Hotels increasingly rely on Software as a Service (SaaS) products as their primary technologies for running sales and catering, operations and revenue management functions.
NB: This is an analysis by Gregory Moore, senior learning experience developer for IDeaS Revenue Solutions
This reliance on industry-specific software solutions has given rise to a new set of concerns, specifically around how to retain hospitality talent in the face of high turnover rates.
How do hotels ensure the sustainability of the business know-how and processes built around their software - especially for key system users such as revenue managers?
Improvements to SaaS
SaaS products can help to drive hotel performance by providing a technology platform for effectively completing routine tasks and helping team members rethink how to perform those tasks.
But when it comes to software solutions, technology deployment is just the beginning.
New learning technologies available within hotel software products are reshaping how SaaS providers think of customer service. Business continuity challenges are addressed at source via “on-demand performance support.”
Most hotels excel at using customer relationship management (CRM) and engagement technologies to achieve outstanding guest experiences, in turn increasing revenue.
Enterprise training technologies work in a similar way, but they focus on engaging a hotel’s human element.
On-demand learning beats the classroom
These ground-breaking learning methodologies provide hotels a return on their software investment by ensuring that users - hotel staff - interact effectively with the systems, executing business rules despite high turnover environments or formal training gaps.
One example is the standard system training given to employees, either online or in the classroom.
It might be months before they get the chance to put into practice what they have learnt and could easily have forgotten the basics, never mind the details. Employees will then seek help from co-workers, try to reference the system’s help documentation, or contact the customer service provider in an “I need it now!” manner.
But this interferes with the business process. Learning technologies such as ‘on-demand performance support’ and ‘situational learning’ can help avoid these scenarios.
Software providers can use the evolution of learning technologies to offer better customer service and support users situationally and in the moment of need when performing tasks such as system configuration or creating business rules.
This allows software solution providers to streamline training to high-level concepts, and provide on-demand performance support that allows the software to work as intended: helping the employee strengthen performance.
Responding to staff turnover
New learning technologies are getting a lot of attention. Deloitte’s 2015 Hospitality Report indicates that hospitality turnover rates are “nearly twice the average rate for all other sectors” and recommends that “hotel companies need to rethink their operating model to effectively execute business talent strategy.”
The report also shows that 52% of the true cost of turnover is a result of productivity losses, while 14% is related to orientation and training.
This is where hotels can leverage learning technologies to drive change in their business continuity strategies.
On-demand performance support and situational learning technologies can help hotels drive performance. The first goal is improving system and employee interaction in a moment of need. This time of need could be performing an unfamiliar task when the system is pushing information at the user.
With near real-time access to information, learning technologies can transition away from teaching employees system specifics, focusing instead on training them how to process information and solve business problems.
The second goal is improving productivity. Learning technology has advanced past the point of providing handouts with screenshots and procedural steps. Employees can now practice real-life scenarios in the system to solve problems.
This not only helps hotels retain and/or train their employees, but also gives them another avenue for brand consistency.
Personalized training
These revolutionary learning technologies employ real training environments that promote effective learning, using the solution’s process efficiencies within the actual technology platform.
Personalization is the first step in next generation customer service improvements by hotel SaaS solution providers. Hotels should increasingly expect role-based personalization of their system training, both predictively and in the moment of need.
The second step is performance support designed around real world situations that help turn employees into strategic thinkers.
Most importantly, solutions should include the five key learning needs of a user:
- learning something new
- expanding their knowledge
- applying their learning
- solving a problem
- changing a process
Good hotel software solutions should include on-demand performance support, situational support and support that maps specific business processes to its applicable tasks.
Incorporating these technologies within SaaS solutions not only ensures business continuity, but enhances employee engagement. This is the level of engagement and longevity that increases revenue and profits across a company.
NB This is an analysis by Gregory Moore, senior learning experience developer for IDeaS Revenue Solutions. It appears here as part of Tnooz's sponsored content initiative.
IDeaS Revenue Solutions uses a combination of these cutting-edge methods and learning technologies in their Revenue Management System solutions. These solutions address the training issues impacting the hospitality industry and create seamless performance-enhancing solutions.