Like all new technologies, the cloud-inspired some serious fear-mongering among people who don’t know better. After years of security tips telling us to keep everything locked down and to trust nothing that came from outside your own PC, here was a service that offered to put everything up in the air. It seemed antithetical to decades of tutorials warning that every connection to the outside world was exploitable and everything beyond your desk was out to get you.
While precautions are always necessary, we’re here to tell you there’s a lot of wrongheaded thinking around cloud-based software. If any of the following myths are keeping you from taking a cloud-based property management system out for a spin, it might be time to reevaluate.
A Lost Connection = Armageddon
The people who build cloud-based software know that we don’t live in an ideal world. Connections go down, the internet is lost, and storms kill power. Much in the same way that many businesses have backup generators in case of emergency, most cloud-based software has fail-safes included that will allow you to keep operating in the event of an outage.
You have likely experienced this before with most people’s first introduction to the cloud: Google Drive. If you are writing in a document on the cloud-based file system and you lose connection, the file allows you to keep writing and updates the document stored on their server once the connection is restored.
Cloud-based PMS Are Prohibitively Expensive
While there is an associated cost with making the switch to cloud-based software, as there is with any investment in improving a property, the costs of using cloud software have dropped dramatically in recent years. As more and more people switch to servers, computing technology gets cheaper, and internet connections get faster, the cost of using a 21st-century management system continues to go down.
What isn’t getting any better is the cost of remaining on outmoded systems. As other properties make the switch to quick-moving and efficient management software like StayNTouch, customers will come to expect the ease that comes with a cloud-based system.
It’s Hard to Learn New Systems
There is a learning curve, but cloud-based PMS started with the idea of making life easier for everyone involved. That ethos extends through the interface of many of the systems that have sprung up in the marketplace, meaning that you might find a cloud-based system to be more intuitive than your current operation. Add to that the fact that cloud-based PMS can be accessed on devices that your staff are already familiar with (such as their phones, tablets, and laptops), it’s possible to reduce your training time and costs drastically.
Cloud-Based Software Is A Security Risk
There is nothing inherently less safe about a cloud-based PMS. In fact, it can be safer than an old, on-site system in many ways. Where computers and servers on-site may be full of unencrypted data that can be exploited by anyone with a plan and the will to steal the physical server, cloud-based PMS are often harder to crack.
The innate fear of hacking and the initial wave of cloud skepticism lead to developers who knew to build added security into the software. As such, many cloud-based software programs feature a tougher outer shell and authentication process than on-site systems, which are often only protected by a single password.
Cloud-based Software Will Only Work On My Main System
Cloud-based property management software is able to move between all connected devices in a given property. While you might be thinking of the software as an update that will sit on your centralized computer systems, a cloud-based PMS can quickly tie the tablets and phones of staff as well as the computer systems that you are already using. A cloud-based system is instantly more connected than a legacy system as it can connect to any device you wish to have access.
In short, most of the marks against cloud-based PMS are no longer accurate. A modern PMS based off-site can operate at speeds near or better than any on-site set-up while providing an additional layer of security and an easy-to-use interface.
That’s before we get to the actual benefits of a cloud-based system which can allow ease-of-use, increased customer satisfaction, and a shortened response time to issues after your staff has been freed from a centralized front desk system. A PMS hosted in the cloud is exactly the sort of thing that a modern property needs if it is to compete in a marketplace where guests expect solutions before they have fully worked out their problems. Speed and accuracy are the name of the game and, when compared to creaky legacy systems, cloud-based PMS like StayNTouch have that in spades.
