New York, NY — Luxury Midtown Manhattan boutique, Kimberly Hotel & Suites, has selected hospitality operations platform ALICE to improve staff communication and efficiency at the 194-room hotel. ALICE unites all staff departments together with a shared work management and communication system. The Kimberly Hotel’s housekeeping, engineering, room service, front desk, and concierge teams have all been using ALICE since February 2017.
Implementing ALICE has had an immediate impact on staff productivity throughout the hotel. Prior to ALICE, the Kimberly ran their operations with pen and paper, walkie talkies, and a fair bit of staff locomotion (hotel employees frequently traversed the hotel to relay tasks and information to one another).
Now, all guest requests and internal work orders are placed by all staff directly into ALICE. And, in just a few short months, the Kimberly’s staff have all but ditched the noisy and unreliable walkie talkies. Attendant productivity increases are evident across the board, none more so than in the engineering department (one of the more mobile of the hotel’s staff teams). From prosaic tasks, like changing a lightbulb, to more complicated feats, like fixing an HVAC system, all work orders are assigned, accepted, and closed right in ALICE, obviating the need to ride the elevators back and forth between the main office and where the team is needed next. The Kimberly’s Director of IT, Kevin Fullerton, says the “photo attachments” feature in ALICE has been incredibly impactful in this regard. Because staff can now snap a photo of something on their mobile devices and attach it to a task in ALICE, the engineering team now knows exactly what to expect – and what tools to bring – when they head to their next job. “Previously, when someone said there was a small scratch in the wall, and it turned out to be a big gash, engineering would have to return to the office to collect a different set of tools. Now, because there’s a photo of the issue, the team can come prepared, saving a lot of time in the process,” Mr. Fullterton added.
As a manager, Mr. Fullerton also appreciates the accountability and consequent motivation ALICE has brought to his employees. Part of the reason why ALICE has had such an impact on staff productivity, he says, is because of the healthy does of competition it’s introduced on-property. Over a few short months, he’s seen response times on tasks decrease dramatically, as employees race with one another to accept and complete tasks.
Mr. Fullerton admits he and other managers had reservations about introducing technology to his diverse staff, some of whom aren’t necessarily “tech savvy.” He says he’s been surprised, however, by how quickly everyone, “from our youngest to our oldest,” has taken to ALICE. He attributes part of this embrace to how user-friendly ALICE is in comparison to other legacy hotel technology systems, as well as to how hands-on and supportive ALICE’s client success team is.
