Running a hotel is not for the faint-hearted. Is your PMS doing the heavy lifting?

Managers and owners are juggling staffing and HR, billing and reporting, housekeeping and table reservations, payment systems and stock control, gift vouchers and so much more. There’s guest engagement and the whole guest journey and experience to think about, while making sure you are visible where you need to be, at the right price – neither selling rooms too cheaply, nor pricing yourself out of the market, while still making a margin.

Most property management systems and associated integrations will tackle all these elements, most of which have little pockets of pain hidden somewhere in the folds. But, not every PMS is right for every hotel, and the capacity and functionality of the system you choose will partly depend on whether you are part of a group or an independent; a pub with rooms (that may not, for example, have a reception team) or a full service hotel which needs to be able to integrate spa bookings and other extra experiences.

“Ease of use is so important”

Groups and larger properties often have a management team which is highly tech-proficient, sometimes with a dedicated IT manager, and so they are able to delve deeper into individual functions and really get the most from them. By contrast, many independent hotels will usually see their management resource spread quite thinly while also relying on seasonal staff – this scenario tends to lend itself to ease of use being of utmost importance.

“Ease of use is actually so important, whatever the type of hotel,” said Sarah Cade, MD of Rezcontrol. “Whether you are big or small, if your PMS is complicated, neither management nor reception staff will do more than scratch the surface, in turn making their jobs more complicated and time-consuming. Therefore at Rezcontrol we set out to ensure that there are no functions buried deep in menus, which means our customers will inevitably get more out of the system. This is why most key functions are accessible from the planner screen.”

The PMS prescription to cure your pain points – and make your life smoother, easier and more profitable

Here are some of the most common areas where we hear customers have struggled to find the easiest or most appropriate solutions within their PMS – and these are therefore the ones Rezcontrol has thrown resources at to resolve, to make hoteliers’ lives smoother, easier and more profitable.

• Personalised support and customer service makes a real difference – do you have a dedicated account manager?

Before we get into the technical detail, lack of support from PMS providers is probably the most common bone of contention we hear when we ask why new customers are leaving their old provider, so this is really important to find out about before signing up. We often hear about disjointed communications, no one point of contact, no account manager, inability to call and speak to a human being, and support tickets which are left unresolved for long periods. With Rezcontrol though, tech support will respond very quickly, and the customer will usually have the same point of contact from the initial call or email, through to resolution, without being shoved from pillar to post. Our UK-based tech support is available, in person, 365 days a year.

If you’re interested in reading more about our service, do have a look at our testimonials page!

• How intuitive and accessible is your calendar screen – and how many front desk functions can you access from it?

Most PMS systems will have a calendar screen, at Rezcontrol it’s called our “planner”. Not all of these screens are created equal. Rezcontrol’s planner is designed to make life as easy as possible for reception staff, as they can arrange the layout to their individual preferences.

Beyond that, team members can either carry out or access practically every front office function from the planner screen – edit a booking, drag and drop a booking to another room, drag to extend or shorten a stay, or change the booking status and check a guest in or out. There is no need to move around the system, opening more tabs and saving endless changes. This will not only save staff time and headaches – it will also minimise errors.

• Group bookings – are they easy to manage within the system, and can you adjust ‘one, some or all’ group members at a click?

Group bookings can cause issues for hotels, as there will often be variables in terms of arrival or departure times and dates, prices, travel arrangements, to name but a few . If this rings a (more than one) bell, you’ll be happy to hear that Rezcontrol offers easy yet highly sophisticated group booking management.

“We’ve been told by hotels dealing with lots of group bookings that Rezcontrol is a game changer”

Functionality includes updating stay dates, rates, pricing, upsells, notes, and more for one, a selection, or all rooms in a group, in a couple of clicks – with no need to edit each one individually. You can also split a group into separate groups, and route charges to a master room or separate account, depending on the needs of each group. We’ve been told by hotels dealing with lots of group bookings that Rezcontrol is a game changer, saving hours of admin on group booking management and preventing costly errors.

• Rate management – have you found it clunky and time-consuming to adjust your rates? And are your derived rates and restrictions easy to set across the board?

This is another common sore point for hoteliers, as even if a PMS facilitates derived rates, some don’t offer the advanced functionalities that really streamline your rate management processes. Rezcontrol’s derived rates are especially intuitive and easy to use as you can apply restrictions across all rates in one go, for instance ‘minimum nights stay’ or ‘closed to arrival’ dates closed out to bookings.

Rezcontrol will also allow you to apply two levels of price adjustment to a derived rate, be it a discount or an addition, after setting the master rate. So, for example, if the master rate is for bed and breakfast, your 1st derived rate might be for the room only, £15 cheaper, and the 2nd might be for room only, advance purchase, with the same £15 discount, plus an additional 10% off for being non-refundable. Crucially you are only ever managing one rate, and the rest follow suit.

• Email automations are not just for billing – are yours driving revenue and loyalty?

Some systems offer more sophisticated marketing email automations than others. Often seen as vital for confirming bookings, they can actually address a pain point by not only saving time manually creating emails, and reducing the potential for error, but with Rezcontrol they can easily be set up to reflect your brand and drive more business.

Rezcontrol’s email automation options cover everything from booking confirmations, invoices and payment requests to pre- and post-stay emails, enabling you to encourage take up of extras such as a bottle of champagne in the room, a spa treatment or dinner reservation, while a post-stay email can encourage loyalty with a review link and a returning guest discount.

• Payment services – have you eliminated chargebacks yet? Auto-schedule multi-stage payments and set payment rules for each rate – while protecting everyone’s security

We hear a lot of grumbles about payment systems with some providers. Some involve multiple steps and suffer from a lack of automation, while chargebacks which are a real source of pain for hoteliers!

We take pride in putting everything in one place, ensuring security and protecting both the hotel’s and their guests’ data with items like 3D Secure requests for payment links, and chip and pin pre-authorisation to counter chargebacks. Meanwhile, RezPay will auto-schedule multi-stage payments, providing reassurance to both hotel and guest alike.

Hotels can also set custom payment rules for each rate (e.g. a single night’s booking must be paid in advance), while ease of use comes in the form of PDQ integration and a fully-enabled self-check-out process, saving staff time and offering convenience to guests.

• Does your system make complex events seamless? And how many variables can you offer your event guests?

Many of our customers rely on their wedding and event business, but organising complex, multi-stage, multi-dimensional events while not neglecting your regular guests requires the technical agility of a hotel Houdini.

But not only does Rezcontrol make coordinating the bookings for bedrooms, event spaces and F+B easy – we also set out to satisfy even the most specific and demanding of guests!

“We designed the events module in Rezcontrol so we can literally cater for everything,” said Sarah. “Our bespoke event templates can display almost unlimited options when the hotel is setting up the parameters for a guest wedding or other function – whether it needs to take into account multiple timings, food options or reservation preferences.”

• Gift vouchers – no more digging around in the archive! Does your system track the redemption as well as the sale?

The element of gift vouchers that cause most pain to hoteliers is the tracking – and this means that many hoteliers know they could generate substantial revenue from them, but they are put off by the tortuous admin which can be involved.

With many gift voucher systems, there is still a substantial paper-based element, making it almost impossible to know, without digging into the archives, what you’ve sold, what’s been redeemed, what has yet to be redeemed, and how to account for it.

In Rezcontrol, however, each sale is accounted for and redeemed within the system, so the PMS handles and reports on the redemption as well as the sale. Your guests can part spend a voucher – the balance remains in the system – and when you redeem it in Rezcontrol it checks the balance automatically.

“Gift vouchers are a great source of revenue for hotels, but often they don’t bother because it’s such a pain to do the admin, so they wonder if the revenue is worth the headache,” said Sarah. “That doesn’t have to be the case.”

• No more empty tables – your PMS can avoid lost opportunities! Are your room and table reservations integrated?

Finally, a quick note on room and table bookings. It should be so simple, but not all systems will cancel a related dining reservation if a guest has to cancel their room. This happens automatically in Rezcontrol, so your hotel need never have an empty table boasting an unused ‘reserved’ sign ever again!

Rezcontrol – the listening PMS

We hope this month’s blog has provided some food for thought about pain points and how a good PMS can address them, and can make life easier and simpler for your staff.

We are justifiably proud of Rezcontrol’s intuitive nature, and the fact that we listen and respond to requests from customers means we are always making customer-specific improvements and evolving the system to serve them better.

“We believe this creates a real beneficial cycle which adds value in terms of both saving time and increasing revenue for our customers,” concluded Sarah.

Not a customer? Call us on +44 (0)330 223 1456 or email sales@rezcontrol.com – you can also book a chat or contact us for a demo.