The Independent Hotelier's Guide to Property Management System Selection

The 12 Steps of PMS Evaluation - Step 6, Drill Down And Identify Specific Needs

Step 6 - Drill down and identify specific needs in relation to your property management system requirements.

This process will help your team cover all the bases, make your needs crystal clear and provide a thorough understanding of your business process.  The end result of Step 6, will be a detailed evaluation checklist that corresponds with your specific business needs as well as the needs of your guests.

Note:
Not understanding the business process in detail is a major contributing factor to experiencing surprises or missing functionality that is required for your business.      

Looking back to Step 5, you identified business needs and  guest needs.  Step 6 is where you drill down to understand and to list those needs in more detail.

Continue to ask yourself if the item on the list is a must have or a nice to have function.  The list you need to focus on for this step is the must haves. Keep your list for the nice to have functions separate.

Determining the flow and order of the business processes that need to be accomplished for your hotel, will guide you towards the functionality that you require in your property management system.

It all starts with the guest making a reservation. Reservations may originate on-line or by phone for example, so begin here with the reservation flow and follow that reservation through to each touch point for your guest and your organization, from reservation to check-in to check-out. Don't forget special requests, confirmations, housekeeping and charges that may occur on a guest bill.  Accounting requirements for billing and guest follow-up after their stay should also be included. 

Creating a flow chart is the easiest way for your team to visualize the flow and to list your requirements accordingly.

Jeff Sefton

The 12 Steps of PMS Evaluation - Step 5, Identify Business Needs And Identify Guest Needs

Step 5 - Identify business needs and identify guest needs

Although a guest need may also be considered a business need, you will find that separating business and guest needs at the beginning is helpful in the needs identification process.

A good example of a business need may be the ability for the property management system to calculate Travel Agent commissions, offer reconciliation of, and production of cheques for your Travel Agents.  A guest need may be the identification of return guests for your recognition process. A guest need may also be automation of specific functions that increase guest service or satisfaction. 

An easy way to work through your business and guest needs list, is to use post it notes on a wall or blackboard. If you are able to meet in an area where you can keep the notes up for further meetings, great!

Otherwise take a photo and post the notes again at your next meeting, or perhaps tape them to a flip chart that you can bring to each meeting.

Jeff Sefton

The 12 Step Plan - Step 4, Define your Property and Identify your Primary Market Segment

Step 4. Define your Property and Identify your Primary Market Segment:

Defining your property type and primary market segment will help guide you to areas that you need to spend more time on during the property management system evaluation process. 

• A resort hotel compared to a city hotel would differ considerably in their primary market segment. The city hotel has a primary market segment of corporate and a resort hotel has a primary market segment of leisure.
• A hotel located close to a highway would likely get a lot of transient guests where a hotel in a city business centre would get a large percentage of guests that are traveling on business.
  
• A resort hotel may have the need to print vouchers for activities or perhaps ski passes.
• A boutique hotel may rely heavily on guest history to identify and acknowledge return guests.
• A convention hotel may rely heavily on the groups module within the property management system.
• An extended stay hotel may have the need to post monthly room charges as opposed to daily room charges.    

As you can see from the above, the hotel type and the market segment have a direct correlation between the needs of the hotel and the emphasis on the functions of the property management system that the hotel staff will be using to carry out their daily duties.   

Property Types:

• City Hotel
• Resort Hotel
• Boutique Hotel
• Property Management - Extended Stay Accommodation
• Bed and Breakfast

Market Segments:

• Corporate.....- Business
• Group............- Weddings/Events/Sports Teams
• Leisure..........- Vacationers
• Discount........- AAA/CAA Members and Other
• Government..- Government Employees
• Wholesalers..- Business from Tour Companies

Service Offerings:

• Full Service Hotel – offering a wide variety of amenities for your guests such as restaurant, room service and banquet facilities.
• Medium Service Hotel – May have a coffee shop, meeting facilities.
• Limited Service Hotel – No Restaurant or banquet facilities, may offer continental breakfast.

Jeff Sefton