Running a successful hotel is all about efficiency, but managing efficiency while still giving customers a great experience can be tough. The average hotel no-show rate is 10% every day, which means empty rooms. At the same time, 86% of consumers say they’ve stopped doing business with a company because they had a bad customer experience. That means a constant balancing act between pleasing customers and keeping the place full.
In the modern world, hospitality management software has made it possible to increase efficiency while providing customers with a great online experience. IN recent years, mobile device queries about travel have increased by more than 50%, and an average of 53% of people in the United States use their mobile devices to find travel information. Having the right hotel front desk software is crucial, but how do you find the best hotel software systems?
Look for Hotel Management Systems that Have a Free Trial
The best hotel software systems will offer free trials so you can do a test run and compare systems. This lets you figure out which system will be best for your needs, as well work out some of the kinks early on.
Check Your Rules
If you are running a franchised hotel, be aware that many have rules about what software you’re allowed to use. Some will let the franchises use whatever they prefer. If you’re a small property like a bed and breakfast, you can often use a really basic system.
Know the Two Main Types of Software Systems
One is property management systems, commonly referred to as a PMS system, and the other is a hotel ERP. The best hotel software systems are the ones that best fit your needs and budget. A PMS system is usually adequate for small hotels, but larger chains will need the greater automation and resource optimization of a hotel ERP.
What Features Should the Best Hotel Software Systems Offer?
Obviously there should be point of sale solutions to allow customers to purchase and reservations software to let customers plan their stay. Increasingly, many customers will reject a property outright if they cannot make a reservation online. Other good perks to these systems include maintenance management to track things like taxes and work orders, front desk and housekeeping management to schedule wakeup calls and assign work, and customer relationship management that lets you track the profiles of your guests and do all you can to keep their business.
What are the Benefits of Hotel Software?
The automation that these services provide allow you to improve your control for the sake of efficiency and provide customers a better experience. The systems also allow managers to access information remotely from any device, which lets them take charge of a situation at any moment and fix customer issues promptly. One of the biggest benefits, though, is the expanded market reach such systems provide, and the ability to keep everything seamlessly synced and avoid double bookings or lost bookings.
There are a lot of systems out there worth exploring. Take some for a test drive and evaluate their usability and applicability to your hospitality needs.