Dashboard Overwhelm? Unite Your Back- and Front-Office under One Roof
Which is great news for property owners as they offer huge savings in terms of man-hours, staffing, and operational costs, allowing them to stay competitive in a changing world.
However, while there’s no shortage of digital solutions out there, it’s important to build your tech stack with care if you want to reap the benefits. This is easier said than done, though. The sheer choice alone can be overwhelming and it’s often unclear what integrates with what. If you’re not careful, you can end up wasting half your time juggling multiple platforms, dashboards, and tabs. Or, worse, tied to inflexible systems that won’t grow as you do.
We don’t think fragmented tech serves anybody’s best interests, so we’re driving consolidation in the hospitality tech industry. We’ll walk you through how the Operto Connect Suite is your first choice for smooth digital transformation and a seamless, outstanding guest experience.
But we don’t expect you to take our word for it, so you’ll also hear from some of the tech-first trailblazers we’ve empowered over the years.
Need a powerful, scalable tech stack?
Buying fragmented, commoditized tech vs. a powerful, seamless suite
The hospitality industry is awash with different, highly specialized tools and it’s tempting to sign up for the best-in-class for each area of operations. However, these rarely integrate seamlessly, leading to overlapping technical capabilities, fragmented data, and duplication of work and spend.
Building your tech stack this way also exposes you to being locked into legacy or product ecosystems that are no longer fit for purpose, or don’t allow you to choose which tools work best for you.
Other drawbacks of fragmented, commoditized tech include:
- Doesn’t provide a seamless guest or staff experience.
- Promotes working in silos.
- Lack of joined-up insights and a 360° overview of operations.
- Time wasted constantly switching between multiple tools and tabs.
- Need for ongoing IT support to get all your products talking to each other.
- The more systems you have, the harder it is to monitor performance and troubleshoot and the greater the security risk–more entry points for hackers.
- Hands up who loves dealing with multiple vendors, renewal dates, customer support…
- Complicates onboarding and training new team members.
- You lose your edge if competitors can access the same features for less.
Basically, you can’t have true streamlining, automation, and alignment using a patchwork ecosystem.
To put it another way, you can’t get everyone on the same page when you’re all reading different books.
By contrast, an integrated suite:
- Is more efficient and streamlined.
- Frees you up to concentrate on providing an excellent guest experience.
- Connects guests to in-stay technology, owners, and teams 24/7 and provides the seamless experience they expect.
- Gives you a 360° view of your operations and properties.
- Eliminates friction and promotes collaboration.
- Puts you ahead of the tech pack.
- Is more secure and easier to manage.
- Single point of contact for support.
- Integrates with best-in-class partners.
WIL SLICKERS
Co-Founder & Destination Director of Recreation Rentals
Does building your tech stack need to be a headache?
Not if you choose a platform that fits your current operations and grows with you.
We designed Operto Connect as a one-stop property management shop with all the features you need for guest and team management, communication, and collaboration. It integrates with a range of PMS and collaboration tools, though, so you can onboard wholesale or combine it with whatever works for you.
We think it works best as an all-in-one solution but we’re aware our customers come to us at different stages of digital transformation, so you can choose which products fit your operation and add more as you grow.
So, if you’re not ready to invest in smart locks, you can still sign up for Operto Teams or the Guest Portal. And vice versa.
It’s customizable, flexible, scalable, and suitable for everything from big hotel chains to small STRs.
With zero headaches.
“Operto has been an ideal partner for us at Mint House with their constantly evolving products, superior customer service, reliability, and flexibility to match our unique needs.”
ALEX HERRITY
CPO of Mint House
Guest experience
Digital is the future of hospitality but people remain at the heart of it.
The goal of tech isn’t to create impersonal stays, but to free you up to focus on personalizing and improving the guest experience to keep them coming back.
The 2020 Customer Engagement Technology Study found better communication and flexibility are currently powerful incentives for return bookings. Guests also prize pre-stay messaging, contactless payments, smart TVs, and using smartphones to make reservations, check-in/out, and access rooms and personalized services.
The Operto guest experience portal checks all these boxes with:
- Contactless self-check-in/out that improves vacation rental safety, eliminates the frustrations of traditional staffed check-in desks, and reduces risk of Covid-19 transmission. Saving on staffing also means you can afford to offer flexible cancellation policies, currently a major driver of choice.
- Two-way messaging. Share essential pre-stay information, welcome them on check-in, respond to mid-stay requests, and gently alert them to noise or occupancy breaches.
- Guides. Create and share attractive, branded house manuals, product and service catalogs, and local recommendations. Automated, customizable Google Places recommendations also remove the need to create them manually.
- Custom upsells and direct marketing. Unlike OTAs, Operto gives you a direct communication channel with guests. Create targeted pre-, in-, and post-stay campaigns and new revenue streams with bundled amenities, extras, and experiences that appeal to a generation accustomed to this sort of retail experience.
- Browser-based interface avoids the pitfalls of poor adoption when guests are forced to download an app.
- The manager dashboard allows you to customize the Portal to suit your offering. Thanks to the PMS integration, all unit information and reservations are also automatically imported when you sign up.
“Smart tech allows us to check off all the right checkmarks for travelers. Easy access to the property, a great digital guidebook…you name it, we make sure it’s a part of the experience so they can focus on living.”
WIL SLICKERS
Co-Founder & Destination Director of Recreation Rentals
Smart devices and IoT
Operto allows you to integrate and automate control of smart devices for savings and an improved guest experience:
- Smart locks/guest access. Unique access codes eliminate the security risks of single-code lockboxes and keys that can be lost, copied, or stolen. Operto’s integrations with Superhog and Autohost also offer an added layer of security via guest verification at the time of booking.
- For smart locks, we can supply both hardware and software and support you through setup. We work with all major US and European brands of smart locks, many of which fit over existing deadbolts, minimizing cost and disruption.
- Energy savings. Give them a warm welcome by heating the place up before they arrive, or cooling it down, with Operto’s intelligent, remote control of thermostats, boilers, and split A/C units. Guests can set custom temperature schedules for maximum comfort, and you never need to worry if they switched the lights off when checking out.
- Occupancy and noise monitoring devices and smart lock data provide real-time alerts so you always know what’s happening in your property and can quickly deal with violations.
Team Operations
Get streamlined vacation rental team scheduling with Operto Teams:
- Optimize vacation rental cleaning and maintenance with real-time check-out alerts, personalized, prioritized cleaning schedules, and scheduling of maintenance checks.
- Assign tasks and collaborate with individuals or teams using two-way messaging and custom notifications.
- Set individual access codes by role and permissions. See who’s accessed which rooms and when using lock data and activity logs.
- Track performance, efficiency, hours worked, etc., and reward your best employees.
How we help scaling property managers and hoteliers
We’re proud to have partnered with these forward-thinking hospitality professionals and helped them survive and thrive in challenging times by offering tech-enabled stays. We know digital transformation is a journey rather than a destination, so we provide ongoing support with installation, setup, onboarding, and beyond, from supplying lock hardware to creating tailored SOPs for other vendors or internal teams to help smooth the transition.
- Tommy Kalita runs one of the leanest operations we’ve ever seen at the Corduroy Suites in Edmonton, Canada. Automating face-to-face procedures allows him to keep costs low and operate as a one-man management team with just a remote concierge and cleaners on staff.
In just five years, Tommy’s grown from a one-room Airbnb to a boutique B&B to a 60-room hotel while others are struggling to survive.
- Locale’s apart hotel in Austin, Texas, leverages a Mews and Operto integration with automated self-check-in, thermostat control, tailored messaging and experiences, and in-room shopping. All the comforts, security, and conveniences of a hotel with the personalization of an STR.
Keeping costs down enables competitive rates and wowing guests with amenities like fitness centers and resort-style pools.
Locale stayed open during lockdown and continues to grow.
“Connected travelers today want something more…. We appeal to someone who values personalization…. Bookings have gone up over the last 12 months, and I think part of that is due to the technology, the interface, just being better.”
NITESH GANDHI
Founder & CEO of Locale
- Having swapped the security and logistical nightmare of lockboxes and keys for keyless entry, CozyHaus, Detroit, offers improved guest peace of mind in a high-risk market.
It now operates with just one part-time property manager per 12 units and was able to safely host front-line workers during lockdown. It even turned the situation to its advantage:
“Operto allows us to maximize our revenue as what we used to charge per night we now charge per hour.”
DANIELLE DIRKS
Founder of CozyHaus
- Breakfast Hotel, Hiroshima, cut staffing costs and boosted efficiency and hygiene with contactless check-in and cleaning team management. It now enjoys improved revenue and reputation, and a 3-times higher booking average than Airbnb.
Breakfast Hotel operates 60 properties per staff member and is poised to open more.
“Operto was a game-changer for us in Hiroshima. Before guests might have checked into the wrong apartment or been confused. Operto streamlined all this and made for happier guests.”
EDWARD HSIEH
COO of Breakfast LLC
- The Annex in Toronto calculated they potentially saved around $122,000 on wages with keyless self-check-in. Guests are connected to staff 24/7 and have city information available via smartphone, so they’re better served than with a traditional front desk.
“Using Operto has also allowed us to operate extremely efficiently as the access is essentially taken care of. It really modernizes the check-in experience. It’s also fantastic from a back-end standpoint with things like housekeeping and access to room data for more efficient operations.”
RYAN KILLEEN
GM of The Annex
Why it’s better to have everything under one roof
Uniting your teams, guests, devices, and operations in one flexible platform is more efficient, cost-effective, and simplifies communication and oversight. No more switching between multiple tools to stay on top of things, and no danger of future incompatibilities, or poor staff compliance.
It also offers greater potential for automation across the board, freeing you up to focus on personalizing stays, monetizing amenities and services, and providing a seamless guest experience.
Operto aims to be a guide on your digital transformation journey. Whatever stage you’re at, we’ll help figure out what you need and support you through onboarding and beyond. In addition to our own products, we work with best-in-class partners to give users access to:
- Vetted partners that we know have outstanding products in their niches, like NoiseAware, Autohost, and Superhog
- A single pane of glass view of your tools to save switching between dashboards
- Smooth connectivity and continuity for guests and managers
- Preferred pricing in Operto bundles
- Best practice solution architecting from Operto’s team
References
[1] The State Of Tech-Enabled Stays From 2021-2023
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