5 Features of Alice’s Concierge Software This NYC Concierge Team Cannot Live Without
Table of Contents:
Intro • Local Vendors & Contact Database • SMS Text Messaging • Reminders • Inventory Logs • Alice’s Client Support
This is a guest post by Noah Lemaich, Head Concierge, SIXTY Hotels.
The concierge team at SIXTY LES hotel shares five features of Alice’s concierge technology that have transformed their job operation.
Changes to websites bring out the best and the worst in people. Even a small change in how Facebook looks can spark rage and high praise from the internet masses. So, when SIXTY LES hotel partnered with Alice in October 2014, the launch was initially met with apathetic resistance: “Another Hotel Vendor?! We have too many systems already!”.
Fast forward to today, and the vibe couldn’t be more different. Now, my team asks me things like, “When will Alice start doing ____?” or “Can we drop ____ and start using Alice instead?”
We decided to look back at the changes and additions made last year with Alice. Many of these upgrades were born out of many (seriously, many) meetings with our very opinionated staff and with other hotels. Years ago, these features only existed as “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could use Alice for ____?” Now, we have firmly moved to “I don’t know how we lived without this.”
Here are our top 5 Alice Concierge features we’ve become rabid fans of:
1. Local Vendor & Contact Database
Alice Local is your digital black book. Powered by a Google database, Alice Local lets concierges and front desk staff save information for any business or contact they or their guests call upon.
When Alice first approached us, they asked, “What’s the biggest feature that’s missing to enable your concierge team to use Alice?”
We told Alice they lacked a way to maintain a local concierge database (restaurants, salons, lounges, etc.). Alice could have just built a basic address book and pat themselves on the back. Instead, one of their first questions was “Interesting; how do you find that information now?”
Our answer? “Most of the time, we use this thing called the interwebs.”
Alice identified that the ability to save a database of local information only solves part of the issue. Our concierge team was spending most of their time scouring the internet and manually adding local vendor information we had found online to our old online concierge database.
When the Alice team returned with the first version of Alice Local, we were floored. They asked us to add our hotel restaurant to the system. In our old system, we would get ready to type “Blue Ribbon Sushi Izakaya,” search for all the info online, and manually copy and paste this info into our database. With Alice Local, we only got as far as typing “Blu,” and Alice had already returned our hotel restaurant as a suggestion. One click later, the name, phone, website, full address, hours of operation, categories, and a map were automatically populated. With another click, Alice automatically pulled in links from OpenTable, Menupages, Facebook, Twitter, and more.
Thanks, Alice, for giving me those 10 minutes of my life back.
Knowing the address and cross streets does not make a good concierge. What really makes a good concierge is knowing who to speak with at the restaurant, a concierge review, our favorite dish, and remembering to guide the guest past a tricky hidden entrance. This concierge-specific information is what we are most passionate about. Alice Local takes care of all the public information that everyone can find and lets my concierge team focus on adding all those important details that require a concierge hand.
2. SMS Text Messaging
With Alice’s in-app messaging and SMS texting, your hotel’s concierge team can stay connected to guests and vendors in real-time.
Texting is not our most used feature, but being able to send and receive text messages from guests within Alice has been a lifesaver.
If a guest prefers to text us rather than download an app or call, my team loves that this comes directly into Alice. This feature points towards Alice’s passion for becoming an integrated solution that works with our existing software, while also filling the void of software we may not have (like guest messaging).
There are plenty of text message solutions out there that only handle text. We like that using Alice for texting means one less system to worry about. Aside from texting our guests, we also love that we can use Alice to text our vendors (nightlife promoters, massage therapists, etc.) and not worry about constantly checking our mobile phones to see if they have texted back.
3. Reminders
Reminders let you set when and how often you want to be reminded about a task that needs to be completed.
Reminders are another great example of how Alice takes the time to understand what a concierge needs rather than just copying something that may already exist.
Concierges are used to working from a calendar; any decent calendar program has a reminder option. But they are usually limited to features like “remind me about this meeting 15 minutes before”. That might be helpful for the guest, but it’s not useful for the concierge team. Additionally, most calendar programs only let you have one reminder (and maybe the ability to snooze that reminder).
Alice took a different approach and worked closely with several concierge teams to find out what concierges mean when asking for “reminders.” Now, it’s super easy to log a restaurant reservation request and then quickly create a reminder to call to make the reservation 30 days before, another reminder when we find out we need to convince the maitre d’ to change from a party of 2 to a party of 6, and a third reminder to call to confirm the reservation the day prior.
We love that Alice understands that a “restaurant reservation” is not just one task, it is a series of actions that need to happen at specific times.
4. Inventory Logs
The Inventory Log is a distinct interface within Alice Concierge that records all incoming and outgoing packages and lost and found items.
There are several things a hotel needs to track that are not time-definite. A restaurant reservation happens at a specific time, and a guest wants more shampoo asap. There are plenty of things we need to log that do not work well in a calendar. Things like Lost and found, Guest Packages, and Valet Parking “sit there” until a guest calls to inquire.
Take guest packages, for example. If a package arrives two weeks before the guest is due to check in… hotels are not really worried about it. It just needs to be logged and stored until the guest arrives. Additionally, we don’t really need to see that package on a calendar at 10:30 AM, mixed in with that day’s wake-up calls and newspaper requests.
Alice realized that in many cases, hotels consider these types of logs as completely self-contained. When a hotel looks at their “Package” log, we do not want wake-up calls mixed in. Alice Concierge makes it easy for us to still quickly see everything related to a specific guest (across Package Logs and Guest Requests); and also allows us to keep the separate logs we like.
Our favorite is using the new Logbook feature to log all incoming and outgoing packages. With our old calendar-based solution – we could only view our packages in one way at specific calendar hours/times. Now, we use Alice’s package tracking system to sort, filter, and view packages by guest name, storage location, sender’s name, and more. We also love the “batch add” feature. Instead of logging one package at a time, we can quickly log many packages. This is very useful when UPS drops off 20 packages at once!We’ve also started using the new Logbook feature for Lost and Found, Valet Parking, and we are looking forward to moving some of our other logs into the new Inventory Feature. It’s so much easier than digging through folders on the network drive to find the right Excel Spreadsheet.
5. Alice’s Client Support
Alice Support is, by far, the feature we’ve found we cannot live without.
Many vendors are not passionate about changing their products or maintaining usage of their products once the contract is signed. Alice is among a very small handful of hotel vendors who strive to excel in these two areas. They never rest and have endless curiosity–constantly asking for feedback as to how they can improve existing features and what new features would be embraced.
More importantly, I feel like they actually listen when they ask these questions.
They are also great at assessing and improving our existing usage, sometimes before we even realize the issue. It’s great to have two way communication with our hotel vendors. I can count on one hand the Hotel Vendors who would call me to say “Last month you logged 100 of this type of request, this month you’ve only logged 10. Is there something we need to change or update? Why do you think there was such a big drop?”With Alice Concierge, your hotel concierge gets more than just a platform; it’s a smarter way to work. Learn more about Alice Concierge by clicking here.
