Coordination between and across hotel departments is essential for smooth operations and for the successful delivery of a superior service to guests. When it comes to the relationship between front office staff and housekeeping, rooms are of chief concern. Both need to continuously exchange information on room status; front office must provide lists for expected arrivals and departures everyday in advance, notify housekeeping of actual arrivals and departures as and when they occur to ensure rooms are cleaned and/or are scheduled for cleaning, housekeeping need to update front office staff once rooms are cleaned, inspected and released so that front office staff can assign rooms once ready. All in all, a lot of coordination and communication needs to take place between the two to ensure efficient turn over of rooms for arriving guests.
With so much going on managing a room-cleaning schedule of an entire hotel via clipboards and traditional two-way radio communication, it’s not uncommon for housekeeping to feel under undue pressure from reception by allocating numerous rooms and/or wrong rooms for cleaning at any one time, and vice verse, reception becoming frustrated waiting for communication from housekeeping on the status of rooms needed for incoming guests!
But with the introduction of and use of a mobile PMS all perceived headaches and frustrations easily dissipate. With a mobile PMS housekeeping staff can use their own device to log into the hotel PMS that will show them their list of rooms for that day and/or front office staff can easily assign specific room-cleaning tasks to housekeeping. Once a guest checks out—or even leaves the room unoccupied—the housekeeper is notified a room is ready to be refreshed or turned over and once cleaned, housekeepers can instantaneously update room status in real time so front desk staff knows as soon as a guest’s room is clean and ready. Using remote and instant room status updates not only means no more calls to the front desk but as the front desk team can actually see the status of all rooms in real time, it allows them to know and say with certainty when a guests room will be ready. Ultimately, with a mobile PMS, staff get a quick snapshot of current room status and conditions meaning housekeeping can efficiently move through rooms and front office staff are free to focus on the day-to-day business of looking after their guests
Similarly, with a mobile PMS, housekeeping can flag any issues, such as a broken light or a malfunctioned thermostat, that the front desk, hotel management or maintenance might need to address prior to a guests arrival. Since a mobile cloud PMS can be access anytime, anywhere, the system automatically keeps everyone up to date and instantly alerts the appropriate department of the specific problem needing to be fixed.
By replacing a clunky clipboard with a streamlined mobile housekeeping management approach i.e. a mobile PMS solution, staff can manage housekeeping functions with a simple click; they gain real time access to important room information and can engage in meaningful, real time two-way communication with front desk and management allowing for rooms to be turned around faster and on-premise issues addressed more quickly.
Using a mobile PMS has the potential to speed up and clear up communication and improve the productivity of hotel employees while at the same time providing better guest service.
