Last July, the LINDEMANN HOTELS® hotel group took the time to holistically digitalize workflows and processes in its day-to-day hotel operations. Jennifer Seeckt, responsible for sales & guest relations, and Martin Kochanski, responsible for online marketing at LINDEMANN HOTELS®, explain in an interview which criteria were important to them for the selection of the solutions, how the solutions are currently in use and which advantages they offer.
What was the basic idea behind the project to digitalize the internal processes?
Our vision was to pick up hotel guests before their stay and accompany them digitally until after their stay. The hotel guests and the guest journey were the focus for the digital processes. We considered how we could offer our guests a contemporary hotel experience with lean processes. In other words, no waiting times, no paper forms, no unnecessary steps – such as downloading an app.
How did you approach the project?
After defining our goals and vision, we started looking for solutions to ultimately realized our ideas. With straiv by CODE2ORDER, we found a partner that offers us exactly this guest communication and this digital accompaniment of hotel guests along the guest journey – according to our ideas. Hotel guests do not have to download an app, instead with one click in their e-mail they are immediately on the Web App, where they can manage everything relating to their stay from the comfort of their own home or while on the move.
Another aspect that was very important to us were the interfaces to other systems that play a role in the guest journey and which in turn enable us to reduce the workload. With the partners straiv by CODE2ORDER, apaleo, SALTO and adyen, we now have a coherent framework of solutions that make our everyday hotel life easier and offer our guests a modern guest service.
How do you and your guests benefit from the new digital solutions?
After booking, our guests now automatically receive an email with the booking confirmation, shortly before their stay they are reminded to check-in online or fill out the digital registration form. By the independent check-in of the guests, the work is taken from us, there are fewer transmission errors, because the info is transferred directly into the PMS by apaleo. In addition, we save storage costs for the registration forms, these are automatically stored as PDF in the straiv by CODE2ORDER backend for the legally required period and then automatically deleted. After check-out, the invoice dispatch is then triggered directly and our guests automatically receive an e-mail with the invoice. All in all, it’s an all-round coherent digital experience for hotel guests – and it takes an extremely large amount of work off our hands at the front office. For our guests who do not check-in via smartphone, we have provided iPads, which can then be used to fill out the registration forms digitally.
Recently, we have also started using the solution for 3G upload of COVID-19 proofs. Hotel guests can already do this at check-in. This also saves the hotel guests and us at the reception an enormous amount of time.
Our guests accept the solutions very well and are pleased with the uncomplicated handling of the check-in at our hotel.
Tech Stack in the LINDEMANN HOTELS®.
- Digital Check-in & -out: straiv by CODE2ORDER
- Guest Journey Messaging: straiv by CODE2ORDER
- PMS: apaleo
- Locking system: SALTO
- Payment: adyen
