Definitely Doug 8/23/24: Technology that Rings a Bell

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Technology that Rings a Bell

The bell desk has been one of the last operations in the hotel to undergo digital transformation. It is labor-intensive (particularly in larger, upscale hotels and resorts). It is often a source of friction for guests and staff when bell staff must search high and low for a stored bag, when guests experience a long wait time for their valet-parked car to be returned, or when the airport shuttle mysteriously disappears while a dozen guests are anxiously watching the clock and wondering if they need to hail a taxi to make their flight.

Within the past few years, solutions have started to emerge to address these needs of bell desks, and they are worth a look. They can significantly reduce staff time, eliminate labor-intensive processes, and create a better, lower-friction guest experience and higher guest satisfaction.

This week’s column will address technologies that support services that are commonly managed by the bell desk. This includes parking; luggage storage and delivery; package receipt, storage and delivery; shuttle management; and coat check. In some hotels, other departments or external contractors may be involved in some of these, but the same technologies can still be used both across departments and with contractors.

I am grateful to key executives at several companies that educated me on the best practices summarized here. These included Chexology, Downtowner, Flash, LAZ Parking, Metropolis (which recently acquired SP+), and TrackMyShuttle.

Parking Technology

Parking operations at hotels can be complex and have many moving parts. To be sure, many suburban hotels may have a free surface lot that requires no technology beyond a couple of security cameras. But hotels with paid parking should consider whether the latest technologies could help increase revenue, improve guest satisfaction, or reduce operating cost. The best practices I identified in conversations with Flash Parking, LAZ Parking, and Metropolis were very enlightening.

One common element in my interviews was that we are still in the early days of digital parking technologies, and the maturity levels vary significantly depending on the specific capability and company. As you evaluate specific approaches, it is worth remembering that new technologies tend to evolve as the vendors work through customer feedback. There was broad agreement in my interviews about the direction the technologies are going, but also of the need to carefully evaluate where each company is in its digital journey, to check references from other hotels, and to pilot technologies prior to making long-term commitments.

The scope of parking operations may cover a surface lot, a valet lot, and one or more garages. In city properties it is common for a hotel to have contracts with multiple nearby garages to handle guest vehicles. Some parking areas may be owned by the hotel, others contracted on an exclusive basis or shared with other area businesses. Parking and valet staff may be employed by the hotel, garage, or a parking contractor. Just coordinating all these entities can be a challenge, and a hotel that uses contract valet and parking services may have limited choices for technology. However, they can still identify key needs and capabilities and use them in negotiations with providers.

Parking technologies may support some or all of three common use cases: valet parking, controlled-lot self-parking, and parking combined with electric vehicle (EV) charging. Controlled self-parking systems are often referred to as Parking Access Revenue Control Systems (PARCS); these are typically kiosk-controlled entry and exit gates.

There are several features to consider in parking systems, depending on your needs.

Reservations: If your hotel regularly has more parking demand than available spaces, a reservation system can help. This is a critical issue in many small European towns, where parking can be so scarce that guests check parking availability even before reserving a room. But it can equally be an issue in city hotels that may have limited parking and occasional surges in guests arriving with cars.

A parking reservation system needs a public facing reservation site, to which the hotel can provide a link to arriving guests in a confirmation or prearrival email or text. The reservation process may provide, but should not require, the download of an app, since most guests will not do that for a single stay.

Better still (but rare especially in North America) is for parking reservations to be handled by the hotel’s web booking engine. Capturing the vehicle license plate at reservation can enable seamless entry via license plate recognition, an increasingly common PARCS feature, but allowances need to be made for rental cars where the plate number may not be known at the time of reservation. Most PARCS systems support QR code credentials if license plate recognition is not supported or if the guest does not know their plate number; some also support using a phone number for identification. The better reservation systems can also book time at EV charging stations, reserving both a physical space and the necessary charging capacity to meet the guest’s expectation for charging speed.

PARCS Activation: PARCS gates can be activated by any of several options. In increasing level of round-trip friction to the guest, these include license plate recognition, phone number entry, QR code scanning, credit card insertion, and paper ticket with pay station. Paper tickets may also be validated or exchanged for another credential at check-in. Some solutions can encode parking credentials on the guest keycard, but this can be less convenient than other options, as it requires an additional stop at the front desk for guests who use mobile check-in.

Upon entry, some parking solutions can provide reserved parking customers with directional guidance to the correct parking area or (especially with EV charging) to a specific space.

Metropolis/SP+ can do a one-time enrollment of drivers in a free membership program, which will then facilitate entry, payment, and exit for their garages and lots nationally by license-plate recognition or QR code scan.

Payment: Most solutions can support room charges for parking with common property management systems (PMSs), although one said it prefers not to do so. Room charges reduce friction for business guests who would otherwise have to submit multiple charges on expense reports (one provider can submit charges to expense management solutions like Concur, although this may not help the estimated 30-50% of business travel that is unmanaged).

Most solutions also support credit card payment upon exit, although some older systems require stopping at a kiosk. The better systems also allow the same credit card to be used for both entry and exit in lieu of a ticket, with charges calculated automatically based on the duration. However, this approach generally works only with public, on-demand parking rates, rather than multi-tier rate structures with discounts and validations. Some systems also support alternative payment methods such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, as well as tap-to-pay. Most solutions do not support cash payment at the gate, but a payment kiosk can generally be deployed nearby if this is essential.

Hotel parking solutions should support your need for auditable validation of overnight guests, day guests, and event guests. If the hotel wants to sell specific events (such as conferences or weddings) with special parking rates for day and/or overnight guests, make sure the system can support this (and preferably without requiring a lot of manual work at the front desk). Pre-arrival parking reservations from a private URL or special QR codes can often be used to eliminate the need for manual ticket validation and or issuance of parking cards.

Valet Drop-Off and Retrieval: If the hotel offers valet parking, then look for a solution that can seamlessly document the condition of the vehicle and preexisting damage, and that can easily record the guest’s identity, vehicle type and color, license plate, and vehicle location. For efficient management of valet runners in higher-volume operations, real-time task dispatching is also a useful feature, as it can enable a runner who just parked a car in a garage a few blocks away to get instructions via mobile phone for retrieving another car in the same lot, without first having to return to the bell desk.

Guests should be able to request their car via a text link provided at drop-off, via the hotel’s mobile app, via the hotel’s chat, or by calling or visiting the front desk or bell desk. The platform should also provide a simple user interface for the front desk, bell desk, or switchboard operator to enter a vehicle retrieval request manually based on nothing more than the guest name.

Valet runner task assignment is a common feature, but you should ensure that it can adhere to any union rules or hotel labor practices. Because valet runners are often tipped, many hotels use a rotational assignment process to ensure that valet staff get a fair allocation of tips. And digital tipping is an increasingly critical capability to look for in valet parking solutions, as fewer and fewer travelers carry cash. Hotels and unions often have specific formulas that must be honored for fair distribution of pooled tips.

Large hotels with valet parking and EV charging may benefit from logistical support to help them ensure that a large volume of EVs can be charged efficiently with a limited number of chargers and charging capacity, with each vehicle ready to be returned to the owner when they expect it. Systems that can maximize the use of those spaces by instructing staff how to can result in more charging revenue with fewer charging stations.

For hotels that may experience periodic rushes on valet parking services (such as a large conference releasing a thousand delegates all at once), some platforms offer a wait-time monitor that can be displayed at the bell desk. This can both help guests in planning their departure, and it can also generate additional revenue: guests who know they will need to wait 30 minutes for their car may decide to raid the grab-and-go or to partake of some food or beverage while they wait.

Other Considerations: In evaluating parking solutions, other key differentiators to check include the provider’s ability to service broken gates or machines quickly; their ability to provide consistency across multiple lots or garages that might be used by your hotel; and (for multi-hotel groups) their ability to provide a single set of solutions and operating processes across the entire portfolio. The front desk (in serving the guest), and the back-office (in calculating the hotel’s accounts) should not have to deal with too many solutions, processes, user interfaces, and guest credentials for different garages or lots. With pooled garage space in multiple lots, this means ensuring that all garages can support the same system – and may unfortunately limit your hotel’s choice of solutions.

Hotels that own their garages or lots and that frequently have excess capacity may benefit from working with a partner that has a consumer-facing presence and that can therefore provide local business to fill hotel parking facilities during slow times. You will likely need the ability to offer lower prices to this market and pay commissions to attract meaningful business, but it is still a source of additional revenue that mostly flows directly to the bottom line. The ability to fence so-called local rates from overnight guests can be accomplished by limiting time parameters, such as by charging the full rate for overnight parking. You may need to control inventory to avoid displacing overnight guests.

Modern parking solutions are cloud-controlled, which can support online reservations, effective remote management and troubleshooting, centralized reporting, simple software updates, and better security and credit card compliance. Local failover capabilities can support critical functions in the case of network outages.

Many of the modern systems also support single sign-on, meaning that hotel staff who need access to the system can use their company login (e.g., Windows) to access the system without separate authentication.

Any move from ticket-based to ticketless parking should consider audit requirements. This is particularly true when parking rates depend on factors such as overnight vs. day guest, affiliation with a group or event, loyalty or VIP status, or the like. Look for gaps where customers, directly or through staff, may be able to obtain discounts to which they are not entitled.

Integrations with hotel systems can be the key to achieving the maximum reductions in both cost and guest friction. Integration with the hotel’s existing payment processor can greatly simplify financial reconciliations. Integration with the PMS is needed for guest lookup and room charges. Integration with the website or mobile app can support advance parking reservations, either natively or by triggering an email to customers with a link to the parking reservation system. Integration with brand apps and chat can make it easier for guests to request their car, potentially in conjunction with picking up their luggage from their room. Integration with work order management systems such as Alice, HotSOS, or Knowcross can simplify vehicle retrieval requests (and make it easier to integrate them into the guest app or chatbot).

An important consideration in vendor selection is how focused the company is on hotel parking, versus other vertical markets such as retail and office. Some solutions that work well in other environments may come up short for hotels, particularly where deeper integration is needed. Companies with major parking operations and consumer bases can have the advantage of driving more customers to your hotel, but their processes may be optimized more for consumers than for hotels.

Transportation Management

Many bell desks oversee shuttles that provide transportation to airports or other area destinations. Some resorts also provide transportation services within their own campuses. Shuttle services may be scheduled, run continuous loops, or be arranged on demand (or a combination of any or all based on time-of-day or day-of-week). As with parking, services may be hotel owned and operated, contracted from a third party, or a combination (such as hotel-operated, third-party-owned vehicles).

Best practices to consider in shuttle management solutions, depending on your needs, include:

• Automated reservations (generally accessible via a link or QR code) to reduce calls to the front desk or bell desk. Reservations should support any restrictions applicable to on-demand service, such as distance or geofencing restrictions.
• Support for both scheduled and on-demand services, and for fixed pickup/dropoff points vs. variable ones.
• Support for dedicated as well as pooled service, if needed (for example, for airline crews or VIPs).
• Tracking technology that locates the vehicle every few seconds, not every minute or two. Current location accuracy is needed because guests are watching the location in real time.
• Shuttle tracking that is easily accessible to both staff and guests (this is particularly valuable for continuous loop service such as airport shuttles) or displayable on digital signage in the lobby (see for example this real-time tracker for the Hilton Newark Airport from TrackMyShuttle). If pickup is at fixed stops, a visual indication to the rider of their current location relative to the pickup spot is also very useful. For fixed stops or on-demand pickup, estimated travel time and a picture of the vehicle can be helpful to the guest.
• Tracking performed from a dedicated onboard device vs. an app on the driver’s phone.
• Adaptability of the solution to other vehicles where it may be useful, such as boats, golf carts, or even bell carts.

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Other elements of solutions may not be visible to guests, but can affect operating costs, waiting times, and safety. On-demand service, particularly when you have more than a handful of vehicles, can benefit greatly from route optimization, or trying to minimize the distance driven while considering other metrics such as wait time. This might, for example, suggest a short detour enroute to one destination to pick up another rider going to the same or a nearby one.

Most solutions offer some level of route optimization, but the factors considered, as well as the ability to scale the optimization up to many vehicles and drivers, can be an important differentiator. Optimization can be affected by factors such as the size of the party, luggage, the capacity of the vehicle, traffic, VIP status, sequence of requests, wait times, specific pickup and dropoff locations, the size of the fleet, and so forth. However, the more sophisticated capabilities are often needed only in larger, more complex environments such as city transportation networks or large college campuses. They are appropriate for some large resort operations, but will be overkill for most hotels.

There are many operational capabilities that can be useful even in smaller operations.

• Route and schedule management, including vehicle assignment and rotation if you operate more than one.
• Tracking devices that are connected to the vehicles’ On Board Diagnostics (OBD2) systems to capture maintenance issues or to flag unsafe driving habits like excessive speed or braking, or cost issues like excess idling time.
• Geographic and time-based alerts to identify misuse or theft of vehicles, trips outside of approved areas, or even drivers parking and sleeping on duty.

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Luggage, Package, Coat Check

Hotels are often called on to receive, store, and return items brought by guests. They may check bags for guests arriving before their room is ready or departing after check-out time; they may receive packages for delivery to guests (or staff); they may check coats for guests attending an event or dining in a restaurant. Lost-and-found services are similar, even if they may never result in face-to-face guest service. And as discussed in the Parking section above, valet services receive, park, retrieve, and return vehicles, and sometimes charge EVs.

Historically, these functions were documented with paper tags. Unique identifiers (usually a number) appear on one part that goes on the item, another part that is given to the guest as a claim ticket, and sometimes a third part that stays at a location such as the bell desk and that can be consulted to locate the item when the guest retrieves it.

Paper tags work but have operational limitations. Information must be entered by hand, often in multiple places on the ticket, and poor penmanship or transcription errors can create operational headaches. Guests lose claim checks. On a busy bag-storage day, the bag room may be overflowing with bags, and finding a particular guest’s bag can be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Packages may need to be sorted at the loading dock and delivered to the front desk or bell desk, which takes time. Meanwhile, the guest may be notified instantly when their Amazon delivery reaches the loading dock; they may be upset when the hotel cannot immediately locate it. Damage to valet-parked vehicles is described by scribbling an “x” on a diagram of a generic vehicle, with little or no differentiation between a tiny ding and major crash damage.

Chexology has reimagined and automated this process to reduce costs and friction, improve service, enable better metrics, and even contribute to sustainability goals. It retains the concept of a tag, which is still used to identify the item. But the tags are reusable and contain near-field communication (NFC) chips that, together with software, eliminate the need for paper tags, produce electronic receipts that can be sent to the guest by text, enable items to be quickly located even in a packed bag room, support electronic tracking and notifications to guests, and allow guests to request items via the hotel’s app, text message, or link in the text message the guest received when the item was checked. It also supports many common edge cases, such as guests without smart phones, day guests, drop-off of golf bags at valet parking for delivery to the club, and others.

Regardless of the item being stored, the basic process is similar.

• The guest provides their name, and if it is an overnight guest, they are identified from the PMS or work order management system.
• For day guests, they can provide their phone number (where their claim ticket can be sent by text message, which they can use to reclaim the item). Alternatively, they can provide their name and a PIN of their choosing.
• The valet or bell desk takes a tag, taps it with their phone, and affixes it to the item or vehicle. A picture or pictures can be taken to help identify the item or to document preexisting damage. Multiple items can be processed at once (for example, a car and luggage); each item gets its own tag.
• When the item is stored (or car is parked), another tag (e.g. mounted on a storage shelf) is tapped to identify the location where the item is stored.
• Status messages can be sent to the guest if needed, for example to advise that a package has arrived and is being sorted and that the guest will be notified when it is ready for pickup, then again when it is at the front desk or bell stand.
• When the guest requests the item to be returned (whether via text, hotel chat, hotel app, using the link sent earlier, or in person), the bell desk is advised of both the need to retrieve the item, and where it is stored, and retrieves it.

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Each bell desk task can be handled by any available team member based on assigned roles: one can receive the item, another can be tasked to store it; another can retrieve it; and someone else can deliver it. Tasks can be coordinated with common work-order management systems, and assignments can be aligned to house or union rules (such as rotation requirements).

A key benefit of automating these processes is the ability to measure service times and analyze bottlenecks, since each step in the process is started and ended through the app and logged. A dashboard provides quick visibility into metrics that often appear in brand or rating agency standards, such as the time to retrieve a vehicle or to pick up luggage in a guest room and bring it to the lobby.

Conclusion

The bell desk is one of the final frontiers in hotel automation. It really was not a good candidate for automation until smartphones became ubiquitous. Many of the applications have only matured in the past few years, and some are still evolving quickly. At the same time, it is increasingly the most important point of contact for more and more guests, so it is a place where making your staff more effective can pay significant dividends in terms of customer satisfaction. If you are running a paper-ticket based operation and have not reviewed your options, there are some very good ones in the market.

As always, feedback to my articles is welcome. Since the host site does not support discussions, I will post a link to this article on my own LinkedIn page once it has been published, and I invite you to comment, like, or share from there!

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