Reservation Software for Hotels
Reservation software for hotels offer a variety of features designed to automate daily workflows and streamline processes related to reservation, booking and availability checking. They must deal with several factors when dealing with customer interactions, including managing the number of guests, payments, availability of rooms and more. Through hotel reservation solutions, these tasks can be easily managed to increase overall operational productivity and as a result, customer satisfaction.
Reservation software can be considered a subcategory under hotel management software, which focuses on performing integral administrative tasks to keep the business running. Some of their most popular functions include reservations management, integrated CRM, inventory management, accounting and scheduling. These management tools assist several businesses in their daily operations and business processes. Examples are franchises, hotel chains, large resorts, small properties and residential properties.
For these specific industries, you need an all-around software system that can track customer details and analyze reservation trends in order to improve customer interactions. By being able to keep up with their details, you’re equipped to retain them as customers in the long run. Before, these businesses would simply keep logbooks to store all information about their customers. However, this outdated method takes up several hours just to maintain and organize.
Businesses nowadays have turned to software solutions, which quickly address issues in real-time. Instead of relying on paperwork, they can easily just drag and drop schedules onto the easy-to-navigate interfaces. As soon as they have the right details from the customers—such as their preferred time, date and room services—then reservations can be accommodated quickly. This management system’s goal is to adjust to an ever-changing schedule between customers checking in and checking out at the same time. Without proper booking tools, keeping track of customer interactions can prove challenging and potential sales opportunities could be missed.
Hotel management software solutions usually have reservation tools to assist in your businesses. Popular hotel management software solutions offer these in their suites with varying nuances in terms of features and functionalities. The prices for their premium plans differ based on a few factors, such as type of industry and number of available rooms. The most popular ones are Cloudbeds, Frontdesk Anywhere, Maestro PMS and MSI CloudPM.
Hotelogix is a fully-featured hotel management solution that provides users with full control over daily operations and helps to drive more bookings through real-time integrations with all major distribution networks.
Hotels make use of reservation software to efficiently track real-time inventory and maximize usage of the available rooms. Due to the dynamic nature of the business, channel managers are expected to handle various room rates with distinct availabilities across all platforms. In order to improve productivity and sales revenue, they’re tasked to simultaneously track all room occupancies and update any changes in each room's inventory status.
Hotelogix, a robust cloud-based property management system, is designed to simplify daily operations involved in reservations and improve the process of hotel booking. Its features include built-in accounting, extended stay, marketing automation, maintenance management and multi-property to address the high demands of customer interactions. Additionally, it has a free trial to provide you with the opportunity of trying out its integrated features.
Most reservation software solutions share the following features in their packages:
This feature gives hotel managers advanced capabilities to handle a wide range of people wanting to book a room. If not done efficiently, you could lose customers fast. What online booking specializes at is facilitating a quick and simple reservation process. This is usually done by asking customers to fill out a simple information sheet online when they’re ready to book a room. Booking engines should be easy and user-friendly. When customers navigate your site, it’s best to add details regarding room rates with its corresponding availability.
Being able to book online reduces the common errors made when it’s done manually. Furthermore, customers are given complete control over their requirements, which allows hotel managers to provide them with their preferred standards. This enhances customer satisfaction and sets you apart from other hotel chains.
Payment processing is another sought-out feature in reservation software for hotels. When it comes to customer-dependent businesses, the possibility of your clients not showing up is undoubtedly high. To avoid the losses experienced during these situations, it’s best to have a payment processing feature implemented in your system. What this does is it simplifies the payment process online for the sake of the customers. You can add several ways to pay such as EMV chip cards, digital payments, credit or debit cards, etc.
It can be challenging to deal with multiple groups wanting to book rooms at the same time. With the group reservations feature made available, however, you can now manage reservations for people with similar needs. This usually extends to people who are traveling together or employees from the same company arriving on the same date and time.
When customers book rooms, they often have a few requests to share with the management. Before or once the guests arrive, these requests should be shared via booking notes to the staff to ensure their demands have been met. Through this feature, you can improve your customer services and help build a reputation amongst your audience.
Reservation software solutions are expected to handle customer inquiries, especially through different channels such as phone, live chat or email. Your online site should provide your guests with the opportunity to reach your services during specific work hours. This also improves your ability to fix their inquiries and issues. Some software solutions provide 24/7 customer support.
Reservation software for hotels give you complete control over your hotel’s rooms and services while also making it easier for your customers to locate your booking engines. It gives you certain advantages over other businesses that don’t have online booking systems. Its user-friendly interfaces make it easy to install and set up, provided you have a stable internet connection. Additionally, what this software solution does best is it reduces the time you spend on managing multiple channels at once and enhances efficiency in key factors of hotel booking.
However, the top three benefits you can receive from reservation software are highlighted in the following:
Your software system lets you be available for booking to customers 24/7. You no longer have to worry about missed appointments or canceled bookings. Before, people would often call at a designated time just to finalize a booked room. But in cloud-based booking engines, they’re no longer restricted to differences in time. Instead, customers can simply check your website and fill out the form to book a room in your hotel.
Overbooking or double booking can occur when you don’t have the right tools to manage several customers all at once. In order to avoid these errors, businesses make use of reservation software to a simple and easy-to-use booking engine. It automatically updates new additions to the calendar and streamlines business processes to make it easier for you to manage confirmations and notifications.
Overall, software solutions automate several business processes, from handling customer inquiries and accepting payments to setting up employee schedules and notifying guests about their booked schedules. This calls for an efficient and well-organized workflow. You no longer need to rely on manual methods. Once a customer finalizes their information sheet and books a room from your hotel, the system will do the rest of the work for you.
At the end of the day, you don’t want to focus on looking at schedules and wondering if the bookings match. This takes up large amounts of time and energy just to organize and oversee. With reservation software for hotels, you can focus on other important matters such as promoting and endorsing your business or improving your customers’ experiences once they step inside the lobby of your hotel.
