MSI Announces Dedicated Brand Managers

New customer-service initiative to begin September 18

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. October 14, 2008

PHOENIX, AZ, September 11, 2006. To remain focused on superior customer service and provide the ultimate support experience, Multi-Systems Inc., a leading supplier of property-management and integrated operations/marketing technologies for the lodging industry, is announcing a new Customer Assistance Center (CAC) initiative. Beginning Sept. 18, each hotel chain or independent hotel will now be supported by a dedicated Brand Support Team.

"MSI is dedicated to superior service, and as such, we have embarked on a new CAC initiative to live up to our 24-hour-a-day service obsession," said Tim Tiller, MSI chief operating officer. "Through this initiative, we are replacing our current service delivery paradigm of providing support based on product (WinPM, WinSAM, EnterprisePM, POS, DOSPM, etc.) by moving to a brand-focused service delivery model."

"Currently MSI will be comprised of five Brand Support Teams: Wyndham Hotel Group, Best Western International, Select Hotel Group-USFSI, Nova, and Independents," Tiller added. "Each support team, comprised of approximately 15 to 30 brand-specialist technicians, will be led by a dedicated Brand Management team. At the present time, each technician is being trained on his or her brand's specific business and central-reservation system rules and regulations so that we're ready to roll later this month."

According to Tiller, the planning for this model of service delivery has been in progress for the past several months under the direction of Judy McKinney, MSI VP of Customer Success.

"When hiring our brand management teams, we had two main goals," McKinney said. "First, we needed to find strong leaders, and second, we wanted them to have solid hotel operations backgrounds in order to improve our ability to truly understand and respond to the concerns and business impact reported by in-coming callers. While we have excellent technicians on staff, excellent technicians do not necessarily make excellent leaders. By selecting individuals who have several years experience in hotels, we gain not only the ability to better understand the business impact of the customer issues that are brought to our attention, but we also gain the necessary leadership skills that will bring our Customer Assistance Center to the next level."

The following will serve as CAC Brand Managers: Jared Bunts will head the Best Western Brand Support Team. Jared joined MSI as a CAC Technician more than five years ago, and was promoted to the position of CAC Team Supervisor prior to this appointment. Shauna Castorena will lead the Select Hotel Group-USFSI Brand Support Team. Shauna has been with MSI since November 2003. Her professionalism and organizational abilities were recognized when she played a pivotal role in the smooth transition of the Pegasus Nova Team to the MSI family. Glenn McDermott will guide the NOVA Brand Support Team. Glenn spent the last eight years at the Gold Canyon Golf Resort. Chad Schlendering will direct the Wyndham Hotel Group Brand Support Team. Chad comes to MSI from Springer Miller Systems, where he served as a new systems trainer and installer. Prior to that, Chad spent several years with Best Western and Cendant Corp. Nori Nathanson will steer the Independent Brand Support Team. Nori has spent the last 20 years in hotel management at Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn properties. In turn, each Brand Manager will be complimented by an Assistant Brand Manager and Technical Lead.

In the previous service-delivery paradigm, McKinney said that each technician had to possess an abundance of information on all system requirements and brand specifications. The new initiative will provide intensive, brand-specific training to technicians in their respective groups, and make them specialists, which will result in faster resolution to customer issues, resulting in shorter hold times and fewer open issues for MSI's valued customers. This is a win-win paradigm for both MSI's Technicians and its customers, McKinney said.

"We're very pleased with this customer-service initiative and we're grateful to Judy for doing such a great job in getting these enhancements off the ground," Tiller said. "Her selection in Brand Managers is exceptional, and we expect to see a dramatic improvement in the average speed of answer for each support call to under four minutes and the number of open issues to be under 175."

"We are confident that this program will ensure that we are exceeding each hotel's expectations while supporting each brand's specific goals," he said. "We are very encouraged by the positive feedback that we have received from those involved in the process, and welcome our customer's feedback."