How the Front Desk Team at The Ludlow Hotel New York Uses Purpose-Built Technology for the Transparency and Accountability A Shared Email Inbox Can’t Provide
New York, NY — The front desk at The Ludlow Hotel New York is using ALICE’s Front Office software, ALICE Concierge, to improve their management of guest requests across the 10-person team. The Ludlow Hotel, a BD Hotels property and 175-room boutique in New York’s trendy Lower East Side neighborhood, has seen a significant drop in guest complaints since migrating their concierge operations to the ALICE platform in June 2016.
Prior to using ALICE, Ludlow’s front desk managed concierge requests via a shared email inbox. This challenged accountability and required a lot of managerial followup to make sure requests had been addressed. It also made it difficult to plan for requests with due dates more than a few hours or a day or two away. As The Ludlow’s Front Office Manager Nickeesa Khalili explains, “There are only so many Outlook Calendar notifications you can send yourself.” As a result, many guest requests were accidentally overlooked or insufficiently executed, negatively impacting the guest experience and resulting in a lot of unnecessary staff frustration.
With ALICE, there’s now a lot less stress at the front desk. Team members have easy visibility to whom a request is assigned to and the status of a request, obviating time-consuming follow-up. ALICE’s concierge software, ALICE Concierge, also has features purpose-built for the concierge role that an email inbox does not, which saves The Ludlow’s team time and helps them outdo the concierge-like mobile apps increasingly available to guests. ALICE’s “Local Vendor & Contact Database,” for example, serves as a concierge’s digital black book, letting concierges and front desk staff save and call upon any information for a business or contact they or their guests request. The vendor database is helping The Ludlow’s front desk team field frequent requests for restaurant recommendations and reservations. Other common Ludlow front desk requests, for items like car transfers and “special occasion” amenities (celebratory bottles of wine or flowers), are handled expertly by the ALICE system as well. ALICE’s report integration with the hotel’s OPERA Property Management System (PMS) also sets ALICE apart from an email inbox. Front desk staff use this integration to attach guest requests and other staff notes to the guest reservation, which allows for actionable guest data all in one place.
When selecting ALICE, The Ludlow executive team surveyed a handful of different concierge solutions, but chose ALICE because of its modern, user-friendly feel and its report integration with OPERA. Although ALICE’s customer support wasn’t a factor in choosing ALICE over its competitors, The Ludlow has been surprised by just how supportive ALICE’s customer success team has been. The attentive customer support ALICE provides has been critical in setting up Ms. Khalili’s team for success: “We’ve had several calls with ALICE’s support team and they have always been incredibly helpful,” Ms. Khalili noted.
“We’re very happy we can help Ludlow’s front desk team stay on top of guest requests and contribute to the excellent service standards the hotel is known for,” says Justin Effron, ALICE co-founder and CEO about his company’s partnership with the much buzzed-about New York property.
