The introduction of Clock's new Housekeeping Assistant addresses the numerous challenges housekeeping managers face, including staffing shortages, increasing guest expectations, and complex operational environments – with seamless integration right in the PMS.
Discover the new functionalities that help you maintain impeccable hotel cleanliness and operational efficiency crucial for guest happiness, and why this upgrade rivals the best standalone housekeeping apps. Let's see how the Housekeeping Assistant can help a day in the life of a housekeeping manager.
A day with the Housekeeping Assistant
Complete Task Management
As the day begins, the housekeeping manager gathers the team for the morning briefing. The new Housekeeping Assistant's task management system goes beyond guest rooms. With it, the manager can ensure the hotel's meeting rooms, restaurants, and common areas are spotless.
Along with the usual cleaning tasks related to the departing and stay-over rooms, the manager can now assign tasks to set up and clean the meeting rooms before and after corporate events.
Automated special arrangements
To ensure teams consider all important details, the Housekeeping Assistant automatically adds housekeeper tasks to the rooms where guests book extra services or packages with special in-room services. For example, the guests in room 205 booked the Romantic Escape package. Now, the responsible housekeeper knows to leave champagne, flowers, and pralines.
Or, in room 307, a guest booked the Happy Level-Up Day add-on for the second day of their stay as a gift for his wife's birthday. The Housekeeping Assistant automatically adds the tasks to prepare special decorations and deliver a birthday cake – the housekeeping manager doesn't need to lift a finger.
The manager can be confident that staff accounts for every detail and that guests receive what they expect upon arrival or on the day.
Improved staff allocation
Next, the manager turns to the new staff management list. This tool allows for more efficient employee management, displaying which housekeepers are on shift. Tasks can be automatically assigned based on staff availability, ensuring a balanced workload.
The manager automatically assigns cleaning tasks to available housekeepers, ensuring that no single employee is overwhelmed and that they cover all tasks efficiently.
Real-time task monitoring and reporting
Throughout the day, housekeepers receive their tasks on their mobile devices. Installing is unnecessary. They simply scan a QR code to access their tasks.
They can mark tasks as "Completed," "In Progress," or "Inspection," giving the manager real-time updates on task statuses.
Upon completing the room cleaning, the housekeeper updates the status to "Completed," allowing the manager to allocate additional tasks, inspect the room or set it as ready for letting if necessary.
Issue and fixes Reporting
A housekeeper notices a clogged toilet in a guest room during their rounds. A colleague notices a burnt electric light while cleaning one of the meeting rooms after the half-day event.
With the new issue reporting feature, they document the problems, add a description, or simply attach a photo, ensuring quick and clear communication with maintenance.
The photo reporting is extremely helpful since the hotel runs a multilingual housekeeping team, which can make communication challenging.
Lost and found reporting
While cleaning a guest room, a housekeeper finds a phone charger left behind. They can instantly report the lost item, including details and a photo, ensuring it is recorded and stored securely until claimed.
The smooth process of documenting lost items increases the chance they get reported and ensures they can be returned to their rightful owners, improving the guest experience.
Integrated mini-bar management
As the day winds down, housekeepers check and replenish the mini-bars in the stay-over rooms. Clock's Housekeeping Assistant allows them to record consumption directly, which is instantly and automatically charged to the guest's folio to reduce errors and ensure accurate billing.
The housekeeper noticed guests enjoyed a pack of nuts and a beer from the mini-bar last evening and posted them to the room using the housekeeping assistant, ensuring that guests were billed correctly and without manual entry errors.
End-of-day review and sector forecasting
It's the end of the day. The manager reviews the new Housekeeping Forecast Report. This report now includes the ability to group information by housekeeping sectors, showing the workload for each sector over a customisable period — helping staff shift planning for the next few days.
It also helps plan the consumables and linen inventory that must be loaded into the different sectors' service rooms for prompt housekeeping service the next day or days.
Key Benefits
1. Enhanced Operational Efficiency
The Housekeeping Assistant streamlines task management and real-time updates across all hotel areas, ensuring seamless and efficient operations. This results in quicker room turnovers, optimised staff allocation, and reduced operational costs.
2. Improved Guest Experience
The Housekeeping Assistant improves guest satisfaction and loyalty by ensuring you can maintain flawless cleanliness and promptly address issues. Efficient mini-bar management and accurate billing further contribute to a superior guest experience.
3. Strategic Resource Planning
The Housekeeping Assistant enables accurate workload and inventory forecasts, ensuring all sectors are well-prepared with the necessary resources. This strategic planning reduces errors, saves time, and supports better decision-making for housekeeping managers.
Best housekeeping solution for hotels
The new Housekeeping Assistant is ready to meet your advanced housekeeping needs, rivalling the top third-party apps and offering you a powerful alternative within Clock PMS+.
We believe in giving our users the freedom to choose the best solutions for their needs, and we'll continue to support housekeeping specialist apps in enhancing their integrations with Clock.
However, with the latest version of the Housekeeping Assistant, you get top-of-the-line housekeeping functionality directly in your main property management system to enjoy seamless integration with the PMS and Sales and Events solutions, included at no extra cost.
The upgraded features ensure a fully frictionless experience, making your operations smoother and more efficient.
Summary
Clock's new Housekeeping Assistant can tackle housekeeping managers' toughest challenges, such as staffing shortages, increasing guest expectations, and complex operations. With integration into your PMS, it offers advanced functionalities that rival the best standalone housekeeping apps.
Discover how the new upgrade can streamline task management, automate special arrangements, improve staff allocation, and give you real-time monitoring and reporting for enhanced operational efficiency, improved guest experience, and strategic resource planning.
