33 Britannia Hotels Get Their Fax Right with Eptica

Britannia Hotels Group uses Eptica to cut hotel reservation and customer service costs

11 March 2009: Britannia Hotels, the largest privately owned hotel chain in the UK, has streamlined its reservation process using Eptica’s advanced Email Management technology to automatically convert fax hotel bookings into inbound emails for faster, more accurate processing. Eptica, which was rolled out across 33 hotels in December, has already resulted in a 16% increase in productivity and enabled Britannia Hotels to cut the cost of operating its reservation administration.

Hotel bookings received by fax are automatically read and converted into emails by Eptica Email Management then prioritised in the reservation systems’ email queue according to the guests’ arrival date. Guests arriving at Britannia hotels, regardless of whether they made their booking 10 months or 10 minutes prior to arrival, can be assured that their reservation will be processed. The time taken to process approximately 2,000 daily bookings has been reduced from 3 to 2.5 minutes per reservation.

This year, Britannia Hotels has experienced an increase in bookings. By improving efficiency and cutting the time it takes to process reservations, by around 120 hours a week, Eptica Email Management has resulted in significant operational cost savings for the Group.

Karen Pownall, Call Centre Manager for Britannia Hotels commented: “Eptica has been a win- win investment for us; they have delivered exactly what they specified at the outset of the project. We’re a cost conscious organisation and the project fitted into our price bracket, resulting in significant operational cost and service improvements.”

Britannia also reported an increase in staff morale following the Eptica implementation. Karen Pownall explained: “Our administration agents are delighted with Eptica, it is simple to use, easy to maintain and workflow is prioritised. Staff can achieve a greater level of productivity, which is linked to their bonus scheme, increasing their earning potential. We’ve even seen a drop in sick days and we have a much more focussed team, delivering excellent results. ”

“Eptica has also allowed us to free up valuable management time, which moves managers away from time-consuming administrative tasks to focus on the training and coaching of our team.” Pownall concluded: “Eptica means that all our data is in one place and because it is a hosted solution, we don’t have to worry about losing information if we encounter any internal technical problems. We are delighted with the results Eptica has delivered.” Paul Barnes, Managing Director at Eptica concluded: “We are very pleased to add Britannia to our growing list of travel and tourism clients. The sector has seen an incredible rate of change in recent years due to customers shifting to online channels. Eptica is focussed on providing solutions to maximise efficiency and productivity levels for the customer service challenges that this move creates."