You know that your outdoor property has processes that could be improved and that the right reservation management system can help you do it — but where do you begin? 

The choices might seem overwhelming, but every option can help you save time and money all while improving your guests’ experience. 

Let’s explore some of the areas of your property management process that can be automated, their benefits, and how you can use them to create smoother operations: 

1. Guest Communications 

Communicating with your guests is one of the most important and time-consuming aspects of your business, since you interact with them before, during, and after their visit to ensure they have an incredible stay. 

In order to improve your guest experience, your staff needs as much time as possible, which means communication automation tools through your online reservation management system can help you decrease the time spent on manual outreach. 

By setting up automatic emails for repetitive communication, such as a “thank you” email after a guest makes a reservation or a survey email after they check out, you can ensure your guests feel taken care of and your staff has time to help improve the experience of those currently staying at your property. 

2. Housekeeping 

Keeping your facilities clean while accommodating day-to-day processes and unexpected emergencies is literally a full-time job. In addition, managing the tasks that need to be completed, ensuring that guest and property needs are properly communicated, and confirming that the property is in the best condition possible is another full-time job in and of itself. 

To save time and prevent miscommunication, you can automate this process through your reservation and property management system. With RMS, you can find this functionality in the Housekeeping Portal. 

By creating and allocating tasks to your housekeeping staff through this portal, your team can complete tasks and move on to the next without having to return back to the front office for the next item on their to-do list. 

3. Rate Setting and Management

Pricing and rate control are incredibly time-consuming to manually set and update across OTAs. 

But with a reservation management system, you can use dynamic pricing and channel management tools to set your rate with the click of a button.  

You have a number of configurable options for setting rates, including:

• A standard, year-round rate. 
• Seasonal, holiday, and special event pricing. 
• Custom additional rate requirements, such as arrival and departure dates and the minimum number of nights required to book. 

These tools allow you to create pricing rules based on predetermined occupancy levels that automatically adjust rates depending on slow or busy periods. Without lifting a finger, you can maximize profit and reservations throughout the year. 

4. Reporting 

One of the biggest challenges that properties face is a lack of visibility into their data. If you’re using a reservation management system, you’re already collecting this data — and you should be able to put it to use. Through customized and automated reporting, your property can see data insights, run property analyses, and continuously make strides towards operational excellence. 

With RMS, you can get consistent, up-to-date reports automatically sent to your inbox so you can make the best decisions for your properties. For example, your managers may schedule a daily update of yesterday’s occupancy rate sent to their email each morning at 8 a.m., while another may only request end-of-month recaps sent the first day of the new calendar month. All you have to do is set the parameters of your delivery preferences one time and these reports will be automatically generated and delivered as scheduled. 

Creating an Operational Excellence Mindset at Your Outdoor Property

Automating your property’s day-to-day processes is an incredible step toward operational excellence, allowing you to save your team time and money all while enhancing your guests’ experience. 

At RMS, we believe small steps in automating your processes contributes to your operational success and commitment to continuous improvement. To us, this idea of operational excellence is a mindset, rather than something you “reach.” It means striving to make better data-driven decisions, implementing smoother processes through automation, and ensuring that your properties improve overall. 

But it doesn’t stop there — here are just a few of the other ways you can enhance your properties with a mindset focused on continuous improvement: 

• Strategic business planning
• Product and service upgrades
• Employee empowerment

Learn more about continuous improvement, saving time and money, enhancing your guests’ experience, and more in our Achieving Operational Excellence guide!