“Better than a hotel” — with this motto, SmartRentals Madrid wants to introduce its city holidaymakers to the advantages of having their own fully equipped apartment with comprehensive service. One special feature is that the apartments, which vary in size, are located in different parts of the city so that every guest can find the environment that suits them best.
The special challenges of this hotel concept are obvious. For example, the management wanted a way to make communication consistent and simple for the entire team. Previously, it had been difficult to pass on information to all employees at the same time and to coordinate information and tasks. This included repairs in particular. These needed to be documented in a clear and structured manner for the entire mobile technical team.
Finally, they also wanted a solution that would allow tracking of various tasks and to-dos. Since the team works partly spatially separated from each other, it is important to know where, for example, a colleague can be supported at short notice without having to interrupt their workflow with calls etc.
We are thrilled with the tool, our internal communication has improved a lot and while we are working with it, we are discovering even more new uses for it.
Implementation & test phase
The hotel first had contact with hotelkit in mid-January 2018 and within just one week everything was prepared for the training. The test phase with the entire team began immediately at the beginning of February. Directly after the test phase, SmartRentals Madrid became an official hotelkit customer.
The entire team was very active in using hotelkit during the first two weeks with a total of 1,000 comments written, 200 repairs documented, and 300 handovers completed. Tips from the hotelkit Customer Success team on how to optimize usage were well-received and implemented immediately. After another two weeks, the number of handovers, as well as tasks, had almost doubled. Usage continued to intensify over the following months. During this period, hotelkit held several conference calls with the hotel management to discuss the implementation of further processes as well as to create various templates.
One reason for the quick and easy implementation of hotelkit certainly had to do with the intensive usage. The whole team was incredibly involved from the beginning and included in all trainings.
hotelkit has allowed us to communicate with each other at any time, regardless of which of our different properties we are in. This has allowed us to guarantee a high-quality service in our apartments.
Results
Already during the test phase, usage was remarkable and only continued to increase. So far, there have been a total of 25,000 activities — that’s 2,780 activities per month or 92 per day. The Handovers tool in particular makes daily SmartRentals processes much easier. Around 550 handovers are created here per month. Tasks with checklists take second place among the most popular tools. A total of 590 checklists have been integrated to support the team in all processes and areas. For example, important tasks for morning service at the reception desk or daily housekeeping to-dos can be handled more efficiently. This means that the hotel can ensure a consistently high standard in all apartments.
Third place is taken by Repairs. Repairs are sent straight to the technicians via hotelkit. They receive all repair orders directly on their tablet and can immediately start working on the task. The other tools are also very popular. All employees keep each other up to date via News, there are lively discussions about new ideas, and guest requests can also be processed quickly and efficiently thanks to hotelkit.
