Apex Motels is a family-owned, 4-star group that was based in 1996 with 9 metropolis centre and rural motels in a number of the UK’s hottest places, together with London, Tub, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Pitlochry. Based in 1996, it has grown to be one of many UK’s main unbiased luxurious lodge chains, attracting leisure and company visitors from throughout the globe.
Apex Motels prides itself on providing constantly excessive requirements for its visitors and these excessive requirements lengthen proper throughout the enterprise, encompassing the group’s enterprise administration methods. Again in 2019, Apex took the choice to vary its Property Administration System (PMS). For the occasions workforce this meant that they too wanted to take a look at options to their incumbent occasions administration resolution with a view to reaching nearer integration with the PMS.
What began as a evaluate necessitated by change elsewhere within the enterprise quickly grew to become a very good train for us to evaluate how we have been utilizing our occasion administration system and take a look at the place we might enhance. We checked out a number of choices, assessing the totally different functionalities and capabilities on supply and one in all these choices was Infor Gross sales & Occasion Administration. Infor HMS was chosen as the brand new PMS software program and so it made sense for the occasions & teams assist supervisor to contemplate Infor’s occasions administration resolution too. Kim Wilkinson, group director of gross sales at Apex Motels
Infor Gross sales & Occasion Administration is a completely built-in, event-management software program resolution within the cloud, which streamlines reserving, operations, catering, finance, and companies, from preliminary inquiry to closing bill.
Kim continues: Having a doubtlessly stronger relationship between our PMS and our occasion administration resolution clearly was a key think about our final selection of Infor Gross sales & Occasion Administration. One of many largest drivers in our choice was the willingness of the workforce at Infor to take on-board our suggestions to repeatedly evolve and adapt the system in-line with our enterprise wants. Nobody else might supply that.
A phased roll-out
The workforce determined to undertake a phased roll-out, starting with the Apex Metropolis of London Resort
The workforce have been totally trained-up and we went reside efficiently at our Metropolis of London lodge with a view to persevering with the roll-out throughout one other seven of our motels. Nevertheless, COVID hit and clearly this had a significant impression on our plans. It meant that any additional coaching needed to be carried out remotely earlier than the answer may very well be rolled-out to the opposite properties. This was by far our largest problem within the implementation and, though not the identical as having in-person coaching, finally it labored effectively, partly thanks to only how intuitive the system is to make use of. We created resolution champions at every property and it was these champions who grew to become resolution consultants, working alongside the workforce at Infor so we might hit the bottom working when issues began to return to regular. Callum Douglas, occasions & teams assist supervisor at Apex Motels
Larger visibility, accuracy and consistency
By way of how issues have modified with Infor Gross sales & Occasion Administration, the enterprise has reaped the advantages in a variety of areas. The visibility over enquiries has improved drastically, bringing better readability to assist rapidly establish precedence bookings. The system gives oversight of simply what enquiries the enterprise is coping with at any second in time. This offers the workforce the flexibility to triage enquiries, prioritising those who want prioritising and guaranteeing the best persons are looped in from the outset.
The best way the enterprise logs enquiries has modified too, changing into rather more environment friendly and correct. As Callum explains: The flexibleness of the system has meant that we’ve been in a position to customise the preliminary enquiry particulars kind, prescribing which fields should be stuffed in and in what order. This makes for a way more conversational and intuitive strategy and means it’s a lot simpler for our workforce to enter information whereas speaking to clients.
Moreover, communication with clients is now extra constantly correct. Prospects will be emailed from inside the system, so there’s no want for workforce members to return out of the system and log in to their e mail accounts, reducing and pasting particulars from one utility to a different. Elevated automation additionally helps, with enquiries made by Apex Motels web site now routinely linked into the system, which makes for a lot faster response instances for web site enquiries.
Callum continues: Paperwork corresponding to proposals are generated from inside the system too, with the answer routinely populating templates with info direct from Infor Gross sales & Occasion Administration. Not solely does this save us a substantial period of time but it surely ensures consistency of communications and accuracy of data going out to clients. Coping with enquiries used to take between 20 and half-hour, relying on the complexity of the enquiry, however I can confidently say this has been considerably decreased since utilizing Infor Gross sales and Occasion Administration.
An ever-evolving resolution
One other space the place the enterprise has observed important enhancements is with reporting capabilities. The workforce now has the flexibility to report on points they merely couldn’t earlier than. So, issues corresponding to response instances and enquiry turnaround instances. As a result of versatile nature of the system, the workforce can change the parameters of their reporting framework to go well with the precise wants of the enterprise. This makes for extra accessible, extra correct and extra insightful reporting that may be shared simply with the remainder of the organisation.
Kim continues: The flexibility to adapt the system in keeping with our particular wants actually has made an enormous distinction to us. For instance, we’ve been in a position to assign ‘duties’ to our proactive gross sales workforce that aren’t associated to particular occasions. This has added one other degree of transparency to what’s within the pipeline in addition to extra accountability to the workforce too when it comes to what they’re doing with prospects and leads. We’ve been in a position to assign income quantities to those duties for added context.
As for what the long run holds, the workforce is aware of that there’s potential to do extra with the answer.
As Kim concludes: Infor offers us the chance to discover all potentialities with the system. The workforce consistently listens to our suggestions, ideas and challenges, taking over board our sensible expertise of working within the busy hospitality trade day-in, day-out. This, for us, is the place the extra worth lies. We’ve each confidence that we’ll proceed to work alongside the workforce at Infor, difficult the established order to discover simply how far we are able to go together with Infor Gross sales and Occasion Administration, unlocking additional efficiencies and serving to us to attain the most effective productiveness we are able to.
About Apex Motels
Apex Motels is a family-owned 4-star lodge group with stylish metropolis centre and rural properties. Eight metropolis centre motels are in a number of the UK’s hottest locations, London, Tub, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dundee and one rural lodge is completely positioned in Pitlochry.
Apex Motels was based by Scottish entrepreneur Norman Springford who opened his first lodge in 1996, Apex Grassmarket Resort within the coronary heart of Edinburgh’s Outdated City. Since then, the group has grown into one of many UK’s main unbiased luxurious lodge chains, attracting vacationers and company visitors from throughout the globe.
Apex Motels latest nation property in Pitlochry, acquired in July 2023, was a part of a portfolio enlargement technique paving the way in which for future model development and diversification.
In addition to providing constantly excessive requirements for enterprise and leisure visitors, Apex Motels has a dedicated strategy to environmental and sustainable tourism practices and is without doubt one of the few unbiased lodge teams to carry Silver Inexperienced Tourism Awards in all metropolis centre motels.
About Infor
Infor Hospitality is devoted to serving to trade leaders create a scalable expertise platform to unite places and empower their groups, growing highly effective multi-tenant cloud software program for motels, casinos, and restaurant organizations. We work with clients and integration companions in over 135 international locations to assist them obtain strategic readability, operational effectivity, constantly superior visitor experiences, and maximized revenues. In a consistently evolving trade, our clients are empowered to fulfill right now’s challenges and be prepared for future ones. Go to Infor.com.
