Hotels and resorts are 24-hour businesses. During the bustle of morning check-outs and afternoon check-ins, hotel staff make thousands of data calls to their hotel software and process thousands of transactions. Even late at night when most of the guests are tucked into their beds, the night auditor is hard at work processing the prior day and prepping for the next. Should there be any problem with the hotel property management system, a support tech is only a phone call away to provide immediate support.
Having a trained property management system support technician available 24-hours a day by phone provides the peace of mind that a busy resort or hotel requires. However, many times a hotel needs information services more than a “fix”. With the high rate of turnover in the hospitality industry, new staff and managers need resources for training and understanding the property management system and often they’d prefer to be able to access those resources at their own pace.
Discussion forums have long been a useful tool for software users to ask and receive help from other users and software experts. Promoting the use of these forums encourages the user community to assist each other and it’s a great way to connect with peers at similar hotels and resorts that encounter the same issues.
Another online tool includes the use of a system to suggest enhancements or additions for hotel PMS. When users can pose ideas to improve software and then discuss these ideas among a broad user community, the hotel PMS provider can clearly see those ideas which have a lot of traction and can benefit the broadest number of hotels. And before putting out a new idea, a user can search and see if anyone else is already discussing a particular enhancement.
Some hotel property management systems offer users groups which provide additional access to the user community as well as networking and support. If the users group includes a conference, this is a great way to really expand your knowledge of the hotel software as well as gain better connections in the industry.
Training used to be something that only happened in training rooms with live instructors, but now with online learning systems training can occur wherever and whenever. With e-learning your staff can train on the hotel PMS when it’s convenient. Everyone benefits from consistency in training the same procedures and tasks.
Of course live training is still extremely useful. Options include hiring a hotel PMS trainer to come on site and perform training or even custom live online training for your hotel or resort. Another option is to join webinars that take about an hour and provide some overview into features or functionality that may be unfamiliar. Often these webinars are recorded, so if you can’t join as scheduled, registering will ensure that you get a link to the recorded version as soon as it is posted.
Online knowledge-bases and help centers can assist users researching additional functionality. Containing software documentation, videos and other detailed information, these sites are authored by topical experts and are a fantastic way to explore informational needs.
So, while 24-hour phone support for your hotel PMS is crucial, there are many other resources that can help you with less mission critical support needs. Utilizing these resources can maximize your investment in your hotel software, keep your staff trained and effective and allow your property to stay one step ahead.
Want to know more about these resources? Contact us for more information on how Springer-Miller Systems supports all of our customers.