Linking MTech’s HotSOS with the MICROS OPERA PMS creates a seamless service-oriented architecture in which guest requests are quickly satisfied
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF. — JANUARY 13, 2010 —Montage Beverly Hills, a luxury boutique hotel located near Southern California’s most celebrated neighborhood, is among the first to deploy a new level of integration from Miami-based MTech and MICROS Systems, Inc. that provides a seamless and data-redundancy-free solution to satisfy guest requests and expectations.
MTech is a leading developer of Software as a Service (SaaS) products aimed at improving service and efficiency for the hospitality industry. Its HotSOS (pronounced “hot sauce”) solution now integrates with the MICROS OPERA Property Management System (PMS) to provide a historic approach to moving guest data back and forth. The key, officials report, is in use of a unified system to avoid launching multiple hotel systems at once. HotSOS enables hotels to reduce costs while maximizing and streamlining guest-service processes, such as guest requests and incident tracking/reporting, rapid-response internal defect reporting, and preventive-maintenance workflows. MICROS is a leading provider of information technology solutions for the hospitality and specialty retail industries.
“This allows hotels to have two ‘best-of-breed’ applications working as one and saves them the need to launch multiple applications at once,” said Luis Segredo, president and co-founder of MTech. “It provides instant, direct access (within OPERA from 10 different screens) to guest-request and -history information with no data replication. Hotel staff now can better anticipate guests’ needs, experiences and requests, and provide solutions to them before they arise.”
“MICROS OPERA is a robust PMS,” said Adam Jones, IT Manager at the 201-room Montage Beverly Hills. “It combines with more than 70 applications at the luxury property, including reservations system, rate-management system, and front- and back-office systems. The HotSOS/OPERA integration focuses on the total guest experience – from the front desk to rooms management to guest profiling.
“While OPERA is the heartbeat of the hotel, HotSOS listens to the guest, guestroom and front-desk,” Jones said. “The PMS stores a wealth of guest-history information while HotSOS has a complete record of special requests made by the guest during a stay. HotSOS listens to the guest history and expedites his or her needs to service staff via hand-held technology. The result is a robust profile on what the guest wants and needs.”
For example, if a guest prefers to have two or more pillows based on the history stored in OPERA, then HotSOS tells the staff to place the pillows prior to check-in, and likewise for any special amenities or preferred items. In the same fashion, special requests made by the guest during a stay and expedited through HotSOS are seamlessly sent to OPERA to paint a real-time picture of likes and preferences. “If a guest has had an engineering toilet-flush issue during his or her stay, then the integrated system alerts managers and staff of it and the issues are checked to avoid making the same mistake twice,” Jones said. “What you wind up having is not just the speedy solving of problems, but the elimination of them. And the upshot is a lot of repeat business.”
How HotSOS works
According to Segredo, HotSOS starts helping a hotel by interfacing with its PMS. On a daily basis the PMS provides a list of arrivals. HotSOS runs several checks to see if these guests have stayed at the property before and if they had requests. “If guests have special requests from prior stays, HotSOS sends those requests in arrival reports, or it can create service orders to fulfill the requests upon events like room assignment or check-in,” Segredo said. “These are then automatically sent to the appropriate department or individual who fulfills them. All of this occurs with the feed of data coming in from the PMS.”
The HotSOS system communicates directly with staff via hand-held technology -- an iPod or a cell phone, for example. It also relays back to the PMS key information in an instant when attendants log the completion of their task. According to Jones, who has worked with HotSOS at other hotels, the system is easy to use: “HotSOS is the cutting-edge technology in ticketing solutions to guest requests and needs. And it’s easy on the eyes – it uses icons and touch-screens to make it easy to use.
MTech also offers excellent training and support. “HotSOS divides tasks and is very robust for the topography of how you want to solve problems,” he said. “Tasks are sent out to managers and staff via a Blackberry [for example]. If a given staff member is closer to the problem, he or she solves it and logs the information into the system. It allows managers to expedite tasks from a computer screen.”
About Montage Hotels & Resorts
Montage Hotels & Resorts is a hotel and resort management company founded in 2002 by Alan Fuerstman. Designed to serve affluent travelers and homeowners, the company features an artistic collection of distinctive hotels, resorts and residences in stunning settings that offer comfortable elegance, a unique sense of place and spirit, impeccable hospitality and memorable culinary, spa and lifestyle experiences. Montage Laguna Beach, the company’s flagship oceanfront resort, opened in the vibrant arts community of Laguna Beach, California, in 2003. Montage Beverly Hills, the company’s second hotel, opened in Beverly Hills in 2008 and is the first Gold LEED certified hotel and residences in Southern California. Other properties under development include Montage Deer Valley® in Park City, Utah, scheduled to open in 2010, and an oceanfront resort and residences with championship golf course coming soon in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. www.montagehotels.com.
About MTech
Since 1993, MTech has developed and installed solutions to help hotels work smarter — not harder. The company is on track to double its client base to more than 1,200 hotels this year with the introduction of HotSOS (pronounced “hot sauce”) — comprising a suite of Internet-enabled, enterprise-level quality and customer relationship management applications available on a subscription basis. The company’s Espresso! client server/site-based quality management software suite and PM-Works Internet-based preventive maintenance-centric solution (also integrated as a subset of HotSOS) have been market leaders for more than a decade. MTech’s solutions are uniquely positioned and proven to help hotels improve communications, increase productivity, and maximize guest satisfaction. Unique telephone, email and alphanumeric paging interfaces improve overall workflow and communication between departments and streamline data collection and dispatching processes. Production, sales, pre-installation, and ongoing world-class service and support are provided from the company’s headquarters in Miami. For more information on the company, please visit www.m-tech.com.