Everything has its day – particularly when it comes to hospitality technology. Unfortunately, property management software can be an area of significant internal frustration at hotels and hostels when the supplier fails to keep pace with innovation.
If you’re reading this blog post, there’s a strong chance you’ve had enough; the PMS you use has crashed one time too many, or once again failed to make you more efficient in a key area.
So… what are the key signs it’s time to find a new PMS?
1. Your existing system won’t stop crashing
When a piece of business software regularly crashes, productivity, efficiency and, most importantly, customer experience will take a significant hit. What’s more, in the modern world where software plays such a key role throughout life, any form of crashing is pretty unacceptable.
If your staff are continually shouting at your PMS or telling it to “hurry up”, it might be time to move on.
2. You can’t link your PMS to other systems
There’s arguably never been a better time to be a hotelier, thanks to the wide range of technology we have at our finger tips. The key to providing an unforgettable guest experience and ensuring your staff have the best tools with which to do their jobs is to have an integrated system.
Does your PMS link nicely with the phone system, guest internet service and door locking system? If not, you really are running at half-mast.
3. The support is dreadful
Things go wrong, mistakes are made and, sometimes, people simply don’t know how to perform a particular function on their PMS. This is where support comes in, and the best PMS on the planet is next to useless if it doesn’t have a great team behind it to help users when they need it most.
Long waiting times, calls back that never materialise or the absence of support entirely should ring warning bells in the modern era of hospitality.
Every hotel deserves great support from its PMS provider.
4. You’re getting usually high levels of staff turnover
Firstly, a disclaimer; a poor PMS won’t be the only reason you’re losing staff at a high rate. But it will have a significant impact on their happiness – and that may contribute to their resignation decision. We’ve all worked jobs where the tools provided by the company aren’t up to scratch; they slow you down, frustrate you and, sometimes, make it nearly impossible to do your job.
If there’s lots of disquiet among the ranks, don’t discount the PMS being a key factor.
5. You’re being out-priced by the competition
Online reviews, OTAs and price comparison sites make the job of revenue management for independent operators a big challenge. However, this is a challenge you can more easily overcome if you have a PMS that offers revenue management integration and built-in functionality to help you increase RevPAR and make educated decisions about rate changes.
If the competition is consistently beating you on price and occupancy, they’re probably using a more modern PMS.
6. Double bookings are a regular occurrence
This is a simple one – and it’s also any hotelier’s worst nightmare. How often do you get double bookings, and how often can they be attributed to the inability for your PMS to connect to OTAs like Booking.com?
If channel management is something you do manually, a new PMS will rid you of the need to use OTA extranets and ensure the chances of ever receiving a double booking in the future are vastly reduced.
Wrapping up
There’s no escaping the fact that updating your hospitality software is a big deal, but thanks to modern cloud technology and user interfaces which are easier than ever to get to grips with, you’d be surprised by how quickly you can adopt a new system.
If you’re fed up with your current PMS and want to immerse yourself in a system that’s ready for today and tomorrow, book a demo.
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CMS Hospitality holds over 30 years of experience in delivering hospitality software solutions. GuestCentrix offers the most complete solution in hospitality software, whether you’re running a hotel, a resort or a hostel. Our highly experienced support and installations team holds a unique understanding of the hospitality industry and will aim to provide software that suits your property’s needs.
Call us today at (+61) 2 9440 9711, or email us at sales@cmshospitality.com. We will be happy to guide you to the GuestCentrix solution that’s right for you.