Case Studies

Welsh Hotel Group

Case Study – Welsh Hotel Group

Services delivered:

• Overnight mystery guest audits
• Reservations Calls
• Conference & Events Calls

This group of 3 individual hotels commissioned ASI Outsourcing to provide mystery guest accommodation audits.

The audits include:

1. A recorded reservation call
2. First impressions including the exterior of the hotels
3. Check in
4. The bar
5. The restaurant
6. Breakfast
7. Checkout

Once the guest checks out the report is completed on line and ASI Outsourcing ensures this is available on-line for the owners and senior managers to read within 48 hours of check out.  Each hotel manager and their team have different access levels to allow them to view their own hotel reports.

The type of mystery guest used varies on the need of the hotel at the time.  Often it is a business person as this is a “typical” mid week guest at these hotels.

Angela, Business Development Manager at ASI Outsourcing, took a trip to Wales to meet face to face with the Group Sales Manager and each hotel General Manager.  Angela spent a night in each hotel as a guest to gain an understanding of their brand values and standards to assist in creating the correct questions for the assignments.

The Group Sales Manager was fully involved with creating the questions for each hotel and these have been reviewed every year on renewal of contract.  Regular trips to Wales are arranged to ensure the relationship between both ASI Outsourcing and the client remains strong.  These trips also provide Angela with time to recruit and train agents who are local business people based within a few hours’ drive of the hotels.

The group has progressed on to instructing ASI Outsourcing to conduct recorded calls covering both wedding pack requests and conference room bookings.  These calls are realistic for the group as ASI Outsourcing recruit real people who use real data when making the calls, all have local accents and addresses to make it believable that a wedding or conference is actually required.  All email addresses and telephone numbers are genuine and the customer can be called back on them.  By offering this level of detail this group has found these calls a highly effective method of identifying training issues quickly and effectively.

Scottish Hotel Group of 3 Hotels

Worked with since May 2006, contract still ongoing.

Services delivered:

• Overnight mystery guest audits
• Reservations Calls
• Conference & Events Calls
• Up Selling Coffee Visits
• Sales & Revenue Management

ASI Outsourcing was contracted to provide mystery shopping for all 3 hotels in this group.  The audits were all overnight stays with a mix of one and two night stays.

The sections that were audited included:

1. Reservations Call
2. First Impressions
3. Check in
4. Accommodation Standards
5. Lunch
6. Dinner
7. Bar
8. Breakfast
9. Housekeeping
10. Leisure Club
11. Check out

The group Operations Manager and one of the Directors were involved with a series of face to face meetings with Angela, ASI Outsourcing’s Business Development Manager to agree the best questions for the audits.  Year on year as the contracts have been re-signed the questions have been amended to reflect changes in the way the group operates and remain current.

As the group rebranded the restaurants mid-year the questions had to be amended to reflect this and the team carried this out and uploaded the changes to take effect from the next wave.

Each hotel manager has 24/7 online access to all reports for their hotel and the directors have a higher level access that allows them all to view every report for each hotel at the touch of a button.

This group of hotels find these audits an invaluable tool for keeping their finger on the pulse and they can identify any issues quickly and respond to them immediately.

This group has a very diverse mix of guests and the mystery guests change between, business people mid week to couples and families at the weekend.  By offering this mix of agent the hotels can be assured they have looked at their facilities for all of its target markets.

The directors have access to the reports within 48 hours after the guest checks out.

Up Sell Audits (coffees)

After the group invested heavily in training for service staff we introduced an up selling audit.  This audit involved putting in local people to purchase coffees to see if the more expensive varieties were offered and scones etc offered too.

Sales & Revenue Management

When the group decided to move to the next level to push forward its sales presence, ASI Outsourcing was contracted to give this support on site over a set number of hours each week.  Tasks that have been undertaken include: improvement of relationships with travel trade providers; third party distribution and frequent updating; increased occupancy, promotion  campaigns and planned events to raise brand awareness; installation of a new on-line booking engine to increase direct bookings with no commission and other activities all helping to improve sales.  ASI Outsourcing has also assisted with recruitment and training and with implementing updated systems to improve efficiency.