Business software consultancy, Percipient, announced that hospitality start-up, The Other House, has deployed Sage Intacct. As well as providing intelligence to support the customer experience, track profitability, and expedite operational processes, the platform will facilitate greater transparency around energy consumption and costs, while scaling to support ambitious growth plans for the company. 

The Other House initially used Xero for its accounting needs. However, as it geared up to launch, the executive team needed a platform which would integrate with all key systems, deliver high-level business insights, and support the lifestyle brand’s plans to open 15 sites in the next few years. Having conducted an extensive review process, The Other House selected Sage Intacct based on the fact it was the best system on the market and could efficiently integrate with other best-in-class systems.

Now live, The Other House is benefitting from automation across the entire business. Because of the impressive integration via APIs, business users can view pretty much anything via an easy-to-navigate dashboard, daily, weekly, monthly, or by any other configuration they choose. This unprecedented level of speed and intelligence means that the team is able to distil key data in minutes rather than days.

“Crucially, Sage Intacct can be used by anyone, not just finance, which promotes transparency and allows intelligence to be applied where relevant,” comments Tom Haley, CFO at The Other House. “Our quarter-end accounts are produced at a click of a button and we are able to plot and compare any insight we need to create a comprehensive picture, so that when viewing, say, profit and loss, we can look at the numerous variables associated with that. Sage Intacct delivers truly end-to-end finance, but in reality, it does so much more than that. It allows us to have a high-level business conversation based on statistical insights, which in turn, give us an in-depth understanding and control of our numbers in real-time.”

“Digital is, without doubt, a crucial aspect of any modern hospitality business, and we see it as a competitive advantage. While our app will play a significant role in helping to deliver the Resident experience, it’s all of the intelligence generated in the back office, powered by Sage Intacct, which ultimately delivers the magic.”

Attensi, a global training tech provider, launched a new insight paper, 'The Leadership Delta: How challenging the norm is helping the hospitality & retail industry to train exceptional leaders.' The paper reveals three of the most common and fundamental leadership ‘deltas,’ which they believe are the most difficult to solve using traditional training methods.

Frontline organizations in the hospitality & retail sector have had to face big challenges head on over the last three years, from global shut down to high consumer demand and financial crisis. But according to Attensi, one of the biggest challenges facing the industry is the ‘leadership delta’.

What does Attensi mean by leadership delta?

A leadership delta is a vast gap in knowledge and capability that is exposed when individual contributors are promoted into senior roles where they have responsibility for overseeing multiple areas of the business. One of the reasons this happens is because many of those leading teams within the sector are promoted because they are great at their ‘day job’ -- they are amazing baristas, superstar bar tenders or fantastic store assistants -- but now they find themselves with a new set of expectations and responsibilities. The step up is a giant skills leap. With so much responsibility at the hands of these leaders, Attensi is challenging the industry to look at how leaders are trained within the sector and asking the question: Are you challenging training tradition to develop exceptional leaders and beat the leadership delta?

With a global outlook, the whitepaper identifies three key leadership ‘deltas’ the sector should address:

• Coaching for performance
• Having difficult conversations
• Effectively communicating culture

Greg Hull SVP Commercial Operations US and Global Head of Hospitality & Leisure, said: “In this paper we explore the leadership delta in detail and discuss how organizations can challenge traditional learning methods to give leaders the opportunity to drive performance and become exceptional.

“For every frontline organization, fighting against a backdrop of challenges, understanding and addressing the ‘leadership delta’ in their organization and defining the skills gap they need to close to set leaders up for success is now critical for sustained success.

“There are key takeaways that every organization can take from the learnings of these global organizations, firstly to take the time to better understand the real-life impact and effectiveness of your training, secondly to explore how your team feel about your approach to training and its effectiveness for them as individuals and finally to rethink and reimagine your approach to traditional leadership training. Learning strategies must continuously evolve.”

To find out more, download Attensi’s whitepaper: Whitepaper | Hospitality Industry | Attensi

Nomadix® Inc​. announced it was named a Qualified Vendor for Choice Hotels International, one of the largest lodging franchisors in the world with nearly 7,500 hotels across 46 countries and territories. Nomadix already enables connectivity for hundreds of Choice Hotels with its internet gateway technology. The Qualified Vendor Program brings Nomadix’s extended product portfolio to help every guest feel connected and at home at any of the Choice Hotels properties in the United States.

“We are honored to be named as a Qualified Vendor for Choice Hotels and to bring our reliable and flexible technology solutions to Choice Hotels’ brands from Economy to Extended Stay to Upscale Properties,” said Mike Gray, global vice president of strategic partnerships at Nomadix.

Nomadix complements the Choice Hotels brand with technology solutions focused on quality, affordability and reliability, including:

• Nomadix Networks (Wi-Fi): This portfolio offers a range of wireless access points (with a selection of indoor, outdoor and wall plate options), WLAN controllers and LAN switches, and internet gateways designed to comply with stringent hospitality standards. The overall product line focuses on value for performance, quality and simplicity and offers the latest Wi-Fi 6 technology.
• Nomadix Cloud Telephony (PBX): The solution cost-effectively replaces end-of-life phone systems and meets the latest emergency calling requirements. The service works with Nomadix IP phones, Angie guest room devices and most SIP/IP phones on the market.
• Nomadix Alerts (Panic Button): A wearable 2-in-1 staff safety device that helps safeguard isolated workers from threats and harassment – including fall detection – while providing Wi-Fi analytics as employees roam around the property.
• Nomadix Casting (In-Room Entertainment): This product allows guests to automatically pair personal devices to the in-room TV when they connect to the hotel Wi-Fi and then easily cast their preferred shows and other content from Netflix, Hulu, Spotify and thousands of other popular streaming apps.
• Angie Voice Assistants: The multilingual digital concierge helps fulfill guest requests, answer common questions about the property and combines multiple devices (e.g., alarm clocks, telephones, Bluetooth speakers). Hotels can control questions and responses to assist stretched staff and provide upsell and advertising revenue.

For more information, visit: Nomadix.com.

Clickatell, a pioneer in mobile messaging and Chat Commerce innovation, announced the launch of the world's first Chat Commerce Platform as a Service (CCPaaS) that empowers brands to capitalize on the opportunity of chat commerce, the emerging next wave of digital commerce. This ground-breaking platform enables businesses to seamlessly connect, interact and transact with their customers on the messaging platforms they already use. Clickatell's April 2023 release of the first Chat Commerce Platform as a Service delivers full, authenticated commerce experiences within the most widely adopted mobile messaging environments, such as WhatsApp, Apple Messages, SMS and USSD.

This next evolution of Clickatell's Chat Commerce Platform allows businesses to create chat commerce experiences that drive sales and increase customer satisfaction. Businesses stay ahead of the conversational commerce trend by conducting commerce in the world's largest messaging apps. Clickatell's CCPaaS also allows businesses to save time and reduce costs by providing relevant, in-context brand experiences and secure payment capabilities to their customers through the convenience of messaging. New platform features include card tokenization and integration with WhatsApp Commerce functionalities that allow the display of product information and images in the brand's WhatsApp channel.

New Innovative Payments in Chat
CCPaaS is the first SaaS solution to provide secure payment processing by integrating with leading payment gateways, allowing businesses to efficiently process transactions within the chat interface. With card tokenization, consumers can securely pay via a link in any messaging channel, leading to a Clickatell-hosted checkout that tokenizes the user's payment information and saves it for future use — making subsequent purchases streamlined for the consumer with 'one tap pay.' The platform is PCI-DSS, ISO27001 and SOC2 compliant, ensuring the highest security standards for data protection and privacy.

"The launch of Clickatell's Chat Commerce Platform as a Service marks a significant milestone in our company's mission to revolutionize customer engagement and facilitate frictionless commerce within messaging apps," said Pieter de Villiers, CEO and Co-Founder at Clickatell. "We run our lives within messaging apps; whether arranging a lunch with a friend or scheduling a school drop-off, messaging is convenient and simple.

'Our new platform enables our favorite brands to serve us in these same messaging platforms with a full commerce experience, such as checking into your next flight and paying for a seat upgrade. As the first of its kind, CCPaaS sets a new standard for the future of chat commerce and reinforces Clickatell's pioneering position in the industry. We made history in 2000 when we became the first company to connect the world's fastest growing commerce platform – the internet – with the world's fastest growing communications platform – the mobile phone – via our SMS Gateway. I am proud to see our team continuing the innovation and executing on the vision."  

Simple CCPaaS Packaging for Customers' Needs
Clickatell's CCPaaS is offered through three distinct packages:

• Clickatell Connect − The Communication Package
  Connect is the foundation package that enables businesses to send and receive enterprise-grade mobile messages over multiple messaging channels via a RESTful API or a web-based campaign management tool. This package delivers high-volume services and campaigns, adhering to strict security and compliance requirements, delivering billions of messages reliably to customers all over the world. Key features include high volume queuing and routing, message encryption, anonymous messaging and number management.
• Clickatell Interact − The Engagement Package
  Adding to Connect, the Interact package enables businesses to have meaningful conversations with their consumers delivering the kind of digital experiences that today's mobile-first consumers have come to expect. Brands can now easily and quickly build messaging workflows to deploy chatbots and mini-apps from a low/no-code web interface. Interact allows an instantaneous response to the customer through a chatbot with powerful features including keyword management, assets library and integrations with leading CRM and OMS solutions. Interact also includes live agent enablement through an advanced web-based application that provides real time sentiment insights, agent assist, chat transfers and agent performance metrics, all designed to improve agent performance and drive better customer experience.
• Clickatell Transact − The Commerce Package
  Transact enables businesses to sell products and services directly within messaging channels by sending the customer a payment prompt that initiates a secure and simple payment experience. Transact builds on the foundation of Connect and Interact, allowing businesses to create full commerce experiences within messaging. Businesses can accept payments on the Clickatell Platform with no development required, and with secure link and OMS integration, businesses can provide unparalleled check out experiences that are fully cloud native and turnkey. State-of-the-art payment capabilities include tokenization for frictionless user experience, PCI-DSS security and GDPR and local privacy compliance and legacy processes integration.

"As commerce continues to evolve yet again, we are helping brands to engage with their customers in this emerging chat commerce space," said Jeppe Dorff, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Clickatell. "Our vision has always been to create a chat commerce platform that is focused and built around the key performance metrics that matter most to our customers, performance and operational efficiencies, customer satisfaction and increased business improvements. Our Chat Commerce Platform as a Service not only achieves that vision, it also provides an unparalleled user experience for both brands and their consumers, while fostering digital transformation and in context communications with the click of a button. With our innovative low/no-code platform, businesses may rapidly implement and customize their chat commerce solutions, regardless of technical expertise."

To address this emerging chat commerce opportunity, Clickatell's CCPaaS includes several powerful features designed to transform customer engagement into delightful commerce experiences and drive brand loyalty:

• Customizable chatbots: Capabilities to develop and deploy chatbots to automate conversations, handle customer inquiries and drive sales.
• Live agent chat: Smooth escalation from chatbots to live agents, enabling brands to offer personalized and efficient customer support when needed. Live agents can access conversation history and customer information for a seamless transition and enhanced customer experience.
• Real-time analytics and reporting: Access to valuable insights into customer behavior, chatbot performance and transaction data, enabling data-driven decisions and optimization of chat commerce strategies.
• Easy integration with existing systems: A point and click embedded solution for seamless integration with CRM, ERP and other business systems. The platform comes pre-integrated with popular solutions like Shopify, Zendesk and Salesforce, ensuring a faster time to market for businesses.
• Embedded payments: Embedding payments into chat allows brands to engage in transactional commerce as easy as a reply to pay. The feature comes with a secure link, hosted order pages, check out with Order Management integrations and a rich user experience in available channels.

Vervotech, an AI-powered hotel and room-level mapping providers, announced a partnership with TravelgateX, a global marketplace for the travel trade. Vervotech is excited to join hands with TravelgateX and integrate its AI-based Hotel Mapping and Room Mapping products to provide smart mapping solutions to its customers.

TravelgateX runs the largest connectivity marketplace. It offers one single API integration to receive standardised feed of all sellers, in addition to offering distribution options ranging from Tour Operators to OTA. This new partnership will help its customers simplify the way hotel and room content is displayed and consumed.

“TravelgateX's continued efforts in making the life easier for buyers and sellers is a testament to its global success,” said Sanjay Ghare, MD, Vervotech. He further added, “Vervotech is pleased to integrate its AI-based mapping solutions with TravelgateX and help its customers enable smart mappings to increase conversions.”

“We are thrilled to kickstart this partnership with Vervotech,” commented Iván Font, Chief Strategy Officer, TravelgateX. He also added, “We are confident that this integration will add further value to our customers and will play a massive role in increasing their sales by displaying error-free and accurate accommodation data.”

Good news for the travel industry: Not only are folks giving in to wanderlust again, but they’re enjoying all the accommodations along the way.

According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI^®) Travel Study 2022-2023, satisfaction across all four industries measured — airlines, hotels, car rentals, and online travel agencies — is up. The outlook is especially cozy for hotels.

“After two years of decline, a sweeping surge in guest satisfaction with hotels could signal that the industry is moving past the pandemic,” says Forrest Morgeson, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Michigan State University and Director of Research Emeritus at the ACSI. “Concurrent with a wave of pent-up demand, the positive momentum is widespread as all hoteliers increase satisfaction year over year.”

[Click here for a high res version of the infographic.]

Hyatt helps guests rest easy

Overall guest satisfaction with hotels climbs 6% to an ACSI score of 75, with Hyatt skyrocketing 10% to tie Marriott (up 3%) atop the industry standings at 80. Both Hilton (up 4% to 79) and IHG (up 3% to 76) experience valuable gains.

Despite sitting at the bottom of the industry, the large group of small hotels sees the most significant bump, ascending 11% to a score of 72. Wyndham, up 4%, sits in a tie with the smaller hotels.

Despite facing ongoing challenges such as staffing shortages and supply chain issues, hotels show strong signs of improvement across multiple elements of the guest experience. Moreover, guests feel they are getting more value for their stays, and extras like hotel amenities (76) and food services (74) receive much higher ratings than in years past. In short, the ACSI results are cause for optimism for the hotel industry at large.

Alaska flies past the competition

It’s no secret that the airlines had a turbulent holiday season. Widespread cancellations in December 2022 left thousands of passengers stranded, while staffing shortages and other operational issues impeded airlines’ ability to get travelers to their intended destinations.

Customer satisfaction, unsurprisingly, suffered, plunged 8% in January 2023 compared to December 2022, reflecting passenger sentiment from year-end travel experiences. During that time, call center satisfaction received particularly low marks, along with in-flight service and cabin cleanliness.

And yet, the plummet seems to have been a brief blip in an otherwise positive year. Overall passenger satisfaction with the airline industry increased 1% year over year to an ACSI score of 76. The outlook for the coming months may be even rosier, as passenger satisfaction rebounded substantially in February, regaining about two-thirds of the ground lost from the end of 2022.

Alaska ranks best in customer satisfaction, taking over the top spot after soaring 8% to an ACSI score of 81. Meanwhile, Delta (down 1%) and JetBlue (down 4%) at 76 apiece are the only airlines to see satisfaction move in the wrong direction. Despite its struggles during the holidays, Southwest ties American for second place, both with a 1% improvement to 78.

Alamo still leads car rentals, but Avis is in hot pursuit

Satisfaction with the car rental industry increases 1% to an ACSI score of 76.

Alamo remains in the pole position, up 5% to 83, but Avis zooms into second place after surging 8% to 80. Enterprise takes third following a 4% improvement to 79, while Budget gets a 6% bump to 76.

Newcomer Sixt starts near the bottom of the industry with an ACSI score of 72, but outpaces the group of smaller car rental companies, which finishes last with a steady mark of 71.

While the industry’s satisfaction surge was slight, car rental companies didn’t exactly sit in neutral. They were able to restock their fleets after a big dip in 2020 and used their time wisely to up their game in everything from reservations technology to staffing. ACSI data show that customers were much happier with vehicle variety (78) and appearance (82), as well as pick-up (80) and drop-off (81) locations, compared to a year ago.

Expedia gives smaller online travel agencies some competition

User satisfaction with online travel agencies overall inches up 1% to an ACSI score of 76.

Despite improving 3% to 79, the group of smaller online travel sites no longer have sole possession of the top spot. Expedia rises 8% to earn a share of the lead. Expedia’s Travelocity makes strides as well, improving 3% to 75.

Orbitz, in contrast, flounders, falling 7% into last place with an ACSI score of 71.

The ACSI Travel Study 2022-2023 on airlines, hotels, car rentals, and online travel agencies is based on interviews with 10,588 customers, chosen at random and contacted via email between April 2022 and March 2023. Download the study, and follow the ACSI on LinkedIn and Twitter at @theACSI.

No advertising or other promotional use can be made of the data and information in this release without the express prior written consent of ACSI LLC.