Hyatt Regency Chicago Revs Up Guest Response Time with Help of GuestWare
"GuestWare allows us to be proactive rather than reactive."
Jamila Woods - call center manager
Solution Adds Speed, Efficiencies to 2,019-Room Hotel's Call Center Operations
CHICAGO - As communications manager at the 2,019 - room Hyatt Regency Chicago, the Windy City's largest hotel, Jamila Woods knows a thing or two about call volume. She manages a call center that receives between 2,000 and 3,000 calls a day. About 150 to 225 of those are from guests who call to make requests or report problems; on average, hotel personnel call 50 to 75 times a day for the same reason. Averaged over a 24-hour period, Hyatt's call center representatives dispatch staff to respond to issues every five to seven minutes. Seventy-five percent of issues are request related; 25 percent are problem related. Without question, engineers, housekeepers, phone and Internet technicians, electricians, runners and managers are kept hopping.
Using GuestWare's Rapid Response solution, Woods and her 23-member call center team are able to keep up with the high volume of calls. GuestWare makes it easy to efficiently log, dispatch and follow-up on every request and problem. The system produced by Seattle-based Diversified Computer Corp. (DCC) does not allow one call to fall through the cracks. That is critical in a hotel that touts such a high level of hospitality.
Managing so many incoming calls has not always been easy for the Hyatt Regency Chicago's call center team. Prior to GuestWare's installation in July 2003, they used an Access-based program to monitor and track request- and problem-related calls. The software did not interface with the hotel's PMS. When first receiving a call, the call center representative had to type in the guest's room number and name, the time and date of the call, and the name of the person designated to respond to the call. The call center associate then would use a radio or Nextel phone to relay the assignment. Once the problem or request was addressed, the representative then had to go back into the record to indicate that the call was completed. It was a manual and labor-intensive process. As a backup to the system they were using, each call center employee also wrote down all of the call information on paper.
"It was a redundant process," Woods says. "It was also difficult to pull information or generate reports out of the system. If we wanted to research a request, we would have to go through a stack of paper and look line by line to find it. Also, we had no capability to do paging. Calls often were put on hold. That resulted in a longer response time."
Prior to GuestWare, two call center employees spent an entire shift following up on guest requests and problems - time that could have been better spent answering incoming calls.
Call Center Processes Transformed
After GuestWare was implemented at the twin-tower hotel, call center processes were streamlined and accelerated. Because of a direct interface between GuestWare and Hyatt's PMS, call center representatives no longer have to enter all of the guest's information. After entering the room number into GuestWare, the guest's name automatically fills in on the Request Entry screen. Built-in request buttons and drop-down menus enable the associate to click on the type of request or problem. Once "Save" is clicked, the task is automatically sent by page to the designated recipient.
"We have a system in place for managers to give us their line-ups so that GuestWare knows to whom the page should be sent," Woods says. "That information is adjusted in GuestWare each day."
Housekeepers, floor managers, guest request runners, electricians, room engineers, telephone technicians and the engineering supervisor all carry Motorola Timeport pagers that use GuestWare's SmartRunner application. GuestWare's Communication Server integrates the two-way messaging with its Rapid Response module to enable the pager communication. When a page is received, it includes the room number, guest's name and the type of request or problem. Woods says the types of requests sent to engineers often deal with guest room temperature. Housekeepers often receive amenity-related requests. Phone technicians often deal with Internet-related concerns.
If a page has not been responded to in the time designated in GuestWare, it "escalates" to the appropriate manager or supervisor in charge to ensure that the guest is not kept waiting. Once a task has been completed, a page is sent back to GuestWare where it is automatically closed. Two call center representatives ensure that all calls are accepted and closed. Those same two people also follow-up with calls to the guests. Whereas an entire shift was spent on this process prior to GuestWare, only two to three hours of follow-up calls per person are now needed.
Report Generation Simplified
GuestWare makes it easy to produce reports that rank incidents by frequency, time of day, room section and by tower. Response time, dispatch time and labor productivity also can be measured quickly and easily.
"I run top 10 incidents reports for engineering and housekeeping every month," Woods says. "I also run reports showing the top 10 requests for the hotel, the average response time for requests, the number of calls per department and an executive summary that includes a record of all calls. Reports run out of GuestWare allow managers to see the types of calls we are getting and also how their departments are performing. I believe the reports have helped employees be more accountable. Incident reports also enable us to better prepare for groups who come back to our hotel year after year."
GuestWare data enables Hyatt Regency Chicago personnel to pinpoint areas of operations that need work. For example, when a report showed there were complaints about room cleanliness, housekeepers took positive steps to address that trend. Guest satisfaction scores improved in that area. If a report shows that a problem has occurred three times in a guest room in one month, that problem is given special attention.
In support of Hyatt's own incident reporting process for its managers, DCC created customized Hotel Assistant Manager (HAM) reports within GuestWare. Using computers in their offices, four assistant managers enter incidents such as fire alarms, after-hours requests for the business center and other types of issues. HAM reports are then generated out of GuestWare each night.
Comment Cards Tracked in GuestWare
Hyatt Regency Chicago personnel also use GuestWare to track comment card results. These are inputted into GuestWare each week and a report is generated to help staff pinpoint positive or negative trends. This data is used to improve processes and keep guests satisfied. In cases where stellar service is recognized by guests, comment card reports give managers the ammunition they need to reward employees.
After more than two years of using GuestWare, Woods says the software has enabled the guest response team at the hotel to prevent problems from occurring and stop them from recurring.
"GuestWare allows us to be proactive rather than reactive," she says.
Overall, thanks to GuestWare, call center processes at the Hyatt Regency Chicago have been streamlined, incident reporting has been simplified, managers have a better understanding of how their departments are performing, employees are more accountable for their work, and not one of the tens of thousands of request and problem calls made by guests each year is forgotten. With the help of the Hyatt Regency Chicago's many employees, there is no doubt that GuestWare has had a positive impact on overall guest satisfaction.