IQqms - IQware’s new Quality Management System helps hotels extend asset life, manage maintenance, optimize purchasing decisions and provide guests with a better customer experience.
When managing a hotel, some of the hardest items to track are things your guests see the most. A faulty appliance, a broken piece of furniture, a leaking faucet: These are things guests notice and remember about their stays.
Any issues with these items can have a significant impact on the perception of your brand’s
and property’s quality, never mind squashing precious repeat business and referrals.
That being said, it’s alarming but most hotels have no easy way to track the life or condition of their assets. Needed repairs might be noted by their housekeeping staffs, or recorded by the maintenance departments as work orders, but typically property managers do not have the information or automation tools to properly manage and track entire asset inventories.
Deerfield Beach, Fla.-based IQware has addressed this dire marketplace need with its new Quality Management System (QMS) software solution.
“Branded IQqms, our software provides easy access to the asset information needed to quickly impact day-to-day expenses as well as guest service and satisfaction levels,” says Francois Greffard, VP – Operations for IQware. “IQqms gathers, summarizes and reports in real time all the information needed to evaluate actual costs of repairs and maintenance tasks performed within each property.”
Extending the power and functionality of the IQware Property Management System (PMS), IQqms can be used for scheduling, managing, analyzing and reporting on all aspects of maintenance — including preventive maintenance (PMs), work orders, maintenance requests, inventory, predictive maintenance and owner invoicing.
“IQqms maximizes the use of all of your hotel’s assets and ensures their quality for a better guest experience,” Greffard says. “Whether it’s your carpet, drapes, TV, bed, mattress, sinks, kitchens — anything you need to purchase — IQqms puts the data in your hands to help you keep them in good standing and make improved purchasing decisions companywide.”
Return on Investment
Proper expense control and productivity improvements can significantly contribute to the bottom line. IQqms helps you tap into cost savings with a comprehensive fixed asset inventory and the ability to generate statistical reporting of the history of the assets and the maintenance performed on each piece.
The system also provides the ability to know the changing value of each of your assets and manage their life cycles. Management tools provide budget, purchase forecast and renovation information to accurately plan ahead. Preventive maintenance can be scheduled to improve the assets’ life spans.
“One of the ways IQqms lowers your maintenance costs is by ensuring warranties and service contracts are being used the way they should be,” Greffard adds. “If a piece of equipment is breaking down in a way that is never covered by a service contract, then you’ll know whether it is worth it to buy an extended warranty. Or, in some cases, the system will give you the information you need to make those tough ‘repair vs. replace’ decisions.”
For condo-hotels, where the asset inventory might vary for each guestroom, equipment repairs and replacements can be tracked and billed properly to the owners.
IQqms also contributes to corporate cost savings with improved communications and documentation, which leads to a reduction in the time required for staff to complete tasks.
With IQware’s new Quality Management System software, work orders automatically are dispatched to the proper department. Employees receive the tasks and all related information in real time for a better response rate. With the proper initial information and complete work history, tasks can be completed faster and with greater guest satisfaction. Even for tasks as simple as changing a light bulb or batteries in a remote control, the maintenance team knows which parts or tools are needed to get the job done right on the first visit.
Once assigned, management knows the progression of the tasks per department at all times, helping control your maintenance employees’ schedules and workloads. IQqms also helps eliminate unnecessary or duplicated paperwork, saving time and resources.
Enhanced Customer Experience
The myriad bottom-line benefits of IQqms extend to enhanced customer satisfaction, repeat business and referrals.
“From a guest perspective, with IQqms their rooms are in better shape and they will see the better consistent quality,” Greffard says. “If there is an unavoidable issue, such as a burnt out light bulb, there’s a process in place to rapidly respond to guest requests and ensure their needs are met satisfactorily. Problems are solved more quickly, and customer service can follow up with a courtesy call when each task is complete.”
IQware Quality Management System is designed to increase service quality by automating best practices. Housekeeping and maintenance can receive notifications to take automatic action on items based on priorities and occupancies. These can be tasks such as flipping mattresses after 90 nights occupied. This leads to better client appreciation, positive customer feedback surveys and repeat guests and critical word-of-mouth referrals. And hotel management can feel more confident because they know things are going to be working right.
“IQqms is really designed to help properties track and improve quality of service at every point of customer interaction, from the time they walk onto the property all the way through checkout,” adds Dan Brown, Director of Sales for IQware.
“By controlling the life span of assets, managing preventive maintenance and monitoring housekeeping workloads, the system provides hotel managers and employees all the tools needed to keep service standards high, improve guest satisfaction and loyalty, ultimately increasing revenues and profits.”
Easy & Portable
Unlike any other solution on the market today, IQqms is geared directly for housekeeping and maintenance departments.
“We know these employees don’t spend a lot of time in front of their computers, so we had to take that into consideration with the system,” Greffard says. “IQqms is easy and portable. It is accessible anywhere through smartphones, PDAs and any computer’s Web browser.”
Tasks can be created, reported on or marked as complete, from the field in real time. It integrates with housekeeping to trigger work to be done from room inspections. Likewise, employees can receive incident reports on defective items or guest requests immediately with the use of a smartphone, helping further improve response time.
Equally important, IQqms is as easy to deploy as it is to cost justify. It can even be used in
non-computer-oriented departments. Minimum training is needed to use the software, allowing for faster on-boarding of new personnel.
“Easy to use, easy to understand, IQqms has everything you need to plan preventive maintenance and perform emergency repairs,” says Brown. “Preventive maintenance reminders are set for any equipment — daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, etc. — in any increment or combination. Automatic reminders ensure maintenance items never again slip through the cracks. And a visual calendar makes it easy to detect the failure frequency of an item, allowing you to make adjustments to minimize repair costs and extend asset life span.
“These all add to up to longer asset life, better management, a more efficient maintenance department, optimized purchasing decisions, and last but certainly not least, enhanced guest satisfaction, repeat business and referrals,” Brown adds. “Put simply, QMS equals ROI.”
About IQware
Deerfield Beach, Fla.-based IQware has been “Helping Hospitality Partner With IntelligenceSM” for 25 years. Today, more than 5,000 end users utilize IQware software to help best market and manage more than 120,000 rooms generating more than $3.5 billion in gross room revenue. IQware brings with it more than 300 years of combined experience managing hospitality properties and developing and supporting related software. “Built By Hoteliers For Hoteliers,” IQware’s Global Property Management System and more than two dozen add-on modules optimize operations at properties of all types − limited- and full-service hotels, resorts, condo-hotels and timeshares — and all sizes — from regional hotel chains to multi-property management companies to small independents IQware is Your Single-Source Technology Partner through ongoing customized training, user-driven technology development, 24x7 support and lifetime software upgrades. Looking for a competitive edge? Look no further. IQware “Helps Hospitality Better Find, Book, Host, Know & Keep Clients.” IQware solutions offer numerous ROI-generating tools including e-marketing, four-tier yield management, Web-Rez, packages, loyalty points, IQDestinations and IQLink — which pushes your existing PMS inventory directly to the most effective and profitable Intranet, GDS and Extranet channels.. And because IQware’s Global Property Management System has served as the heart of so many hotel operations for a quarter century, today IQware also can provide the lifeblood for Condo Management, Point Of Sale, Sales & Catering, Online Reservations, Spa Management, Marina Management, Central Reservations System and e-CRM electronic (Customer Relationship Management). IQware takes technology partnering to a new level − just ask our ever-expanding family of clients conducting business in two dozen countries. For more information, visit www.iqwareinc.com or call (877) 698-5151.
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