How Can I Help You?
Features
Written by Eric Slack   
Monday, 01 June 2009
How Can I Help You? - Welcome - RedCoat Publishing
Investments in online concierge services coupled with a comprehensive property management system can improve guest services, bring in new revenue streams, and improve operations.
As hoteliers struggle with decreased occupancy and lower rates, spending money on IT investments might sound like a nutty idea. But IT investments in cost-effective solutions that provide value-added services to guests could be the greatest idea ever.

Such is the allure of modern online concierge services. The difficulty is that the ideal online concierge service isn’t a stand-alone application. Instead, it is part of a fully integrated, comprehensive property management system (PMS).

Resistance to change
Everyone understands that the role of a traditional hotel concierge is to help guests with things like appointments at a spa, golf outings, and theater tickets. For hotels without a dedicated concierge, those responsibilities fall on front desk clerks. Even for high-end establishments having concierges on staff is costly, and many positions have been cut as the environment in the hotel industry soured along with the economy. Nevertheless, guests still need access to concierge services.

A virtual concierge allows guests access to traditional concierge services via technology in their room or through their own laptop. Although a virtual concierge isn’t designed to replace a human concierge, it’s a great way to serve guests needing basic services such as fetching maps and directions, booking boarding passes, and finding airline information.  

So why is the industry still moving so slowly in this direction? The easy answer is cost, but that isn’t the whole story. According to a 2008 survey on the current and future use of technology by the American Hotel & Lodging Association, most hotels are still stuck focusing on other IT investment areas.

Currently, technologies hotels are using most frequently to improve their operations include Internet access (77.5%), Wi-Fi networks (72.1%), a hotel Web site (66.8%), online purchasing (46.7%), and energy management systems (39.3%). Although concierge requests via Internet and e-mail were mentioned as another technology that improves operations, it didn’t register a large enough percentage on its own to warrant a spot in the top 15 technologies hotels are using now to improve operations, nor in the top 15 technologies hotels plan to offer in the next five years.

Data protection (66%), interfacing with existing systems (52%), and low return of investment of IT (47%) were cited as the most important issues relating to the installation of new technologies. Clearly, other concerns and fears are standing in the way of many hoteliers recognizing the benefits of this technology.

David Adelson, CEO and president of Intelity, a hospitality software solution company that is focused on the self-service market, has been leading his company’s effort to create the Interactive Customer Experience (ICE) solution for the past three years. Adelson is a 16-year veteran of the luxury hospitality industry, and the ICE system comes with the benefit of being designed by hoteliers for hoteliers.    

“This is a two-spear technology that was built and designed for hoteliers so they can communicate and manage their guests,” said Adelson. “The guestroom space has sat idle for too long. For the guest, it is fun to use, and for the hotel, it helps with revenue management and yield control.”

Enticing opportunity
What makes a technology like ICE so compelling is its comprehensive nature. The application is totally customized, from the branding to the colors and the copy. Intelity trains the staff on how to use the system, provides 24/7 after-sale support, and developed a user-friendly content manager for hotel operators to manage the system. The technology affects every major function in a hotel. Sales and marketing, accounting, food and beverage, convention services, the front desk, and housekeeping are all tied together, connecting all integration points in the hotel.

For the guest, the system is accessed through a 19-inch guestroom touchscreen that acts similarly to an iPhone. Guests are also assigned a username and password and can access the system from their personal laptops or cell phones with Web applications. But this is no rigid airport kiosk.

With the simple swipe of a finger, guests use a fluid system to do things like order room service, play games, and access the online concierge. More than that, Intelity brings revenue to its customers.

“We have branded national partnerships with companies like Six Flags, Hertz, and Alamo, and we allow our hotels to select which national partnerships they want on their customized interface,” said Adelson. “Those national partners pay the hotel for every transaction that happens on their interface.”

Essentially, a good online concierge service comes as part of a fully integrated PMS. The ICE system makes it just as easy for a guest to order Broadway tickets as it does to order room service, and all while providing the hotelier with real-time data and instant communications with guests.

Like any kind of direct marketing, you can communicate directly to a rate code. “If a company is having a convention at a hotel, our system can send out customized messages only to convention attendees,” said Adelson. “From our perspective, when we looked at where the market was headed, the largest commodity a hotel has is the guestroom, and we are taking that commodity and making it a profit center for the hotel.”

Is it a stretch to say this type of technology will be mainstream sometime in the near future? Probably not. It wasn’t that long ago when people didn’t use airport kiosks or online banking service. Now they are the norm. Hotel managers and property owners can take advantage of this downtime in the market by investing in IT systems that include online concierge services as part of a comprehensive PMS.

“Our technology has a very powerful ROI, and one that is impossible to ignore. We bring our customers revenue streams that never existed,” Adelson said. “In a tough economy where hotels are ­looking to reduce expenses, increase revenue, and provide good customer service, we are the solution.”
 
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