Your property management system (PMS) is the heart and soul of your B&B.
NB: This is an article from Little Hotelier
It manages your reservations, assists you in driving more bookings and helps you stay in constant communication with your guests. Naturally, you will want to maximise your use of the system so that you can create an effective and efficient B&B management strategy.
Here’s how you can optimise your B&B property management system:
Use PMS reporting tools and use them often
Your property management system likely features a wide variety of reporting tools that you can use to learn more about your business. These reporting tools can be a great asset to your business, as long as you use them and subsequently utilise the data that is generated.
It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day business of running a B&B, but you won’t want to forget to run these reports on a regular basis. The most powerful reports that you have at your disposal include financial reports that highlight your profits on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis, or the housekeeping report which provides you with information on how long it takes to clean rooms, the turnover time and the number of rooms that are cleaned within a specific time period.
Make sure your property management system integrates seamlessly with other technology
The property management system performs a lot of the tasks at your property, but it also needs to connect and communicate with other technology to be most effective.
For example, you will want to invest in a property management system that connects with a channel manager. Once these two pieces of technology are linked, the channel manager can then broadcast the live availability and rates at your B&B to an endless number of agents within your distribution network.
In addition, your booking engine should be connected with your property management system so that all of your direct bookings are also fed into your system, minimising the risk of double bookings and increasing your customer satisfaction rating.
Evaluate collected data and personalise the guest experience
Ultimately, your property management system should be used to uncover trends and discover ways for you to improve the guest experience at your B&B.
Using the data collected through your booking system, reports and channel manager, you can adjust an individual’s room before they arrive or create a detailed itinerary that appeals to their unique interests. This will help to create a lasting relationship with the people who stay with you, and boost your repeat bookings.
