Schani Hotels' Group Technology Manager on Inheriting a Tech Stack
Usually, you get the commission invoice from the OTA, and then you go through every booking you get from the OTA, count it together, calculate if the commission is correct, yes or not, and then just go have a sit.
Speaker 2:From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider, a show about the future of hotels and the technology that powers them.
Speaker 3:In this episode, we chat with Christian Mueller, the group manager of technology at Chani Hotels, a hotel company with 4 boutique hotels in Vienna. Our conversation covers a lot of ground from Christian's advice on change management to his thoughts on how technology can actually create a more personal guest experience. If you want to use technology to improve the guest experience at your hotel, you'll want to listen to this one.
Speaker 4:I do like to start the conversations by getting to know you a little bit better. I would love if you could share a little bit about Shani, about your organization, and about your role. I'd like to get an understanding for what you're doing at the organization.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. I'm Christian Miller. Group manager, technology for the Charny Hotels. Charny Hotels is a hotel group based in Vienna with now 4 hotels. We are private owned and always undertaking to provide the best technology solution for our guests.
Speaker 1:I'm always trying to step one or step ahead of everything what's out there in regards of technology, of comfort, of guest welcomeness. There are different kinds where we are standing for. Shiny Hotel, the first one is builded, was constructed in 2015, and we were one of the first properties with a digital signature in Europe. And one of the first properties with a mobile boom key, also in Europe. And back in the days, it was really outstanding to be there.
Speaker 1:We had always the option to go with providers together that follow the same direction and help us to build this kind of new hospitality set. And we are never stopping by one property and always try to go one step further. Myself joining Shawnee Hotels in April of 2022, and my role by the shift from 2 properties to 4 properties, was hired to take a look at the tech stack, the shiny utils, and make it a little bit more future proof, Make it scalable. I wanna get caught like that. Within this job definition, I wanna get caught like that.
Speaker 1:I've just really go around in the industry, talk to a lot of providers, get a lot into details, what is possible on every kind of the text text there. Within this, I've request the current status and rather if you quickly find out that the existing text deck was fine for what it was, but wasn't fine in my opinion to be future proof. And if you're talking about future proof text stack, there is 1 big world and there is API. And I found out that there are a lot of things missing, and a lot of things are impossible to build if you want to go ahead. And, therefore, I was looking around if there's any provider up there, any solution that can help me to get multiple softwares, multiple solutions together, helped me to build the best solution for us in Shiny.
Speaker 4:Could you tell me a little bit about what the tech stack was when you stepped into this role, and what systems are you talking about specifically? Is it PMS, revenue management system, channel manager?
Speaker 1:Correct. We had a really good PMS back in the days. It was a stay in touch. It was really future proven, but there was a lag on the API calls, or better, a lag on interfaces to other software providers based here in Europe. This is sometimes a problem that you get PMS or a solution you want to use, but they're typical only connected or available in one specific area connected to typical providers in that specific area.
Speaker 1:But our main goal or my main challenge back in the day was that our guest journey wasn't future proof as we already provide digital guest journey. That mean, just send a guest confirmation with a link to download our Shani application to start pre check-in, to get the mobile key, and then the guest just arrive and can check-in at our kiosk. And that's it. And in my opinion, that's okay in typical wholesale, but we always want to go one step ahead. And we're requesting that completely guest journey and just relatively quickly find out that this whole gap is by only providing guest journey on our application itself.
Speaker 1:In 2015, everybody was excited about an application for whatever business you are running. Right? And, probably, there are also areas on our planet where applications are still valid sync. But in Europe, nobody wants to download an application anymore. You have around one application installed already?
Speaker 1:Why just download one more if this has only one usage just for one day, one time? And we just had around 8% of all guests using that application. And I really was sure that it is because of the application or that you have to download it. Therefore, I was just looking around if there's any web application or any web solution that can help us. I was talking to our existing providers, just look around in the industry, just talk to start ups.
Speaker 1:I even talk to dedicated developers and ask them, hey. Is it possible that developers in a web application that make it sense for us to replace it as our provider mentioned that they won't get a step to convert the native application to a web application. Yeah. In example, I was really looking around and just found one provider. It was a lucky call.
Speaker 1:The provider wasn't on the mic. It was a product Then when I found him on the talk to the product owner, we just had really good 2 hours and talk about what's possible. And 3 months later, he come to me and say, hey. We're going to the market. Do you see any opportunity to join us or that we can help Shani to build a better tech stack or build a better guest solution?
Speaker 1:And in general agreement, anybody would read, hey. We need to change something. Then I've started to design. Text icon I can see it I mean, I can say it like this. A little bit from scratch.
Speaker 1:I won't change anything in the first place, but but changing the guest journey was requesting myself to maybe changing the PMS, was forced me to change the payment provider, bringing me to the point that I need to change the channel manager, I need to change the RMS, and so on and so forth. And on that journey, we really talk to a lot more and find a solution that work for us. And it's now on a point where we can say, this current stack stack is scalable. And that kind are also relatively quickly rolled out. When I can think about it, typical PMS rollout times are 3 months, 6 months, or more, depending on the provider.
Speaker 1:In the worst case, and if we keep the OTAs out because they're a little bit more pain in the air, we are able to roll out a new property within some weeks, but not less. So this is really a big thing. What? We are currently working together with Aperleo as a team, working together with Light Magic for the guest journey, for complete messaging, to complete web application, the mobile keys, and the kiosk solution, working together with Hairfellow, as a dog provider, to provide us the digital opening because this is always the big point. Open a door just only from the web, not required any Bluetooth connection or any NFC connection.
Speaker 1:And we work together with SiteMiner as our channel manager and Adian as a payment provider. And, nevertheless, pays us a revenue system and for our make it marketing campaigns. Our POS system is Helen Chaz. We are looking for a light POS solution and event temple for our whole event space, you know, properties. But back.
Speaker 1:Just jump back. How to change it or how change came back. It was really big point for us. And we are always requesting if we really need to change the system or if there is any way to keep our current solution in partition area. And for us, there was no other solutions for our kind of hotel.
Speaker 1:As I need to make a side sentence, I'm always talking about our Shani hotel solution, and this text deck won't fit to any other hotel. As in general, every hotel hotel group chain need to find their own perfect solution, if there's any perfect solution out there.
Speaker 4:I'm curious what specific parts of hotel operations at Shawnee require a custom tech stack? Or what about your tech stack makes it so perfect for your hotels?
Speaker 1:Yeah. May not only a specific feature. It's more in regards that we got the possibility to build things if it's needed. That's the option to really have an in PMS where the whole API or the whole PMS is available via an API.
Speaker 4:So that allows you the flexibility. If you wanted to build something on your own, you could plug it in to your existing PMS.
Speaker 1:Correct. And 2 steps more, it gives us the flexibility to use local tools like make.com. If there's anything in the typical usage for our front desk or our reservation department, Walt drives them nuts because they need to do it on a daily basis one at a times. We have always the option to take a look if there's any way to automate it or just run it via make.com. And this brings us to the point where we have automized a lot of operational tasks, 85 tasks around that, now running automize wire and load tool in background, and our operation stuff don't need to take anything.
Speaker 1:Or if there is anything, what it needs to be done on a manual basis, say, get informed or pinged via Microsoft Teams. As we're using Office 365, we will not. And using Microsoft Teams as an internal messaging tool. There are a lot of options with the use of Microsoft and the use of local tools, also other providers to ping you on certain tasks. And the quickest thing is if guests book, late checkout.
Speaker 1:Our housekeeping department directly get a notification message on Teams that this room has late checkout. It will check out at whatever time. There's no need to take a look at the PMS. There's no need to take a look at any other printed out sheet of paper where I stand out the time. What?
Speaker 1:Just get a message. And you say, know what's going on.
Speaker 4:Can you tell me more about the tasks that you've automated? Do you have some other examples? I mean, 85 is pretty impressive. So I'm curious what else you've automated.
Speaker 1:Yeah. For sure. Quickly take a look. There is a lot. We just automate the task for payment links.
Speaker 1:It's really cool. We get an option inside for Palio to create payment links, to send the guest the link where they can pay their stay with credit card, with direct bank transfer, with Klarna, or PayPal. And typical, this link will get created but not sent to the guest. And we just create a flow that's read out the charge code on the folio and then the payment link gets created. And if we create a message to the email address from the gas, where it stands in, hey.
Speaker 1:Thanks for your stay. What? It's a little bit of reservation details and see all the payment links for that. And the reason why we read out the charge code is we just decided if the guest just buy a voucher from us, then the whole message body needs to be in a different formatting, holding a little bit of different information. And when we read out the payment link is created and on the folio is a charge code as well chart on it, then we just rephrase the whole text we sent it against.
Speaker 1:And typical, the payment link is valid for 7 days. And if the payment link gets paid, just fine. If the payment link isn't paid, we automatically notify our reservation department and the specific reception from the house that this payment link is expired and they need to contact the guest again. The link or they could recreate the link. Just one easy solution.
Speaker 1:Another solution we had is the guest data cleaning and the comment cleaning. This mean we just scan every incoming reservation to read out the comments attached to the reservation. Every hotel now says nonsmoking comment on whatever comment you typically get from the LTAs. Nowadays, useless for us because every room is a nonsmoking room. Why send us the comment?
Speaker 1:It is only trash. And we just read out the comment, just delete these typical outdated comments, and just leave in the valid comments for us. And then comes the point where it gets interesting for us because if they are in the comments is comment like baby bat or dog or anything like that, we just notify our staff, hey. They are looking for a baby vet. We need to book a baby vet, or say just looking for a dog.
Speaker 1:Just contact the guest that they need to book the extra dog. Or if a guest just already books the extra dog or baby bed, and stuff like that, we just notify all staff. And on the other hand, we are looking for departure of departing rooms with the extra dog or baby bed already in it. So you only need to change the linen on the baby bed and not to remove the baby bed around. So small things like that.
Speaker 4:I'm curious how have staff and guests reacted to these automated tasks? Are guests pretty happy with the results, and are employees happy with how easy it is?
Speaker 1:The guest won't realize it. What can I say about texting and what typical is from a guest perspective? It's most task for guests get automized by providers. So a lot of things in the hotel industry are built with guests in mind. So build for guests to make a better stay for them.
Speaker 1:But a small portion of tools are built in our industry for all stuff or employees. And think about it. Why an employee want to use an tool that looks like Windows 95 and works like Excel? Sorry to say it, but a lot of typical hotel employees don't want touch tools, don't want to work with such solution. And if you not find a solution that work for your employees, like working for your guests So operating in as easy as usable like WhatsApp, TikTok, Instagram.
Speaker 1:Tools you already know from everyday usage. They don't want to use it. And the most of the optimizations we just build are for our employees. And in the first place, we started to build such optimization as employees required it. As our colleagues come to us and say, hey, we are just missing this specific function from our old text stack.
Speaker 1:We just need it. Give it back to us. And, therefore, we start to build it. And relatively quickly, we go ahead. They always come with new ideas and say, hey, we have this repetitive task once a week, once a day, once a month, if there are any way to optimize such a process.
Speaker 1:And that's a good example is the commission invoicing with wasn't typical OTA. So, usually, you get the commission invoice from the OTA, and then you go through every booking you get from the OTA, count it together, calculate if the commission is correct, yes or not, and then just go ahead and say. And it depends on the amount of postings you get from them 2, 3, 4 hours a month or more. We just got the option to read out the commission from our channel manager and calculate it prior to the invoice. And therefore, we send our stuff of this specific employee that makes the commission invoicing and automated mail with the information, hey.
Speaker 1:You will get a commission invoice from this specific OTA about, whatever, 100 bookings or 100 reservation with commission sum x y that. And they only need to compare if the number from the OTA is the number we sent them. If yes, just send it out. If no, go ahead and calculate it. What?
Speaker 1:Count. And in the 1st month, we just create that thing. We have differences in in send area. Right? So 1, 2, 3, 20¢ difference from that what we calculated and what the OTA just sent us.
Speaker 1:And then we just go ahead and say, okay. There are some rounding issues in our calculation. So it matches. And our staff don't need to waste the time anymore for it. Only if they found €20, whatever, a bigger amount is the difference, and we need to take a deeper look at it.
Speaker 1:But this just really save time.
Speaker 4:I'm curious with so many changes to the tech stack in the last few years, how have you made the transition easy for staff? I'm sure you needed to get their support when you're implementing a new system, and then once the system has been implemented, make sure that they're using it properly. Can you tell me a bit about that process and training and making sure everyone is on the same page?
Speaker 1:Get away from that ideal idea or set of changes always on the sunny side. Change is always a little bit connected with pain. When you can say it like that, gets through it. What I mean with that is that in the first place, you always hear the flowery words from the providers, and everything will get smooth. It will be better after the switch than prior to it.
Speaker 1:And to be honest, a switch, especially if we're talking about PMS, other systems connected to it, is hard. You need to find your own way to deal with it. And you need to make it clear for you and your employees that it will be better, but not one day after the switch and also not 2 weeks after the switch. Here what your employees say. Get in touch with the staff, not get in touch with the line managers.
Speaker 1:Just get in touch with the staff. Talk to them. Get feedback from them on every task and talk to the staff. However, what it is or what's point it is, the staff will have feedback for you. And talk to the departments that are related to the specific software.
Speaker 1:So if you change your sense of catering software, then not talk to your, whatever, housekeeping manager because a lot of things are not relatable for him. But talk to your banker team staff. Talk to your catering staff. Talk to your marketing department because maybe they need to change the whole marketing since building the tool and get sure that interface requirements are the same from one provider to another. And not get or not fall into the trap that, yeah, we have an interface to that provider.
Speaker 1:That is okay. They always can pay it. And then the connection points are only 50% from the last connection. And in the whole process, it's a constant reminder to everybody that is involved in the whole change that these are the good points. We already changed.
Speaker 1:We are now already better than 1 year ago. Focus also on the good things. A lot of employees and also a lot of managers, well, I think it's human thing, quickly fall into pointing to not functional things or pointing to what's going wrong with whatever interface, with whatever solution. And it's okay. Just name it.
Speaker 1:Just make it clear what's going wrong. But always remind them that these are opponents. Make a list. X lives. Whatever.
Speaker 1:Talk to them. These are opponents. So really looking better than 1 year ago, and we are really on a better way for our guests, for our staff, for the interfaces since 1 year ago. And if you constantly remind them, hey. We are on the right way.
Speaker 1:There won't be the golden unicorn solution for you that makes everything what you are wishing for, then they get away with it. Because, however, solution your property, your chain currently using, you will always find at least one employee that has one big bad thing to say about it. And even if it's because the color of the PMS on one specific button is now green and not red.
Speaker 4:You mentioned when the option for check-in was with the app, only 8% of guests were using the app. Now that you have some better solutions in place, what percentage of guests are using some type of digital check-in?
Speaker 1:May we need to differentiate a little bit because when we are talking about pre check-in, so guests making the pre check-in on their mobile phone or making the digital check-in on our kiosk solution inside of our properties. But somewhere around, we are talking about 70% using the complete digital pre check-in privacy. Depends on the property because depends a little bit on the guests, where are the guests coming from, things like that. But all around about or overall for properties, we're talking about 70% using mobile check-in, digital check-in, and 98%, 99% using overall the digital check-in as we required it to check-in on our kiosk. It's huge.
Speaker 1:Another number that really blows my mind was the usage of WhatsApp. With the change, we give the option to every guest to choose the communication channel. And now we're just offering the communication or the contact channel email and WhatsApp. We're always looking to expand a little bit and also use other messaging solutions. But in our current stack, it's WhatsApp.
Speaker 1:We get a little bit in trouble with typical SMS, especially in regards of the country codings and by sending SMS and sending links. Yeah. However, every guest gets an email and gets WhatsApp message with the confirmation and a link in it. And as soon as the guest click on the link, he gets requested his preferred communication channel and took every guest make a choice in the one step in the first step. And over 60% of all guests using WhatsApp instead of email.
Speaker 1:And it's really interesting. The number are growing, and the number are also gets higher as all the guests are. It's really crazy. And we get a better feedback from guests using WhatsApp. And another kind of messages from guests using WhatsApp say, just send us messages with heart emotion, smileys in it, or voice messages or things like that.
Speaker 1:And they have another while communicating with us as a whole time prior to communicating via email result. Then we're connecting with this is you usually write an email in your work environment. Think about when you write the last email on a private basis. For me, it's 2 months, 3 months ago. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Emails are only used for newsletters or to get in call to action link. But a message inside of WhatsApp is always connected to a more private line. You're texting with your colleagues, with your friends, with your panel there. You have typical family groups and scented memes. Right?
Speaker 1:This is an personal vibe. And then you get a confirmation from your hotel inside of WhatsApp that's directly transfer this typical stay into a personal experience. And therefore, all the guests are really more connected to us or frontier to us. And this reflects a little bit in the feedback from the guests. So most on the personal space as on the working space.
Speaker 1:In my opinion, this is this is one way into the future. And the next way into the future is connecting this to any automized large language and some model chatbot, whatever you want to call it, that can quicker reply to the guests with our stuff. Yeah. By the way, right in the moment or in the middle of the night, and give the guest direct feedback. Always with the option to our staff to jump in this conversation, take it over.
Speaker 1:This is just one big part. On the other way, the whole digital gesture changed, I should say, as we just typical upper right or properties with check-in is is checkout. That mean everything's prepaid or with your check-in, everything's prepaid for your stay. There's no option to book anything on your specific room. However, there are always special things where we need to put things on the room, or we have the specific guests that can't pay now, that can't pay in 2 days.
Speaker 1:We just book one specific bill or whatever on the room from the guest because they haven't called with it. And they get wild as when we book something on the room. The guest can automatically notify it. Hey, this is your invoice. This specific extra isn't paid now.
Speaker 1:You can pay it now on your digital guest journey with Apple Pay, Google Pay, or whatever credit card you want to dive in there. Or at least you need to pay it by checkout. And this is the thing where, especially, older guests get wowed by what's possible with technology nowadays. And that isn't the point where a typical guest step away from it and say, hey. Don't want this specific kind of technology or get a little bit frustrated by the over amount what is possible.
Speaker 1:A lot of guests are wowed with, this is possible. This is cool. This makes my life easier, and therefore, I want to use it also in the future. And I think this is connected to a lot of other situations where technology is implemented in certain places of our life. And in the first place, it won't make life easier.
Speaker 1:So we need to adopt it. We need to learn to work with it that it solves our issues or challenges. But soon as you get a good experience with whatever solution, you get into it. You want to have it by the next with with the next say. Same thing with digital room key.
Speaker 1:Since I'm constantly using the digital key on my phone, on my Apple Watch, whatever, I always looking for digital room key in every property I'm staying, although if it's not Johnny.
Speaker 4:Do you find it often?
Speaker 1:No. Not really. If you have it one time, you want to have it back. It's the same thing like a kiosk check-in. They are part of guests that want a typical reception check-in, a personal check-in, a conversation with the staff on-site.
Speaker 1:But they won't fill out the registration card on a sheet of paper and type in the same information by every check inside. Say, want to have a chat with the stuff for myself. I always get mad to chat to somebody in reception. Not about that I won't chat with him. More in relation that this is not the chat that I want to have with him.
Speaker 1:I want to chat with him about city, about recommendations they have. About his last weekend online travel. But the typical chat is, oh, can you give me your passport? Can you fill out this line? Is this still your address?
Speaker 1:Sign this. Sign this. Breakfast is at 6. So this is not personal. This is not a good experience.
Speaker 1:Therefore, I'm a typical guest at directly running to an online check and make everything prefilled. Just give me a key. Leave me on my room. Or directly move to the kiosk, talk to nobody, and better later on coming down to the reception, talk to yourself, to have a personal conversation. And a lot of hotels out there are always saying, hey.
Speaker 1:We can't put a kiosk on our reception because this isn't personal, and we want to have this last big barrier on personal experience in our altar. I've always come around and say, hey. Do you really think this is personal? Talking about a registration card and the payment method. This is not isn't personal.
Speaker 1:Put it away from the checker. Put it on the guest journey. Put it on a digital way and have a real conversation with your guests.
Speaker 4:Well, I think that's a really good topic to end on. Thank you so much for your time. It was great chatting with you.
Speaker 2:That's all for today's episode. Thanks for listening to Hotel Tech Insider produced by Hotel Tech Report .com. Our goal with this podcast is to show you how the best in the business are leveraging technology to grow their properties and outperform the concept by using innovative digital tools and strategies. I encourage all of our listeners to go try at least one of these strategies or tools that you learned from today's episode. Successful digital transformation is all about consistent small experiments over a long period of time, so don't wait until tomorrow to try something new.
Speaker 1:Do you
Speaker 2:know a hotelier who would be great to feature on this show, or do you think that your story would bring a lot of value to our audience? Reach out to me directly on LinkedIn by searching for Jordan Hollander. For more episodes like this, follow Hotel Tech Insider on all major streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
