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Nelson MANZ Branch Case Study


Overview
The Nelson MANZ branch enjoys a strong membership with 46 motels out of the 50 motels in the area being actively involved. The busiest times of the year for the Nelson region are the Christmas / New Year holidays and around the Wearable Arts festival; during these peak times accommodation can be scarce to find and what members were finding was that all too often people would simply give up looking for a motel room after phoning a couple of motels even though there were plenty of rooms available in other motels.

Early Duty Motel Systems
Approximately ten years ago, like many other New Zealand towns and cities, Nelson adopted a Duty Motel scheme based upon the familiar lines of each motel faxing their availability for the week to a central 'Duty Motel'. This provided customers with a starting point to find a motel room without having to phone (or visit) each motel in town individually. The system worked reasonably well at quiet times, however at the busier times of the year it was clear that the motel that was on duty would be flat out, chasing up faxes from other motels and dealing with a torrent of enquires (whilst attempting to run their own business!).

The real loser in all of this was the customer; from their perspective it was sometimes difficult to get through to the duty motel and even when they did they were often given out information that was out of date (as some motels hadn't updated the duty motel with their availability for whatever reason).

Evolution Of The New Duty Motel System
Computerisation of the system started when Tourism NZ, Air NZ, WoW management and other key tourism personnel called a special regional meeting because there were difficulties accessing availability of accommodation for the forthcoming Wearable Arts show.

A database was established with a co-ordinator receiving faxed information that was then manually entered into the computer. The database provided information on forward availability for the entire region (approx. 50 motels) whereas the duty motel had traditionally handled information for the current week for their cluster of motels (12-20 motels). A single branch availability phone number was established and directed to the co-ordinators phone.

Problems still existed as this system was extremely time consuming and the co-ordinator could handle just one call at a time. At peak times there were up to 5 calls on hold.

The system did however improve the service to the customers, and then in the middle of the Wearable Arts weekend, the co-ordinator (John Gilbertson) was taken ill. The database was transferred onto John’s laptop and another member took over the roll. At this point the Nelson Branch executive made the decision to begin researching another system that could build on the databases success.

Development of the new system started in earnest following a chance meeting with Nick Hill of Strait Solutions Ltd who just happened to be staying in John's motel. Specialising in online availability and reservations systems, Nick quickly suggested developing the system into an internet based solution.

In the new system, motel owners log on to the website and update their availability for all their rooms; this availability can then be quickly searched by the duty motel. As updating availability was now much quicker and easier than faxing, motel owners were updating their information more frequently; therefore the information was getting a lot more accurate.

The launch of the new system was met with some skepticism amongst members, however it quickly became apparent that the system worked beautifully, and it did not take long for 100% of the membership to be using the system. The system is designed so that the users who update the system more regularly get more business - this has proved a real driver to ensuring accuracy in the system (and has also meant a steady stream of motels looking to get a faster computer / internet connection!).

Expanding The Duty Motel System
Now that the availability database was online and more readily accessible, an external call-centre was set-up. Now callers looking for a room would be redirected to the call-centre which has proved extremely popular with customers partly in fact due to the apparent independence of the service and also because the call centre can cope with up to ten calls at once. Call volumes have increased from 1200 per year before the internet site was launched to over 5000 calls in the 8 month period since.

It did not take long for Nelson moteliers to realise that every motelier should be able to see what was available in every other motel at any time. This was despite initial resistance amongst moteliers that they were giving away what they considered to be competitive information. By switching on this functionality it effectively now meant that every motel could act as the 'duty motel'. This has meant that the customer does not have to be referred to the call centre in many cases and so saves money; in addition business has been retained within the local motel network.

In order to offset costs of developing and running the system, access to the duty motel availability has been sold off locally to the Nelson tourist information centre. More recently, Nelson MANZ have signed a five year call-centre sponsorship deal with Thrifty rental cars; this deal effectively pays for the entire annual running costs of the call centre.

Requests from other MANZ branches to use the system has lead to further expansion of the system, which brings us to where we are today. The system is now growing at a rapid pace and Nelson MANZ are justifiably proud of their system.

Summary
In summary the biggest lesson that Nelson MANZ have learnt is that in order to get a bigger slice of the cake it is much better to make a bigger cake rather than fight each other over small slices. This has been possible through co-operation, innovation and by concentrating on the requirements of the customer.

  Live The Day

Nelson © Latitude Nelson

WOW © WOW Ltd

"The early days were ones of pressure at peak times, queues in the office - being duty motel just prior to Christmas and over New Year was like being one off first prize in Powerball, faxes flew fast and furious, phone lines were clogged and customers got frustrated..."
Cheri, Fairway Lodge, Nelson



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