I know, automation is such a buzzword. But don’t be put off by the tech talk.
If you can learn to harness automation, you can save yourself time, boost your revenue, and make every stay flawless for your guests.
Think about it this way. By automating even one repetitive task, like secure pre-arrival payments, you free up hours to use where it really counts.
As Lani Chalmers, Manager at Woodgate Beach Houses says: “RMS pay has allowed the front office role to be remote. Saving time spent in the office and data entry time”. And, since using RMS Pay for pre-arrival payment, Woodgate Beach Houses has seen a significant reduction (more than 30%) in no-show related revenue loss.
Let’s get into my top 5 pre-arrival automations you can use now with RMS that help you save time, drive revenue, and set every stay up for success.
RMS Pay has allowed the front office role to be remote. Saving time spent in the office and data entry time.
Lani Chalmers, Woodgate Beach Houses
Reduce admin with digital pre-check-in
Do you want to improve your guest experience without adding more manual admin to your plate? Pre-Check-In through the RMS Guest Portal can help you by providing a home for guests to manage their bookings and information prior to arrival.
Rather than filling out a registration card on arrival, guests can do it digitally in advance. You can capture information vital to their stay, like photo ID, guest declarations and acknowledgement questions. Better yet, you can communicate with guests through the Guest Portal to provide information about their stay, and take payments for rooms, add-ons and extras. The best part is that all this can be automated, putting your guests in the driving seat.
Employing a clever mix of Pre-Check-In and digital keys can help you develop a totally hands-off arrival experience for your guests, enabling seamless before and after hours arrivals.
Increase revenue with dynamic pricing
Are you a Revenue Manager or Property Owner who wants to maximize yield across every channel, including directly through your property website? Dynamic Pricing can help you by automatically adjusting your rates and pricing in RMS in real time, based on demand, occupancy and timing.
For example, you can:
- Raise prices when rooms are nearly sold out or during peak seasons
- Lower rates during quiet periods to stay competitive and drive occupancy
- Apply rules that combine with promotions, add-ons, and extras, to increase the total booking value
- Gain full visibility of how your pricing strategy is boosting your revenue and bottom line through your Profit/Loss Summary report
Employing Dynamic Pricing with clever rate management and promotions, add-ons and extras ensures every booking goes that little bit further.
Reduce chargebacks and increase occupancy with payment automation
Do you want to take secure online payments that convert? 3D Secure Authentication a lesser-known automation at RMS, can help by triggering an added layer of authentication on your guests’ transactions.
3DS helps you by:
- Applying automatically to pre-arrival transactions through RMS Pay, like Pay By Links
- Adding multiple layers of authentication to your payments to prevent scammers from completing a transaction
- Shifting the onus of the transaction onto your guest
Lani Chalmers and the team at Woodgate Beach Houses have seen a 30% reduction in no-shows after implementing secure pre-arrival payments with RMS Pay, like Pay By Links. Safe to say, the more security features you can employ at the point of sale, the more confident your guests will feel in making their purchases.
Boost guest confidence with triggered communication
Are you a Marketing Manager or Property Owner who wants to improve communication with your guests to build trust and confidence? Triggered Correspondence can help you by building set-and-forget messages directly from RMS to keep guests informed at every stage of their journey.
With Triggered Correspondence, you can:
- Chat with guests through SMS, Email and RMS Guest Portal messaging
- Customize trigger points, tying messages to rate types, time periods and status criteria e.g. “arriving today”
There are heaps of customizable options to explore, so you can tailor communications workflows to suit your property and your guests.
Assign areas, rooms and dwellings automatically
Sick of playing musical chairs with the rooms and sites assigned to your guests’ reservations? RMS automatically assigns an appropriate room, pitch or dwelling type to save you the extra admin.
You won't be stuck with a guest rolling up to your caravan park with a vehicle way too big for the site they booked or double-booking a room at your hotel and having to rearrange your guests’ accommodation at late notice. With Automatic Area Allocation, you can:
- Assign the areas of your choice, such as rooms, pitches, dwellings and sites depending on your property type
- Exclude certain areas from automatic allocation to reserve them for upgrades and other use
- Set allocation preferences like length of stay and arrival windows
- See all your daily allocations in real time to keep on track of occupied areas
Special Mention: Ditch keycards with smart integrations
Interested in enabling keyless check-ins to reduce bottlenecks at reception?
Digital keys by some of our partners like Goki, Dormakaba, Salto, Assa Abloy and more, offer a seamless integration that marries with RMS to make your guest arrival experience pure bliss. You can ‘cut’ a virtual key and provide access to your guest’s room all within RMS making their arrival free of waiting, and free of plastic.
You could be living the automation dream
Picture this – you’ve already automated dynamic pricing so your guest’s booking brought in maximum value. They paid securely ahead of time, and got an automatic notification thanking them for their payment and letting them know what to expect on arrival. Their reservation has been assigned to one of the rooms or sites you wanted to fill first, and they’ve completed pre-check-in online. When they arrive, you have a quick chin wag at reception, no admin required, and away they go to relax or grab a cocktail.
Now that’s hospitality, upgraded.
So, there you have it folks, our top 5 pre-arrival automations that save you time, improve yield, cash flow and security, and wow your guests at every stage of their journey.
Want to learn more about automating your workflows with RMS?
