“hotelkit is a fantastic, dynamic solution that allows us to involve each and every employee while simultaneously optimizing operational processes digitally.”
Ute Jacobs
Managing Director,
Estrel Berlin
As Germany’s largest hotel, it is natural that the Estrel Berlin faces some challenges. The implementation of hotelkit aimed to improve the coordination and efficiency of the building services and guest request functions. The results of the 30-day test phase were immediately convincing.
Challenge
Communication and clear responsibilities
A huge amount of coordination is required to enable 550 motivated employees to stay on top of the daily operational processes. The management team had a clear idea of what they needed from a new, digital employee portal: they were dissatisfied with the internal intranet containing the standard operating procedures and important information from every department and were looking for a dynamic
replacement. Front Office communications also needed improvement to ensure that information did not go astray, especially with shift handovers.
In addition, the management team wanted an easier way to assign responsibility for incoming guest requests to enable the relevant employees to fulfill these requests without delay. The services team desired more transparency and a clearer division of responsibilities. One challenge here was the documentation of repairs because this is far from easy to implement in a hotel with 1,125 rooms and a surface area of 30,000 square meters.
Solution
hotelkit implementation
During the set-up process, the software was customized in various ways. Employees’ personal profiles were uploaded to hotelkit, and each employee was assigned to the relevant groups within the network (e.g. by department, responsibilities, projects, and internal committees). In addition, all rooms, event rooms, and service areas were captured and stored as locations within hotelkit. This allows repairs and guest requests to be assigned to exact locations within the hotel. With the support of the hotelkit team, the content of existing instruction manuals from the Estrel intranet was also incorporated, to create the foundational knowledge base.
During the 30-day test phase, 100 employees from the Front Office, Maintenance, Housekeeping, and all managers, were given an introduction to hotelkit’s functions.
Results
Repairs: 77% completed within 24 hours
All processes during the test phase were carefully documented and compared providing consistently positive results. The Director of Maintenance for Estrel Berlin, Stefan Kranhold, explains: “The results were clear, as my team was able to significantly improve their efficiency, carrying out 800 repairs in 30 days. The team was already equipped with smartphones before the introduction of hotelkit. Now, however, employees are no longer interrupted by phone calls during their work processes; instead, they are informed about new assignments via push notifications. The notifications inform them not just about the nature of the damage, but also its exact location. These days, we manage to deal with 77% of damage reports within 24 hours!”
However, with the addition of this hotel giant, hotelkit was also faced with new challenges, as Ms. Herfurth, Assistant Managing Director of Estrel Berlin, describes: “Every month, we log about 1,050 assignments dealing with repairs and guest requests. In these areas, we needed to make sure that nothing was missed, and also that no duplicate entries were made. hotelkit has quickly responded to these topics with new features. In addition, a new dispatching function has been introduced. Now, the Head of Building Services receives notifications of all newly logged repair jobs, which he then passes on to members of his team, depending on their workload.”
Guest requests: handled within 30 minutes
Efficiency in fulfilling guest requests has also improved since hotelkit was introduced. 55% of guest requests are now fulfilled within 30 minutes of being logged. Moreover, guest requests are recorded in hotelkit and distributed to the relevant employees in the Housekeeping & Concierge department, meaning that they no longer get lost, and everyone knows exactly what they are responsible for.
