4 reasons to use technology to improve operational communication and its impact on Revenue Management
Written by Erlendur Steinn Gudnason, Co-Founder & COO at Sweeply.
How do you communicate with your colleagues? Through email, Whatsapp, Walkie Talkie, or another workplace messaging service, right?
This isn’t the case in a lot of hotels: in fact, a lot of teams in the industry still rely on good old-fashioned pen and paper.
The problem? Taking this approach can have a serious impact on the guest experience, efficiency, and team relationships.
For example, say a housekeeper finds a damaged item in one of the hotel rooms. They leave a note for maintenance with the person at the front desk, who accidentally hides it under another pile of paper. Maintenance misses the note and doesn’t make the repair.
As a result, the damage gets worse and the room eventually is marked as out of service - which results in a lost sale for the hotel. Not ideal.
Fortunately, there are plenty of technologies teams can use to avoid situations like this (and we happen to know a good one if you’re looking 😉).
In this blog post, we’re going to run through three benefits of using tech to improve communication between the front desk, housekeeping and maintenance. Without further ado - let’s get started:
A stress-free workday
A good task management tool should allow management to set tasks for each team member, so they can easily see at a glance what they have to do each day. Team members should be able to mark tasks as complete, so they can manage and keep track of their workdays - and see what everyone else is working on, too. Having this level of clarity and oversight keeps your teams working closely together, even when they’re situated in different parts of your hotel.
Keeping everything digitized and in one place reduces the risk of human error - which keeps things efficient and stress-free. Plus, it gives management complete oversight over the hotel with just one glance.
A better guest experience
Imagine one of your guests finds something not up to standard when they check into their room. Perhaps there’s some lost property left in the room, or maybe some of the electrics aren’t working. Sub-optimal, of course - but a task management tool will help your team put things right as quickly as possible.
Say the guest takes the issue to the front desk. The front desk team member inputs it into the tool: let’s say they’re using Sweeply. Housekeeping will be notified, and be able to quickly capture a photo of the issue and send it, along with their notes, to the relevant member of the maintenance team. The maintenance team can see all the issues they have to sort out all in one place - and is able to head to the source of the problem in no time at all. Sorted.
A more efficient hotel
When your staff know what they’re doing, can communicate easily and don’t require much input from their management, they’ll be able to work more quickly and efficiently. And we all know that a more efficient team means increased revenue for your hotel.
Plus, with everything digitized in one central platform management can understand exactly what’s going on, without having to hassle the different teams for insights. They’ll be able to measure staff productivity, optimize schedules, and track efficiency. These data-driven insights will improve your hotel operations in the long run - which, again, means more revenue.
An improved revenue management process
Remember the situation we mentioned at the start of this blog post? Clear communications regarding room status is vital to enable the front desk to do their job when it comes to revenue management: upselling, cross-selling, allocation of room types, and more.
Simply put, if your team doesn’t have up-to-date information, they won’t be able to manage revenue opportunities and optimize costs elsewhere too. And as we all know, in today’s economy every cent counts.
Improving communication between your staff: final thoughts
The implementation of technology and change of processes within your teams not only streamlines communication and operations but also enhances revenue management by ensuring that resources are allocated efficiently, leading to increased profitability.
Plus, they can say goodbye to pen and paper for good. We’ll take that as a win.
Want to find out more about what a task management tool can do for your hotel? Find out how IslandHotels improved cross-departmental communication with Sweeply.
A post by Sweeply
Sweeply simplifies housekeeping and task management for the hospitality industry and provides less workload, waste & carbon footprint. Currently serving over 150 clients across 20 countries, Sweeply offers a cutting-edge app & web app tailored to elevate the efficiency of your housekeeping, guest services, and maintenance teams.
Get in touch to find our more or schedule a free demo adapted to your unit reality.