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Each episode of GAIN Momentum focuses on timeless lessons to help grow and scale a business in hospitality, travel, and technology. Whether you’re a veteran industry leader looking for some inspiration to guide the next phase of growth or an aspiring executive looking to fast-track the learning process, this podcast is here with key lessons centered around four questions we ask each guest.
GAIN Momentum episode #25- Best-to-Market Will Outwin First-to-Market | with Warren Dehan
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[00:00:00] Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to the Gain Momentum podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from senior leaders in hospitality, technology, travel, and food service. With us today is Warren Dehan, president of Maestro PMS, Warren, how are you?
[00:00:26] Warren Dehan: I'm well. Thank you, Adam.
[00:00:28] Adam Mogelonsky: And we have a special co host today, Michael Goldrick, how are you?
[00:00:33] Michael Goldrich: I'm doing quite well, thank you so much for having me.
[00:00:37] Adam Mogelonsky: So listeners, we structure these podcasts around four key questions that we ask everyone who comes on the show, and then follow up in between. So we're going to dive right in with our first question, Warren, when it comes to scaling a business, what is the single piece of advice you would give entrepreneurs from your perspective as professional in hospitality technology?
[00:01:01] Warren Dehan: Yeah, thank you. That's a great question to start with and thank you again for the opportunity to join you today. You know, I think if I look back at our business, which has been around since 1978, so we've been around a long time. Don't let the youthful good looks fool you. I've been doing this for a long time and one of the areas that I think we have always strived for and we learned early on is to focus on our strengths and our area of expertise. Not to try to do everything and be everything to everybody, that is a great long term goal, but as you're building a business and striving to be successful in that business, stick to the knitting, stick to where your expertise is, and focus onyour clients with providing and, developing and inventing solutions that are within your strengths and will meet your clients needs.
[00:01:56] Adam Mogelonsky: So with that, that is the lesson that I love to hear. We've heard it before on this podcast. And I'm wondering if you could speak to Maestro specifically, not only present day, what your current strengths are, but how you arrived at that through past iterations of your core products.
[00:02:19] Warren Dehan: Yeah, and, you know, initially we didn't stick to our knitting. We started out as a software development house, and we would develop software for any business that needed software developed. So when we started this business, we started developing software for various industries. We did, invoicing systems for freight forwarding companies. We did survey systems for those mall, uh, interviewees that you see.
[00:02:40] We did software for anyone that needed software developed.
[00:02:43] And at that time, it was on many computers, a very different time than, than what we're used to today with the technology. But what we found over time is that, Uh, we needed to focus and one of the customers that approached us was a large, chain of hotels who had us develop, a guest history, uh, management system, accounts payable, accounts receivable, financial reporting, uh, travel agency commissions payable. We liked that business. We thought the hospitality was very interesting. It was sophisticated. It was complicated. Not everybody was doing it at the time. Again, we're talking about the early 80s by this time and we saw an opportunity. And so working with this chain, we developed the back office accounting and that was what we knew well. We knew invoicing systems well, and that was the knitting that we stuck to at that time. And we focused and we built the business selling to hotels across North America, uh, the U. S., Canada. We, uh, we ventured into, uh, into Hong Kong and other parts of the world with this product, which, you know, eventually morphed. And we can talk about a little bit more about that in a minute. But we focused our core strengths on that product and we did well with it.
[00:03:54] We
[00:03:55] focused our service offering. Surrounded by people who understood the business side of the, uh, software, they understood hotels, they understood hotel accounting, and that's how we provided the, the solution that, you know, from a service point of view, support point of view, and a product point of view, uh, was very focused on that market and, and did very well for us.
[00:04:13] Michael Goldrich: so I have a question. So you say you focus on your strength and now you say this invoicing that kind of developed from there. So then is it just focusing on this tool or is it the strength in which you had in terms of growing this invoicing to focus and apply it to hotels?
[00:04:32] Warren Dehan: Great question. And I, I can kind of explain how that morphed. So we invoicing systems in, in accounting systems. What we saw happening is there We had certain hotel customers who were saying, Oh, you know, we really need the front office side of this to work better with the accounting. And so then we saw an opportunity and at this point we'd already built the company up.
[00:04:56] We were fairly successful. We had a team of developers, team of installers and trainers and it was, you know, it was a small company, but still a growing concern. And we saw an opportunity that our clients were bringing to us to extend the product. And so, you know, sticking to our knitting was one thing. But now we're at a point where we had grown sufficiently where we thought we could add another product. And so I, I, I don't want to be misunderstood. I think when I say stick to your knitting, I think if you're trying to build a
[00:05:25] business and you're focused and you're just trying to get off the ground, stick to what you know.
[00:05:29] But as you build that business and you become more successful and self sustaining, whether you're bootstrapped or have outside investors, but as you're running that business, then it's okay to start slowly, incrementally improving your offering to get a broader reach or maybe enter new markets or what it might be. in our case, we had clients coming to us saying, okay, well, the invoicing is great, but we really want some help on the front office side. Can you help us? And. We did. I mean, we, we made the decision to say, you know what, we're at a position now where we can pour a little more resources and funding into, developing and doing some R& D work on a front office system, and using the clients we had who were willing to help us. We were able to develop our first front office, which was a green screen product written in a language called COBOL, which I know you guys know, but not every, not all listeners may know, but very, very old school environment. Um, that's where we started in that world. Uh, and that was on proprietary equipment, which eventually we went to Unix and then SCO Xenix and then Linux. And now we're, you know, Windows and web and, and Microsoft SQL Server back end. I mean, everything's morphed and innovated and changed over time, but that's how we got there. We got there by sticking to what we knew, building it, being successful on it, and then moving to the next phase. We didn't try and be everything to everybody from the get go. For us, we just didn't feel that was what was going to make us successful. And it was a good call on our part.
[00:06:57] Adam Mogelonsky: So that's always a balance between deciding, because different customers are going to come at you with different requests. And you also have your vision. How do you find that balance between those customer requests that are going to divert resources away from your primary vision for the product?
[00:07:19] Warren Dehan: Yeah, absolutely, uh, very sort of pertinent question, uh, especially in, in software. We recognize that our customers who are using the software need to be able to use it effectively in their operations and need to get from it what they need. But we're also doing demonstrations to prospective customers who are saying, Oh, well, we, we need this feature.
[00:07:43] You know, if we're going to do business with you, we need this feature or that feature. Or they might've said, you know, Hey, we're looking at your competitors and they have this feature. Do you have that? So it's a real blend. And it's more art than science, I think, in terms of deciding what do we do in terms of improving our product for our customers? What do we do in terms of improving our product for a competitive advantage when we're presenting the product to people who are not our customers yet? And what do we do in innovation? That we think is gonna make our product stand out. Our customers aren't asking for this. They haven't seen it anywhere, anywhere else, but we feel this is an area where we wanna do some investment because we think this is gonna stand out, make us a, you know, provide differentiation for us as a supplier.
[00:08:29] So it's a balancing act. And I'd say to, to answer your question maybe a little more succinctly. If a client's having a problem that's, you know, negatively impacting their ability to do business, that becomes a focus area, because we've got to keep the customers happy. And then it's a real balancing act between the competitive advantage is, and innovation that we want to bring to the market with, with new things that we develop.
[00:08:54] Michael Goldrich: this innovation, uh, how do you feel about speed, speed to market? Because all your competitors, everyone's racing. To have the next be best item, net, next best piece of functionality. The next sort of press release. How do you, you know, weigh or balance to your term, speed versus something that you think is, uh, real drives value?
[00:09:20] Warren Dehan: You know, I think from my perspective, there's first to market, there's also best to market. And I think that from a marketing point of view, you're right. Uh, in, in terms of where I think you're going with this question, it is really important to be first to market with an innovative idea because you'll get attention. And people will, will flock to you if they're interested in this particular, whatever it might be. And you will have a definite advantage over everyone else because you're first to market. But that product better be good. It, it better do what it's supposed to do. It better be, you know, functionally rich.
[00:09:56] It better be reliable. It better do all those things and provide good value in terms of cost models. We have Occasionally been first to market, but generally we have, we have not been first to market with our products. When we've developed our first accounting system, there was lots of accounting systems.
[00:10:14] Our first PMS, there was lots of other PMSs. What we do is we keep chipping away at functionality and capabilities and service offerings to make that product get better and better and better. So we're not first to market, but we're one of the best products out there over time. And a lot of those first to market products are gone because there was a lot of investment in funding to get something out the door quickly. And if you miss, you can hurt your reputation. If you miss, you can lose customers. And when you come back in with, with a product that, you know, uh, that you say, Oh yeah, we know about the first, first to market products, but here's what we do differently. And here's why we took a little extra time to fix this or address this or add this kind of functionality. And that allows us to have a, you know, a best to market, uh, which, you know, I think ultimately in playing the long game, which is what we've done traditionally, having started, you know, over 45 years ago, for us it's worked. You know, it was a, it was, it was the right approach for us.
[00:11:19] Michael Goldrich: So, what would you say is your indicator of success? Is it the NPS for the customer? Is it, minimal churn? Is it, uh, the existing customers grow their, their, their accounts with you? Like what, what does success look like?
[00:11:39] Warren Dehan: So I, I can answer that a couple of different ways. Um, you know, of course success is. Winning business and getting those customers happy and seeing that in our bottom line. That's sort of the, you know, grand scheme of, of things in terms of, how a lot of companies want to measure success, you know, are we profitable? But I think that there's a more important aspect to that is what are we delivering to our clients that that allows us to create a relationship with them that is long lasting. We have clients that have been with us over 30 years. They were on our very first PMS, and they are now on our latest iteration of Maestro. We have had clients who have left us. They decided that the neighbor's grass looked a little greener. And so they leave. And they come back. And we've had not one, not two, but many. Like that, where they think, oh, you know, my store's just another PMS, they're all the same, and it's time for a change. And then they realize, no, when you have an organization that's focused and measures their focus by the customer success, their level of contentment with the product, you know, we can measure all the things, you know. How many bugs are we producing? Is there churn or what does that churn look like? There's lots of things we can look at to measure, you know, KPIs around success. But for me, as a, you know, uh, my father started the business. I'm not the original founder. Um, so this is a family business. Um, but I am, you know, the president now and sort of managing this, independently with, uh, with, I have other family members in the business, but our approach has always been to treat our customers and our staff and our vendors like family. And, and not to say that, you
[00:13:25] know, I don't want to get too smarmy about it. It's not something that we, advertise. But it's a, it's a way that we conduct ourselves. That we, we try and have a relationship with all those.
[00:13:37] entities that are important to our success in a way that they know they can call us. They know they can have a discussion with us. They know that we're not going to put them off. We're not going to you know, create a situation that's It's uncomfortable to deal with us. We want to make it easy. Are we perfect?
[00:13:52] No, of course we're not perfect. You know, we, we have challenges like every other business has, but it's how we deal with those challenges, how we deal with our clients challenges, how we deal with our delivery challenges, how we deal with our own internal challenges. It's how we work around those kind of day to day business challenges, uh, that, that helps define in my mind the, that measurement of success. Ultimately, you have to want to go to work. It's got to be a good place to go. And if you get along with the people you're working with, and your customers, and your vendor partners, it makes it way more fun. And ultimately, the success can come. And
[00:14:29] Michael Goldrich: Yeah, and I really like the fact about family because I think one of the things about family when I deal with marketing technology companies, sometimes you feel like just a customer. You're just like, you get nickel and dimed. But I think when you deal with companies that have a family approach, sort of like what you say, you feel like you're safe, secure, they care. And I think that is huge in our, in our industry, is if you feel like the company you're partnering with cares about you, and they just don't want to make a buck off of you, And I think that that goes a long way, at least in my opinion.
[00:15:01] Warren Dehan: Yeah. No. Well, thank you. I agree a hundred percent. And you know, we have great relationship with, with our customers and, and I have an open door policy, open phone policy. I have many of my clients who don't need to call me, um, but they always can. And some do, sometimes just to talk, sometimes to shoot an idea by me on some new feature they want. But everyone's approachable. And I think that that, you know, it goes back to that, that family sort of feeling that makes it a good working relationship.
[00:15:27] Adam Mogelonsky: Warren, we're going to dive into our second question here. What are some of the common pitfalls or failures you have witnessed that business owners should look to avoid when scaling their business?
[00:15:39] Warren Dehan: Well, okay, I mean, you know, sticking to the knitting
[00:15:41] thing aside,
[00:15:43] uh, you know, certainly you can try and spread yourself too thin in terms of going after, we're talking hospitality, and so you need to decide where your market is because hospitality is a big market. There's change, there's independence, there's conference centers, there's destination resorts, there's roadside hotels, there's bed and breakfast, there's so many different It's constantly developing brands.
[00:16:06] They're growing in California, you know, at a rapid pace. They tried this very, very unique brand bicycle and I don't know how many of them have went to the border. Just recently a Great Lakes Hotel has So, ensuring the, ability to really serve your clients, you've got to know who your client is and what their needs are.
[00:16:28] And the needs of all those venues I mentioned are all a little different. Sure, they, book reservations and they check you into a room, but there's a lot of different variety that you can get into in terms of what those needs are. So not spreading yourself, um, sort of too thin on, on the. Type of customer you're after so you can focus on that market and excel in that market and build a reputation in that market I think is important.
[00:16:54] Adam Mogelonsky: the whole idea here behind Maestro is, I believe, I want to say that your sweet spot is Full service properties that have, uh, I want to say more resort style amenities. Is that, would that be on the money?
[00:17:13] Warren Dehan: I think it wouldn't be inaccurate. We do have city center properties. We have
[00:17:18] conference centers. So
[00:17:20] we do have a fairly wide variety of types of customer vacation rentals golf resorts, but to your point about resorts, The reason that we've done well in resorts, and the reason that most people think that that's an area where, you know, we kind of focus, is because our product has been built with many resort clients.
[00:17:39] Constantly asking us to improve the resort
[00:17:41] functionality, packaging, and dynamic packaging, and rates, and, and resort fees, and all the different little pieces that are maybe a little different from a resort to a city center property,
[00:17:51] Or, or a conference or convention property that have given us that reputation, but Maestro as a product is installed at hundreds of So, there are various kinds of properties that, sort of have approached us over years and had us add the functionality.
[00:18:04] Adam Mogelonsky: And have you tested any other niches within hospitality? Mm.
[00:18:11] Warren Dehan: So, you know, there was a time when we did a lot of inpatient hospital work with the PMS. This actually predates It was a previous PMS that we have developed called CHS, Computerized Hospitality Solutions. And it was popular with a number of hospitals for inpatient billing because the hospital systems that were there just, they didn't have what they needed for a lot of the, again, the invoicing and billing controls. And so we had a pretty good solution and we had to write the backend to interface with the insurance systems, which is not a really a hotel thing. Um, but, you know, that's sort of the closest we ventured into a different market
[00:18:54] with
[00:18:55] a similar product. We do have military bases
[00:18:59] using the product, but again, they, they operate more like a simple hotel operation, just with a lot of rooms. Uh, we have some university housing. That, uh, you know, we've done in the past as well. Again, that's a slightly different market, different requirements, um, so that was, you know, it was, um, adjacent to the PMS, you know, a lot of similarities, but there's differences because our reputation is built on customization and because we continue to this day to, you know, in, in house, we have a full team of developers and we, we've always maintained that bespoke Mentality where customer needs something, whether it's something simple, like they just want a different kind of report or they need some kind of additional
[00:19:40] functionality in the software, we will entertain those kind of improvements to the product.
[00:19:46] With clients. And so we've, you know, we've built a reputation as one of the PMS vendors that will do that. It's not just, here's, here's the product off the shelf, That's what you get, and stay tuned for the next update next year that'll have whatever features we decide. We tend to be a lot more custom oriented with our clients. Still one product, but lots of capabilities in terms of how users can turn things off, turn things on, use the pieces they need, and they all function very well together.
[00:20:13] Adam Mogelonsky: Diving into our third question here, Warren. What do you see as the key opportunities and challenges for hospitality technology companies in 2024 and beyond?
[00:20:26] Warren Dehan: Well, there's a lot of noise and a lot of competition and a lot of great products, um, that we're competing with on a regular basis. And I think for hotels, that becomes an area where, you know, as technologists, we kind of understand the technology or we can absorb it and we can figure out kind of where it would fit and how it would fit for hoteliers.
[00:20:46] I think it's overwhelming. And, you know, so I think moving forward from a technology point of view, we have an obligation to help our customers understand how to. I'm here embed different technologies into their operations, use those technologies to their advantage, and not be overwhelmed with the implementation, which is the toughest part. You know, the software, let's assume that all the software that we see from all the different vendors is great software and can do the job. But the tough part for properties is they have to bring that in and they have to embed that into their culture, into their operations, into their finance. I mean, everything has to work around these products. And so when you have Products from different vendors, it adds a layer of complexity. And so our approach, you know, we, we do promote Maestro as a, you know, as an all in one product. But we also recognize that, you know, some hoteliers are going to want, they want to keep their existing sales and catering system, or they're going to want to keep their existing spa system, or their restaurant point of sale system, or whatever it might be.
[00:21:51] And we can work in a best of breed environment, but I think what we're seeing in our full service resort type hotels, certainly, uh, Adam, to your point, Is they would love one throat to choke and that ends up being mine a lot. But in terms of, you know, being able to work with one vendor who can supply a wide range of the operational technology they need from, from the CRM to the PMS, to the sales and catering, to the club and spa, to the club management, to the member management, to the owner vacation rental management, to the work order product, you know, we have all those products built into Maestro as part of Maestro, and then we also have some very strong integrations for those areas that we, um, we don't, haven't developed our own software for, you know, so restaurant, fine dining, point of sale, we have a very strong integration there, uh, revenue management, strong integrations, channels, strong integrations, so, you know, we, we've tried to create an environment where if a customer comes to us and says, I'm building this resort environment, I'm building this hotel environment, I'm building this conference center, whatever it might be, and I need all these bits and pieces. We can step in, um, and we don't, do a consulting role, we work with consultants, but we can step in and provide all the pieces and we know all the players that can help make that solution happen in, in a way that is easier to implement, thus easier to support, and then more likely to be successful over the implementation period.
[00:23:20] Michael Goldrich: So one of the things we haven't really talked about, which I think is one of the first touch points on property is check in. I know check in is continuing to evolve, first it was the desk, then it was kiosk, then it was app. Now you have this, um, they're pushing out this next year, these digital IDs, these global IDs, uh, so you don't have to show the license. Like, what do you see as the frictionless check in process in the future?
[00:23:49] Warren Dehan: Well, um, you know, I've done a little studying on the digital IDs, and I think that it's a great idea, it's, we're not right, we're not there yet. It'll, it'll take some time, I think, before that gets fully implemented. I think, obviously, if you're checking into a hotel, whether you're a tired traveler that just wants to get to the room, or a chatty traveler that just wants to go to the bar and have a drink and chat with people, you don't always necessarily want to chat with the front desk clerk. You want to get checked in and have that part of the, the visit out of the way. I think, for me, a perfect check in is one where Everything works seamlessly and smoothly and actually works. I have a fondness for mobile key technology, but I have a limited successful track record with successfully using a mobile key during a check in. Probably half the time it works great and half it doesn't. So for me, part of that frictionless check in is everything's done in advance. I can do everything from my phone. When I get to the hotel, I should be able to just go to my door and open my room and settle in. everything I need to sign, anything I need to review, anything I need to agree to is all done in advance.
[00:25:02] Whether I do it on my phone, on my desktop, on my laptop, I think the information has to be captured. And some information is not going to be in a digital ID. My date to stay is not going to be there. The fact that I'm celebrating my anniversary and want to have Uh, champagne and a chocolate covered strawberries in the room on arrival isn't going to be in my digital ID. Identifying me and reducing the risk for the hotel of, is this person who they say they are so they don't have to run my passport or run my driver's license through a scanner? I think digital IDs have, have a place for sure. , if we're Um, you know, looking at any of, of that part of the guest journey, then minimizing the opportunity for a fraudulent guest to be there or a guest who's going to end up not paying or, you know, creating chargebacks. That's frictionless. That means that I'm, as a hotelier, I'm providing the service to the guest and they're going to stay, they're going to enjoy the stay, they're going to pay me, and nothing bad is going to happen. That's frictionless. it's got to work on both sides in my opinion.
[00:26:01] Alright, and so you lead me to another question. So frictionless and then the other side of it is personalization. So I get to my room, say the key works and I walk in. It's the perfect temperature, the music I like is playing on the sound system, my name is on the TV, like all the sort of things that can be automated and adapted,
[00:26:25] you know, apart from the other stuff. Is that something that you guys are working through? And is that sort of like a, uh, is that real or is it just sort of like,
[00:26:33] Michael Goldrich: um,
[00:26:35] Warren Dehan: is that just some of the, well, we can do this, but no one really wants it.
[00:26:40] You know, I think we can do this. And I think some people do want it. And when I check into a hotel and I enter the room and the TV's got my name on it, I go, okay, hey, good. They got the TV interface working well. That's, that's nice. It makes me feel like, okay, they got this part right. But you're right about some of the other areas. Um, you know, we have an integration with energy management. We can send them the fact that Warren Dehan likes his room at 72 degrees and likes classic rock on the radio. We can put those preferences in. We can put the preference in that Warren likes, you know, feather pillows, and he likes, uh, you know, sparkling water on the bedside. That's all preferences. The challenge there goes to labor. Who's going to make those things happen? The technology side can happen easily. The ability to update the TV, uh, update the energy management system, update the radio, that's all available. That becomes a initiative of the hotel. What sort of property is it?
[00:27:39] What kind of guest journey are they trying to have their guests experience? And are they willing to put the effort in? Because it is effort. It's effort and it's upkeep.
[00:27:47] To make those things work, but then the other things I mentioned, like, you know, whether it's the feather pillow or the, the bottle of water, those are things that require labor, uh, or good robots, uh, which, you know, obviously we're going to get there at some point, so I think it's a balancing act.
[00:28:01] I think it's a balancing act of, um, you know, what makes sense for that guest experience. What's good enough? Is that going to make the guest experience stand out from your competitor? And is the hotel willing to invest? The technology is the cheap part here. You know, those interfaces, they already do those things. It's the implementation and the upkeep and making sure that the staff is trained to know that those things work. Make sure the housekeepers are prepared. If something doesn't work, that they let the front desk know. It's the labour side, I think, that, you know, there, there has to be some, some level of control over.
[00:28:37] And that's where the heavy lifting happens.
[00:28:39] Adam Mogelonsky: you know, just one final follow up here before we go into our fourth question. On the note of labor, because this is going to be the issue for hospitality for the next 10 years, and I'm wondering if you could speak to any specific features that you've seen either in Maestro or other software out there that can really help hoteliers and hotels more diligently manage their labor and increase team productivity.
[00:29:09] Warren Dehan: So, there's a number of fronts on which, you know, we can address labour. Some of it is you push things back to the guest. Mobile check in, reservations, mobile checkout, all the ordering of food, room service, amenities, the two way texting, a lot of which is automated at the front end. So, we have all those capabilities and we've made strides and improvements in those capabilities over the last many years.
[00:29:38] You know, certainly, We were doing that stuff pre COVID, and then through COVID it became more important to have that kind of self serve, contactless, touchless, which helps with labour. It frees your staff up, your available staff, to do other things. And so that's an area that, that, you know, we certainly have developed our own products.
[00:29:57] We've also worked with some of our partners, on robotic process automation, you know, how do we help some of the, the routine, boring data entry kind of things that have to happen, whether it's, it's budgeting or entering rates or whatever it might be for the next season or for the next year, using robotic process automation to automate some of that. Labor requirement and have the computer do the work. So that's another area where we've had some investment and had some, some good success, but certainly, you know, we've working with some of our partners, working with some of the software we've developed can help reduce labor by pushing a lot of these things to the guest. Uh, some things can be pushed to other staff. Uh, you know, we, we've got, um, Capabilities, for our spa product, uh, where there's a spa provider schedule. So rather than having a lot of people involved in scheduling between the guests booking their spa appointments, the systems vetting that obviously allow that to happen and the spa provider having an app. Where they can look at what they've got coming up, confirm whether they're going to come or not, uh, whether they can make it for that appointment or whether they have to get someone else on board, to take over for them, those apps also help because they streamline the administrivia of, you
[00:31:08] know, working through a spa environment and, and same for other environments in the in various hotel departments.
[00:31:16] Adam Mogelonsky: Warren, we're going to move on to our fourth question here. What are the key things innovative leaders and entrepreneurs should prioritize and focus on to gain traction for their business?
[00:31:31] Warren Dehan: Well, as an organization, we have always focused
[00:31:34] on service. Um, we have a philosophy that
[00:31:41] it doesn't matter how good your software is, if you don't back it with good service, your customers will struggle and you will struggle as a company.
[00:31:51] And so all our initiatives, uh, and I'm not talking about product innovation because we can talk about features and things we've added there and I can mention a few, but on the service side. We continue to find ways to improve our services. You know, the latest things we've done over the last year or two is we've embedded chat into the application. And we have staff available all the time to respond to users on chat. So, you don't have to pick up the phone to call our support. You can, but you don't have to.
[00:32:27] If you have something you want to address quickly, You can, it's right in Maestro. You just pop up the chat and you'll be talking to a live person, not an AI bot. Right now, we can manage with real people and they'll respond and they'll triage your question. You know, it's a training, it's a training question. They'll do a number of things. They'll set aside a trainer for you and say, you know what, can you meet us in 15 minutes? We've got a trainer who's going to help you go, you know, maybe you're setting up rates or setting up yields or something and you want to know how to do that and you have a question about it. We can do an orientation session. We can send you to our e-learning website. We have a very
[00:33:02] sophisticated e-learning website with tons of material, both written and video. Uh, that is very absorbable that people can go to for getting training, or they might send you a support and say, Oh, no, this question, you definitely have an issue that we need to get a support agent on the phone with you or on the chat with you.
[00:33:19] And we can pass that chat to them and they'll continue on that way. We've added the ability in Maestro that if you're having problem with a particular screen from that screen, you can email support with a screenshot and add your notes. So now, when our support team gets a support email, it's not just, hey, I need help with this thing.
[00:33:39] It's, here's what I was doing, and here's where I was having the problem, and we, and from that we know who the customer is, what program they were on, what they were doing at the time, and we can help them more quickly and more efficiently, and, and that's sort of the name of the game. You want to reduce that time to correction or, uh, resolution of a call as quickly as you can. And so, you know, those are some of the things that we've embedded from the service side. And we provide a lot of services. Our services are all included in our, in the annual licensing and support fees. So, we're not, um, you know, we're not sort of adding additional fees for support. We're not adding additional fees for when support says, let's do a little training with you. Those are services we provide, along with the licensing and the regular 24 by 7 support. So, from our perspective,
[00:34:26] service is, is key. And it allows us to stand apart and has allowed us to be, you know, in.
[00:34:32] my opinion, very successful with our customers. And our customers will sometimes call us when they have trouble with other systems on property because they know we'll answer the phone and give them some guidance. Um, so we think we're doing a good job. I mean, you know. We can't repair other people's problems. I can't repair the freezer, uh, in the
[00:34:50] kitchen, but, uh, but we can certainly help with, with, you know, some of those things. So, you know, that's an area where I would focus. Of course, you want to try and innovate.
[00:34:58] You want to try and stay current with technology, at least in those trends where your market is, is looking to you as an expert. And as an advisor and for guidance. And so, you know, when we added the mobile check in tools and the mobile checkout tools, we were not first to market, um, but we continue to improve those tools based on what the clients want.
[00:35:22] We'll continue to innovate based on what the clients wanted, and to make them more and more sophisticated to meet our clients needs. So certainly, listening to your clients. After you provide good service, listening to your clients and what, what their needs are is important and not assuming. Have a conversation with the
[00:35:40] customers. Our customers know their businesses better than we'll ever know them. They'll know what they need and they'll know how they work. What they don't always know is as hoteliers, how do I make that translate into a computer software program that's going to help me with my business? And that's where the dialogue is really critical. Because if you take the right systems analysts, people with the right hoteliers and the right users asking for what they want, you can innovate and create products that will really satisfy the need, not just some, some, something that's shiny, but something that actually is applicable and that you can use.
[00:36:15] Adam Mogelonsky: I think that's the perfect way to finish it off here. Just on those notes about Not necessarily being first to market, but best to market, and how that ties in with customer service. And you've mentioned a lot of, I guess, KPIs that we could talk about to really measure that.
[00:36:33] But the whole idea of talking with your clients, and this is a service industry, hospitality is service. So, talking with your clients as part of the service process to then guide and be best to market with your features. I think that's a very powerful message to finish off here and Warren, I can't thank you enough for coming on.
[00:36:54] This has been a delightful conversation.
[00:36:57] Warren Dehan: My pleasure. No, thank you for having me. Delightful as always, Adam. I always enjoy our conversations and, uh, thank you very much for having me. Michael, thank you for the great questions and, uh, I really appreciate the opportunity.
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