Facility managers in hospitality are now using hotel software solutions to improve how they work. When it comes to maintenance software, and as you look through the different options, it can seem overwhelming. If you want the right maintenance software for your hotel, consider the factors that your team is most impacted.
Focus on which questions are related to what your maintenance team does every day. With this software:
Will this help me to plan my preventive maintenance activities?
Can my staff use this to communicate effectively?
Are there any limitations to where and how we can access the software?
Are there features and resources to help my team stay on target with our goals?
These are questions you want to avoid asking after you’ve made a purchase. That’s why access to the right tools and the right system can help. Here are four key functions to look for when look for the right maintenance software for your hotel or resort.
Maintenance Scheduling and Calendar Tools
Hospitality requires your hotels to look and perform at their best for your guests’ stay. In order to do that, your maintenance team needs to be ahead of the game. The largest obstacle many hotels face is falling behind with preventative maintenance tasks and routine inspections. This leads to problems such as breakdowns in equipment or damage to property left unrepaired for days.
Initial scheduling tools may involve emailing scheduled work or assigning tasks for the day. This can be a useful method however, over time, it can become more difficult to manage. What’s important with scheduling is that your team can be proactive rather than reactive. Should other issues come up throughout the day, the scheduled work does not fall to the wayside.
What hotels look for in maintenance software is the ability to structure and track all their routine maintenance activities efficiently. Preventative maintenance is one of the most commonly used features in building maintenance software. This involves preventive maintenance software and modules to create scheduled work orders – activities focused on proactive maintenance and repair. Most programs provide tools to schedule specific work orders to occur on a routine basis. This can be done on a calendar, meter reading or run-time hour basis.
There are also interactive calendars available in CMMS software. The calendar give you a view of your scheduled work orders and helps to prepare your team. If a particular work order require additional preparation, set an email reminder days in advance.
Maintenance Request Software
Your maintenance are responsible for completing work orders and maintenance tasks. However, they don’t have to be the only ones who communicate facility maintenance needs in your hotels. Your front desk, and other hospitality staff, are helpful to keep eyes on building and service equipment issues. They can notify you or your manager of guest complaints – a broken toilet or a room with no AC for example.
Even though employees can help bring issues to light, they may not be able to submit a work order themselves. Staff may have limited knowledge equipment details or be unsure of the cause for a guest’s complaint. A simple web portal is a popular alternative. This gives service staff the ability to send maintenance problems to the technicians that they receive from guests throughout the day. Requests can then be approved and converted into work orders which automatically give status updates back to the sender. This allows hotel service staff to reassure customers that their broken AC or damaged door stop will being handled.
Access from any Location
Having a stationary maintenance computer can be inefficient for large hotels or hotel chains. Web-based software solutions allow your entire organization to have one maintenance software system while giving technicians and staff the flexibility to work from any company computer. This also helps service staff with submitting guest complaints directly from the front desk.
However, you may not want your facility maintenance team limited to work from their desktop or office computer. Mobile devices for hotel maintenance software can be vital to react and respond to daily activities more quickly. When technicians update or complete work orders, they can update maintenance tasks in real-time.
Automated Notifications and Maintenance Reports
Regular reports aren’t always easy to prepare. Notification tools can be useful but not always relevant to your set workflow. The right maintenance software solution should give you flexibility to set the right reminders and alerts to your team to keep them prepared for upcoming activates or urgent problems.
Upper management or CFO my want detailed reports on costs and labor activities. Use scheduled maintenance reports to plan ahead of time; set the parameters of what you want your maintenance software to recall in your work order history. Then, set an email reception list to receive your reports automatically on a scheduled date rather than manually putting together reports each time.
Detailed maintenance reports can prove difficult to keep up to date manually. This is especially true for busy hotel building maintenance across multiple locations. Even companies with existing software face challenges if their system is not user-friendly or accessible for the maintenance team.
Facility maintenance software in hotels can be a useful tool for your maintenance team but should also provide solutions to enhance the guest experience. An unexpected breakdown of service equipment could cause inconvenience for a guest during their vacation. Slow responses to guests’ complaints can also reduce overall customer satisfaction.
Technicians often don’t have direct interaction with most hotel guests. However, facility maintenance plays a big part in whether or not customers return for another night. Maintenance management for hotels involves numerous challenges every day; your software should be a tool to support those challenges. Use your software to bring clarity to what your maintenance staff does and improve the way your team gets work done.
