“Our business is so simple,” claims SkyTouch property advocate, Andy Musel. “It truly is. If people are greeted warmly, truly warmly—little things like eye contact, a smile—they want to buy. It’s in every training manual you find.” So why is it so hard to stand out and book rooms in today’s marketplace?
Andy thinks the hospitality industry has begun to lose sight of what matters most: people. And he should know. Before joining SkyTouch, Andy worked for decades in the hospitality industry in a variety of roles including as a regional director. What brought him back to sales as a property advocate for SkyTouch Technology® is the company’s focus on people. “I just dearly love that we’re small and face-to-face. The human side,” Andy says.
“It’s my job to connect with people. I’m in sales, so that’s the way I am. Your ability to just simply engage another being on a personal level is the way that it starts. It’s hard sometimes!”
When you hear technology, the first thing that comes to mind isn’t always people. Maybe it’s efficiency, or profits, or automation, or the bottom line. With communication and information sharing being more and more centered online, “we’ve begun to dehumanize our communication,” says Andy. It’s that trend of dehumanization that Andy sees SkyTouch Technology reversing and improving. “That is I think one of our big challenges in our industry,” he says, referring especially to complex traditional property management systems (PMS) that force users to focus on features and function rather than feeling. “I think we have to keep human contact alive for a few more years—and not just keep it alive, but develop it.”
So, how does the SkyTouch Hotel OS® help keep human contact alive? After all, isn’t it just another piece of technology? Not according to Andy. “It’s really a matter of reducing functionality to the most essential key strokes, simplifying it so it really becomes intuitive,” he says. “That’s all a part of the experience. And that is more profound than we give it credit for: the simplicity of the system.”
The SkyTouch Hotel OS® interface allows its users, especially front desk clerks, to keep their eyes and ears focused on the customer—not the computer. “I’ve spent enough time in the system since I’ve been here to get a little feeling,” says Andy, “and this thing really is easy to use. It is intuitive, in fact.” And it’s the simple, intuitive capabilities of the hotel OS (hotel property software) that makes SkyTouch so much better for customers, and—ultimately—for your hotel’s sales.
