Oban Hotel Delighted with Online Booking Service

When the Kelvin Hotel in Oban redesigned their website in 2009 they recognised the importance of improving the visual appeal of the site, in addition to managing the keywords and meta tags to ensure that they improved the ranking of their website in Search Engine results.

Once this project was completed, the next step in the development of the Kelvin’s online strategy was the selection of a booking engine for the website. Kelvin Hotel owner, Sheena McLean picks up the story, “We did some research on the web and identified a number of potential companies to work with, including Bookassist. We also recognised the increase in online bookings over recent years had raised the expectation of our guests and it was no longer acceptable to ask them to email an enquiry to us. We were also concerned about losing bookings from customers and wanted to offer them the option to book online at our own website”

One of the key requirements of the Kelvin Hotel was a speedy implementation, the contract had been agreed in early June 2009 and the plan was to maximise any last minute summer bookings as well as realising the potential for advance bookings in the normally quieter “shoulder months” of October – March.

Bookassist were able to conclude the website integration and staff training over email and telephone in the week or so that followed. This was of real benefit to the Kelvin Hotel as Manager Lewis Ross explains, “We are a relatively small (but busy) hotel and as such the staff tend to cover many roles within the hotel and we don’t have much spare time to dedicate to new projects. However Bookassist were great, as part of integration all we had to do was complete a simple data capture form, email it to them and they loaded all of this into the system for us. Next we did some telephone training which was less than 30 minutes and was very easy to follow.

Once the training was completed, Bookassist worked with our Web Developers to launch the booking engine on our website, leaving us to concentrate on managing the hotel. Within a matter of days we had started to receive bookings which have gone from strength to strength throughout July”

The implementation of the Kelvin Hotel is very typical of the way in which Bookassist Scotland operate, as Business Development Manager, James Kennedy confirms, “We specialise in providing Online Sales & Marketing Solutions for hospitality businesses and as such we really understand the challenges that these businesses face, particularly the time pressures they are under. This enables us to build the integration timetable around the hotel needs, allowing them to continue running their business whilst we co-ordinate the Web Developers and the staff training”

James Kennedy will be visiting Oban from the 4th – 6th August and is happy to meet with interested businesses at their premises. To make an appointment please email james.kennedy@bookassist.com or contact the office on 01292-521-404.

Don't Delay - Online Bookings Today!

When we're meeting up with potential clients for the first time one of the more frequent questions asked is how long will it take to see the bookings come through. The answer's a lot longer than the question and is worth a blog post tomorrow to highlight how you can improve your chance of increasing your online reservations but in the case of The Oak Tree Inn at Balmaha, the answer to the question was about eighteen minutes!
We've worked closely with the Oak Tree's web developers to embed the booking engine quickly and once the hotel had undergone training the site was set to live and got it's first reservation less than twenty minutes later. Why? Well it's a mix of good site design, good search engine optimisation and a booking engine that can convert easily.
Not rocket science really just good common business sense.
The lesson however is as clear as a bell... for every minute you put off making the changes to your site design, or your content or your booking engine you are quite clearly losing uncharted volumes of potential business.
So if you're website's not converting into online reservations give us a call and we'll see how we can help - quickly!

Luxury Scottish Inn Joins Bookassist

The tranquil, picturesque parish of Strathblane is the idyllic setting of the Kirkhouse Inn, where you will always find memorable hospitality, delectable cuisine and outstanding comfort.

You will now also find the Bookassist booking engine offering an on-line reservations to match the quality of the product.
The site went live following integration of the booking engine at the beginning of the month and the results are already impressive.
The system features images for every room type, integrated Google Map and management controlled Guest Reviews.
Have a look at the Kirkhouse Inn site or why not just book a wee short break away from it all!

Make Your Guest Comments Work For You.

As we all know Customer Reviews can be a very useful tool when deciding where we should be heading off to. Whether it be a First Choice resort in Egypt or a business venue in Edinburgh we're pretty quick these days as consumers to hit TripAdvisor before we go too far along the line.

And of course that's what our own customers are undoubtedly doing as well and in recognising that fact (not necessarily liking it!) we all have to ensure that our consumer profile on-line reflects our businesses as we would wish.

Our ethos with Bookassist in Scotland is to help accommodation providers drive traffic to their own website; always has been and always will be. It made sense therefore to put Customer Reviews onto the system as well to ensure that reviews could be seen from the hotel's own site.
Once a client who has booked using Bookassist has left the hotel, they will be emailed asking them to rank and review both the system and the accommodation experience.

The former helps us identify where we may need to support a hotel or improve our reservations service but even more importantly the second allows you to get a very quick turnaround on your guest comments.
Sure, you may not to publish them all but even negative comments can be used to retrieve negative publicity either through the guest's word of mouth ot if he's web 2.0 literate his psoting on to TripAdvisor or other travel sites.
It simply has to become part of your PR/Customer Relations/Market Research to spend some time in this area to improve your service, identify problems and in the end improve your bottom line.
To make this easier, Bookassist's latest upgrade now allows all administrators the ability to manage their own guest comments choosing to either reply or publish each one. Publishing comments onto your website couldn't be simpler. Just let us know and we'll activate both the tab that shows your comments - with no interference to your own website structure - and the function allowing you to manage your comments. You can then do so on a daily or regular basis when updating your rates and availability.

1. Review your guest comments regularly
2. Respond to negative comments positively and directly
3. Publish positive responses on-line with Bookassist
   

Couldn't be easier...
For more information and to quickly update your system give James or Ian a call on 01292 521404