Solutions | Retail

On-Demand Staffing Management

A local hotel normally runs near 70% occupancy during the winter.  Recently, it found itself understaffed and unprepared to handle an onslaught of air travelers caused by the nearby airport having to shut down for the night due to an ice storm.  The hotel needed a way to alert employees to augment the staff at the registration desk, housekeeping, bell hop station, the kitchen for the following morning, as well as the shuttle service.  Many of the guests had never stayed at the hotel, and it was a one-time chance to impress them for future stays.

Solving this challenge will benefit the hotel in the following ways:

• The travelers know they are unexpected; if they see sufficient staff to provide quick service, there’s a greater chance they will stay at  that hotel in the future.
• Following the airport closure, travelers will undoubtedly recant the night’s events; news of the hotels ability to efficiently handle the onslaught will be mentioned to other travelers, resulting in free advertising and PR for the hotel.
• Knowing the hotel can handle the increase in guests, it can call the airlines at the airport and notify them they have rooms available and the staff to serve them.  The airlines will look to them in the future when having to help travelers find a hotel for the night.
• With all the unexpected guests served and boarded for the night, the hotel capitalizes on additional revenue opportunities instead of potentially turning it over to local competition.

Solution

The focus of this solution is to leverage the hotel’s VoIP infrastructure to improve staff communication and provide adequate staffing as quickly as possible

• The hotel manager on staff, hits a button on the desk IP phone allowing them to instantly connect with employee managers to coordinate the response to the increase in guests.
• An employee manager hits a speed dial button on their IP phone, home phone, or cell phone and records a message to send to a pre-defined list of registration desk employees, bell station employees, and keeping employees
• The manager can record a second message in Spanish if needed and send it to the phone numbers of staff whose primary language is Spanish.
• The hotel manager can view a report showing which employees acknowledged and are coming in, allowing them to decide whether or not to call more employees.
• The same system can be used to contact the guests that did not have reservations, but were able to be served by the hotel, as a way to measure satisfaction.

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