Everybody arrives at four, and everybody leaves at eight.
Two hours of your day are a queue.
For most of the rest of it your desk is quiet. That is not something you can hire your way out of, because the peak is two hours long and the shift is eight.
Show us where arrival gets stuck. Nothing to prepare.Whitcombe HouseMrs Ellis, so check-in on Friday takes a minute rather than ten: could you fill in three quick details here?
Whitcombe HouseThank you, all done. Your key will be ready when you arrive.
The desk re-types what the booking already knows.
01Check in
They fill in a registration card with details they gave when they booked.
The desk re-types what the booking already holds, with a queue behind.
02Check out
The guest waits at reception to settle their bill and request an invoice.
Reception handles admin that could have been completed before the guest reached the desk.
Your desk is re-typing things it already knows.
The guest booked eight weeks ago. You have their name, their address, their card and their arrival date. Then they stand at your desk while somebody types it in again, hands them a registration card, and waits while they correct it by hand.
Behind them four more people are waiting to do exactly the same thing. The one member of your team who could be welcoming somebody is doing data entry instead.
The details arrive while the guest is still on the train.
We ask for what the registration card asks for, inside the conversation the guest is already in. Address, car registration, arrival time, whatever your property needs. It goes back to your PMS, so by the time they reach the desk the record is complete and the only thing left is the welcome.
For a late arrival it matters more. They get to their room without waking anybody, and your night porter is not doing paperwork at one in the morning.
Here a short page works better than a chat, because this is structured information. The form asks for three things and fills in everything we already know.
This is the part hotels underrate.
A guest who booked through an OTA often arrives with no usable phone number and an email address that forwards to the booking platform rather than to them. You cannot reach them during the stay, you cannot reach them after it, and they never exist in your own records as a real person.
Check-in is the one moment a guest will hand over a real number without being asked twice, because they want their room. Ask then, and the guest is yours rather than the channel's.
They settle up and walk out.
On the morning they leave, the guest sees their live balance, settles it on their phone, and has the invoice emailed wherever they need it, which for a business traveller is rarely the address they booked with.
No queue at eight. Nobody at the desk processing payments when they could be welcoming arrivals. The bill is the real one, and the room closes properly behind them.
The questions on your registration card.
We ask for exactly what your property needs at check-in, and write it back where your team already looks. Your team never sets it up or maintains it.
- Asking for the registration details, before arrivalBiteluxe
- Writing them back to the reservationBiteluxe
- Asking for a real phone number and emailBiteluxe
- Sending the live balance on the morning they leaveBiteluxe
- Emailing the invoice wherever they need itBiteluxe
- The welcome, and handing over the keyYour team
Both ends need your PMS, and that makes this the exception.
Our concierge works with no connection at all, because the guest tells us who they are. Check-in and checkout are different. Writing details back to the record and reading a live balance both need a real connection.
Where a property cannot support it, everything else still works and this part waits. We are official partners of Oracle Opera, Guestline and many other PMS providers.
Start with the queue at four.
Thirty minutes
Show us the action that is harder than it should be. We will tell you honestly whether we can improve it.
One session
We map what the guest is trying to do, what the team needs, how the brand should sound and where the existing systems help or get in the way.
Three weeks
The work is ours: we build the journey, shape the messages, connect it and test it.
Fifteen minutes
We walk the relevant team through the small part they will see.
Two months
Prove it in the operation before making an annual commitment.
What are your guests trying to do that is harder than it should be?
Bring us the action, the brand, the awkward systems and the operational reality. We will shape the message for each channel and build the easiest route through them.
Show us where guests get stuck. Nothing to prepare. Sometimes the honest answer is that you do not need us.