drinks.
An efficient check-in process is already a huge boost for time-stretched staff, but hotel software can also improve the quality of data your hotel captures for each guest. With functions such as compulsory fields, every guest has to input certain information. It removes inconsistencies in the data you hold as a hotel, and helps to remove errors from the process, for example, by asking a guest to enter their email address twice to verify it. This can all feed directly into your hotel’s customer relationship management system such as SIHOT.CRM. This can support employees across the hotel involved in communicating with guests, whether it’s for marketing or sending necessary information like billing.
2. Managing meals
The breakfast service can be the most stressful time of day for hotel staff, especially in hotels where a large proportion of guests have breakfast included in their rate. Dealing with long queues of people who arrive all at once, then holding them up further by manually checking them off a list, is no fun for anyone.
Hotel software can make a major difference here. Through software such as SIHOT.MOBILE, staff can quickly check which guests are entitled to breakfast using a tablet or smartphone. They can check them off when they enter the restaurant, or charge breakfast directly to the guest’s account if it’s not included in their rate. The same functionality can be applied to hotels who offer half board or full board meal plans too. This has a huge impact on operations, with 77% of restaurants who implement new technology saying efficiency improves (Restaurant Technology News).
As well as saving time and reducing stress at busy meal services, this technology can increase the efficiency of hotels more broadly. By using the software to see a meal plan overview, staff can see how many guests have already consumed their breakfast or another meal. This enables managers to be reactive in real-time and redeploy staff who are no longer needed in the restaurant.
3. Housekeeping and maintenance
Hitting daily housekeeping targets within a specific time frame can be tough for all hotels, particularly on busy changeover days where there’s high occupancy. Housekeeping staff working in hotels that haven’t implemented software to manage this lose a lot of time navigating ‘do not disturb’ signs and trying to work out if a guest has checked out yet or not. Solutions such as SIHOT.MOBILE show the status of each room, including which rooms have been recently vacated. An overview of how many arrivals and departures are due on the day can also help employees manage staffing accordingly.
This software works in a similar way for managing maintenance tasks. Requests for maintenance jobs can be logged via smartphone with complete descriptions and photos. It means jobs can be allocated to the relevant staff quickly, and the status can be seen by all team members who need an update. Staff benefit by spending more time completing tasks instead of doing time-consuming admin related to the tasks.
SIHOT.PMS offers a range of modules to support this. Contact us to find out how SIHOT could help to solve some of your employees’ biggest issues.