Posts Tagged ‘catering and event managment’
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
What we’ve found over the last 15 years is that our customers thrive on, and are often overwhelmed by, the details. It’s all of the little things that are tied to catered events or dining experiences that can make our users’ jobs chaotic. From last minute reservation cancellations to unexpected walk-ins, Mr. Smith’s wine preference for his anniversary dinner to a frantic bride’s third menu change in two weeks – all of these things are important, and when missed or misplaced, can throw everything out of sync.
It’s managing the details, no matter how small, that make our customers successful. By simply paying attention to the minutia, they raise the bar of guest service, manage their operations more successfully and consistently generate revenue.
When new customers call, it’s usually because they are drowning in Post-it Notes and file folders, lost in a sea of scratched up and wrinkled reservation book pages, or simply tired of bouncing between three or four computer programs to get one report printed. They’ve thrown up their hands in defeat and are demanding a better way to do business.
And we know that, as a true solutions provider, we can’t make sweeping generalizations about that individual’s business. We can’t assume they follow the same processes as other restaurants or venues, subscribe to similar business models as industry peers, or service the same types of guests as a local counterpart. We must treat them as individuals and pay attention to the details they share – the very same, very specific details they pay attention to every single day.
But that’s just the beginning. Once we talk with them and learn more about their needs, it’s time to share how our software can help them more successfully manage those details…
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
We’re pleased to announce ReServe Interactive software version 2010 Spring. This is the first of two releases scheduled for 2010, and it includes a series of new convenience features and platform enhancements designed to further improve our customer’s software and service experience.
Most importantly, more than ninety percent of the updates included in this release are based on direct customer input and were incorporated to meet current industry needs and requirements. We are constantly taking input from our customers so that the product we deliver consistently meets their exact and ever-changing needs. As an organization, we have employees with extensive experience in the hospitality industry so we are aware of the challenges our customers face on a daily basis. But it is our customers’ open and candid input, suggestions and recommendations that help us to further develop the product in such a way that all of its features are relevant and integral to their operations.
This latest release includes customer requested enhancements to our Catering & Event Management and Dining Reservation & Table Management modules. And we’ve added several new features including a PCI compliance package that allows customers to easily and securely accept credit cards; ReServe University, an all-inclusive training and support tool; and ReServeIT/ReQuestIT Web 2.0, a powerful new platform for processing dining reservations and event inquiries via the Internet.
But our work is not done here. We are already working on our next release which is scheduled to go live in the Fall of 2010. We are constantly reviewing our offering, talking to our customers, gathering their input and putting everything into the development pipeline. We’ll never stop enhancing our product offering and we will always partner with our customers to do so.
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Category Corporate News, Product Development, customer service | Tags: Tags: catering and event managment, Dining Reservation & Table Management, PCI compliance, platform enhancements, ReQuestIT, ReServe Interactive, ReServe University, ReServeIT, updates,
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
It seems like the word ‘intuitive’ is getting thrown around more and more often. I’ve seen it used relative to medical devices, racing equipment and appliances. And while most of these products are truly intuitive or have intuitive features, there are some companies that make the claim, but fall very short.
Take, for example, some of the other catering and event management software products on the market today. They offer a lot of fancy features, have interfaces that look like other well-known software products, and claim to be easy to use. Many of our customers have tried these products and shared their experiences. Based on their input, intuition may not necessarily be the word they would use to describe the products. Functional? Yes. Easy-to-use? Sometimes. But just because a product is easy to use, doesn’t make it intuitive. What makes software intuitive? I guess that depends on your definition of intuitive.
Let me share what we think intuitive means. Intuitive, to us, means that we understand our customers’ businesses inside and out, top to bottom, and with that knowledge we’ve created a smart software system that is designed to become an integral part of a company’s day-to-day processes. It means we’ve built our software on a proprietary platform that was developed by professionals with years of experience in the design and development of effective user interfaces for high-tech products in a variety of industries. These individuals have an instinctive knowledge of user-centered design processes and, partnered with people that have extensive catering sales and hospitality experience, were able to design a product that incorporates human interface technologies with the specific, real world needs of the hospitality industry. Our software was created by people who have stood in the customer’s shoes. We know what our customers need because we know what we needed when we were standing at the hostess desk or taking calls in the sales office. Our software speaks their language, understands what they need moment by moment, and anticipates what they will need down the road.
Developed using our proprietary platform, our Event Lifecycle Technology™ (ELT) and Smart Reservation Technology™ (SRT) features can do what no other products on the market can do. The unique, process-driven architecture enables ReServe to anticipate a customer’s next steps and prompts them for the necessary information. The software knows what the customer needs every step of the way and puts the information right at the user’s fingertips where and when they need it. It remembers the details and enforces business practices automatically, so the customer doesn’t have to. That’s what makes our software so powerful – so easy to learn, so effortless to use – so intuitive.
We’d like to think that when we say intuitive, not only do we mean it, but we can prove it. Just ask any of our customers.
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
A new year is upon us. Time to put the past behind us and look toward the future and all of the opportunity 2010 will bring.
2009 held many challenges that at times seemed overwhelming. In fact, there were times when it felt the year would go on forever in a constant state of instability and frustration. But the power of new beginnings is the opportunity to take the lessons you’ve learned from the past and apply them to the future. Each new year leaves us all a little wiser and more hopeful that things will be different from the get go.
2010 is only a week old and we are already hearing from prospective and existing customers telling us that they need to make changes this year. They’ve taken a look at the way they did business in 2009 and have found that they need new ways to become more efficient and productive. They’ve realized that automation can make all the difference this year. They need to work smarter and they want the tools to do so. And we’re more than happy to help!
We’ve developed a better process for catering, event management, dining reservations and table management. Our software is built on best-practice processes so it’s easy to improve efficiencies across entire organizations from the moment of implementation. Best of all, we’ve stood in their shoes and understand the challenges they face on a daily basis.
We believe in the power of new beginnings and want to help hospitality professionals start the New Year off right. Our customers work hard and they deserve for 2010 to be the best that it can be.
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
Our goal has always been to make our customer’s lives easier. They work hard. They are the masters of multi-tasking. What would we bring to the table if our software contributed to that long list of things to do? They don’t need to spend endless hours troubleshooting software, or even minutes searching for information that should be available at the click of a button. It’s our job to help manage that list of things to so, not add to it.
We love it when our customers tell us that their jobs are easier with our software in place; when they say that it’s so simple that anyone on their staff can use it. We love hearing about tremendous increases in productivity, jumps in revenue because of the new efficiencies they’ve been able to achieve. It’s affirmation that we’ve achieved our goal of making our customer’s lives easier.
Our Catering & Event Management software has a special feature called Event Lifecycle Technology™. It does some pretty amazing things. Besides automating processes and managing events from first customer contact through event execution and follow up, it helps build consistent business practices and ensure accuracy by breaking down operations into digestible steps. It’s virtually eliminates human error and gaps in processes.
This feature was inspired by our desire to truly meet the needs of our customers. We don’t ever want to assume they need a specific feature. We want to know for sure that everything we create will make their lives easier. Event Lifecycle Technology takes what they do every minute of every day and automates it, making their processes smoother, quicker and more consistent. The result is an easier, more efficient work day and a shorter ‘to-do’ list.
Rita Norman, the Director of Sales at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Odessa, said, “I absolutely love ReServe. It’s like my right hand. I can’t imagine doing business without it.”
We’d like to think that she pretty much says it all.
