MTech, White Lodging Develop TACT

Industry's leading innovator in technology works side-by-side with leading

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. October 14, 2008

MIAMI, FL, September 2, 2008. White Lodging, one of the fastest growing independent ownership, development and management companies in the country, had a vision: To create an easy-to-use tool to capture what its guests are asking for and what they take issue with. The Merrillville, Ind.-based company turned to MTech, a leading innovator in developing solutions to help hotels improve communications, increase productivity, and maximize guest satisfaction, to develop a tool that tackles and tracks guest service issues and service recovery. The solution, TACT, is an enhancement to MTech's popular PMWorks program, and today it is making a difference at White Lodging properties.

"Better understanding what our guests are requesting is paramount to us," said John LaHaise, VP of Engineering for White Lodging. "To address that, we needed to move beyond paper-based data capture to gather and analyze that information. MTech plays an important and ongoing role with their PMWorks product at our hotels in improving our preventive maintenance programs. Their ability to develop a tool to capture and log guest service recovery was something we were confident they could deliver."

"After testing and implementing TACT over the past 6 months, the information is allowing us to better serve our guests and understand where recurring issues originate and/or happen," LaHaise said. "Management, staff and guests couldn't be happier."

TACT offers a faster, more efficient way to capture guest-service issues and requests to more accurately find repeat items and correct them, and to eliminate the manual process traditionally employed in this critical task-all with the result of helping hotels offer a higher level of guest service.

With TACT, guest-service issues are reported and compiled electronically, then quickly distributed to the appropriate staff for correction or other action. TACT further allows for accurate tracking to ensure that all items are completed in an efficient, effective and timely manner. Reports are then generated to management on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, thereby providing management with the tools it needs to correct service/request issues and improve guest service.

"The guest defect or 'service recovery' log has long been a paper-based manual tracking system for hotels to track guest-reported requests and issues-and using this log to track repeat issues and manage the requests of guests is cumbersome and often results in dropped follow-up and poor management information," said Clyde Edson, PMWorks National Accounts Manager and White Lodging liaison. "MTech has developed TACT to build on the success of PMWorks in doing preventive maintenance and eliminate these inefficiencies."

Edson said TACT is built on the HotSOS (Hotel Service Optimization System, pronounced hot sauce) infrastructure, and can be used via touch-screen or any web browser. The solution puts a very easy-to-use, Web-based interface at the front desk, eliminating the paper-based system. It gives the front desk agent a quick, intuitive interface to enter in the guest issue or request, then creates a digital log and reminds the front desk to follow up.

"TACT then tracks the 'recovery' of the issue," he said. "By effectively tracking the issues, repeat complaints can be reduced and guest requests can more effectively be followed-up on. Management gets a summary report in the early morning so action can be taken on the prior day's events. This is a critical aspect of the TACT PMWorks enhancement, because handling a guest complaint before the guest leaves is often the difference between getting that guest to return or losing the guest forever."

For more information on TACT, PMWorks and all MTech solutions, visit www.m-tech.com.