Hotel management software often becomes a great asset to the modern hospitality business. Still, lots of ready-made solutions offer complex interfaces, low functionality, and a bunch of unnecessary features. That’s why more and more companies tend to develop software specifically for their business needs.
In our article, I’m going to cover main functions of a hotel management software, explain what technologies are used for its development and explain why your business can run twice as effective with a top-rated HMS.
Hotel Management Modules and Features
Hotel management software implies a complex system that is often split into modules according to the role they perform. Basically, they can be divided into 4 groups:
- Reservation module
- Analytical features
- Housekeeping
- Customer relationship management
Now let’s review these modules in details, paying attention to their main features.
Reservation Module
Customers mainly start interacting with hotels not with checking-in but making a reservation. This module allows hotel staff to add and store customers’ reservation details like check-in and check-out days, clients’ preferences, number of people to expect, etc. Most popular features of this module include:
Booking engine. As more and more people tend to book rooms online, booking is one of the most important Hotel management software features. This is how it works: when guests are booking a room on a hotel’s website, the system shows available rooms and possible check-in dates. Once the details are selected, customers can make payments via various means (credit card, PayPal, Stripe and more). Finally, after the booking completion, the details are transferred to hotel staff to review.
Reservation processes. Once the customers finish booking, Hotel management software automatically marks the number of days they stay for as taken. Hotel staff can review and edit these details – change the number of dates, add transportation means or exclusive services, etc.
Channel management. Services like Servr is extremely popular these days. They are called Online Travel Agencies (OTA) and are widely used in the hospitality sphere. OTAs are integrated with Hotel management software systems to show up-to-date information over all distribution channels. Thus, customers can book rooms not only from the hotel’s website but from OTAs as well.
Analytical Features
It doesn’t matter if hotel owners run small or large-sized business – they need to track income and expenditures in any case. That’s why they should be able to draw a report at the end of a specific period, keeping finances under control.
Revenue management. Using the feature, it’s simple to monitor the financial situations and understand when there’s the time to take actions and maximize profitability. By monitoring everyday income and expenses, hoteliers can easily find out what led to gains or downfalls.
Building reports. Forget about building reports in Excel – generating reports via Hotel management software is fast and simple. In addition, it’s easy to collect information about any metrics you’d like to check like staff performance, OTA results, guests statistics, and more.
Staff Management Elements
Working in the hospitality industry means watching over both external and internal clients. With a well-designed Hotel management software, it’s extremely easy to monitor the agenda or contact employees.
Task delivery. In order to run a business, managers certainly need to assign tasks to their employees, and hospitality services are no different. Hotel management software helps with the assignment and process monitoring as well as plays the role of an effective means of communication means.
Back-office management. In order to keep all the relevant details about employees, hotel managers integrate their Hotel management software with staff management channels. This way, they can add information about current shifts, salaries, sick leaves, and days-off of their staff members and simply review it when necessary.
Interactions with Customers
Finally, let’s get down to the most important part – engaging customers. Mind that by checking your guests’ reviews and adapting services to their wishes you can greatly improve their loyalty.
Customer data management. Currently, the most successful businesses learned to personalize their customers’ experience offering them services according to their taste. Hotel management software is a great resource for storing all details about the guests, including their contact details, preferred payment methods, rooms booked, list of spendings and so on.
Notifications and surveys. Hotels usually send notifications prior to customers’ arrival, during their stay and shortly after check-out. So it’s easy to collect feedback and offer additional services and entertainment. Finally, a booking confirmation sent to an email address is simply a sign of everything going on as planned.
