Picture the scene: you’re working on the front desk, and you have a long line of guests waiting to check in. Like, really long.

You’re not sure if their rooms are ready yet: your housekeeping team’s updates aren’t on your system, and you can’t contact them without seriously disrupting your workflow - and ignoring the people in front of you.

What’s a front desk team member to do?

Integrate your PMS and your task management system, and situations like this will become a thing of the past. Instead, you’ll enjoy improved operational efficiency, a better guest experience, and maximised revenue.

These benefits are particularly important today; slimmed-down teams, smaller budgets, and the need to keep guests coming back instead of going somewhere else are the new normal, and hotels that manage to work with these conditions are coming out on top.

Introduction to PMS and Task Management Systems

Let’s run through some quick definitions first. A PMS and task management system are both vital tools to have at your disposal, but there are some key differences between the two.

What is a PMS?

A property management system is like a Swiss army knife; it helps with everything from reservations to room allocation, payments, guest data, and more. Choose wisely, and you’ll enjoy streamlined manual tasks, automated processes, and more time to spend on the important things.

What is a Task Management System?

A task management system does what it says on the tin: it helps you to organise and prioritise tasks across teams. In a hospitality context, this looks like coordinating your housekeeping, maintenance, and front desk teams, so everyone knows what to do and when to do it, and is able to easily communicate with other teams.

Seamless operations

Traditionally, working in the hotel space has involved a lot of manual activity. And with manual work comes room for human error: think notes for the front desk team being misplaced, misunderstandings between teams, and data being inputted incorrectly - or not at all.

Let’s say a guest has a broken lightbulb in their room. Pre-technology, they might report it to housekeeping. The front desk is empty, so housekeeping leaves a note. With luck, this note is picked up and delivered - by hand - to maintenance, who are in another part of the building. If the team’s unlucky, the note gets missed and the lightbulb doesn’t get fixed.

Now, housekeeping can digitally log a repair request as soon as it’s made. The repair automatically gets sent to maintenance, and the team can input any additional information in the notes until the issue is resolved and change the status of the room to Out of order.

Improved guest experience

Real-time updates also improve the guest experience. Faster updates lead to faster response times - meaning issues are solved at the drop of a hat, and processes don’t get in the way of the guest experience.

Take the example we opened with. If our frazzled front desk worker knew exactly what progress the housekeeping team had made, they could either check guests in early (ticking the surprise and delight box) or smoothly direct them to the restaurant or lobby to wait. Much better than standing in a line, suitcases in hand.

Better communication

Just as important as guest experience is staff experience - after all, the global hospitality industry is still in the grips of a staffing crisis.

If you connect your PMS and task management system, teams that work in sync are able to communicate more efficiently. It’s also incredibly useful for management - they can see what everyone’s doing at a glance, and quickly assign or deprioritise tasks, without making the team feel micromanaged or interrupted. This is a significant change from the frequent check-ins, phone calls, and messages that would previously interrupt a team’s day-to-day.

Photographs of issues replace lengthy written reports - easier for maintenance, and for the person logging the problem.

Data-informed decisions

Both task management systems and PMSs are excellent at gathering data:

• PMSs: a centralised system for managing bookings, guest profiles, occupancy trends, revenue and profits, accounting reports, billing, and payment processing

• Task management systems: manage and assign team members’ workloads, keep track of activities, capture issues, report on cleaning time per room and per employee, measure staff productivity, optimise shift schedules and track efficiency over time

Have both tools in your arsenal, and you’re looking at comprehensive analytics that inform the best possible decision-making: how big your team needs to be at a certain time of the year, where each team member should be working and when, where you could be saving money, and how best to spend your budget.

Final thoughts

Integrate your PMS and your task management system, and you’ll be the leader of an operationally efficient, profitable hotel that delivers a great experience for your guests - and for your staff. In other words, it’s a no-brainer.

If you want to experience the benefits that come with an integrated PMS and task management system, check out Sweeply and Mews’ integration.