Let automation lead the way
Every day in the hotel industry, we meet a variety of unique guests, yet we still spend our days performing the same recurring tasks. Indeed, if you didn’t have so many repetitive tasks to accomplish, just imagine how much you could improve your work and guest satisfaction. Good news! Automation can make that dream a reality! Any good PMS (Property Management Software) will help you automate many aspects of your work. Here are some examples.
The booking process
Automation begins with booking. When booking is done online, the booking engine must have access to the very latest, up-to-date inventory. Information about inventory derives from the Hotel PMS. For this information to be available in real time, your PMS and your booking engine must be integrated. Without this integration, the inventory must be done manually on your booking engine, which could lead to adverse impacts, such as overbooking or, conversely, to a loss of sales because too many restrictions are placed on the inventory.
Once a booking is complete, it is automatically sent to your Hotel Management System. Once again, when the booking engine and hotel software are integrated, the process is seamless and happens automatically, so there’s nothing left to do by hand.
Room allocation
Hotels must manage available space efficiently and use rooms equally. There’s no better way to do this than letting automation work for you to automatically allocate rooms. The property management software packages that offer this option use an algorithm to optimize room allocation.
Communication
Communicate even more efficiently with your current or future guests. Your PMS System can easily automate tasks such as sending confirmations, stay reminders and thank-you messages.
Payments
With the necessary integration between a Hotel PMS and payment provider, payments can also be automated. This type of automation covers debit and credit card transactions as well as batch closures. Payment automation does much more than simplify tasks, though. It also secures transactions with a PIN, eliminates data entry errors and saves considerable time when balancing the cash.
Report generation
Another item that can be automated is report generation. Granted, generating reports isn’t the most arduous task. Still, you’ll save precious time by simply programming them once so that they’re automatically extracted according to a set schedule. All you’ll have left to do is read them!
Check-ins and check-outs
Electronic terminal/PMS integration offers a new type of automation. This new technology makes autonomous check-in and check-out possible. From the hotelier’s point of view, no intervention is required. This innovation is likely to revolutionize the hotel industry very quickly.
The more your recurring tasks are automated, the more efficient you’ll be in your other tasks. As a bonus, you’ll have more time to spend with guests, increasing their satisfaction rather than frittering away valuable time.