W HOTELS FRONT OFFICE DEPARTMENT
Mitchel Foster
Elaine Roberts
Patrick Seybert
Mission Statement:
Our mission is to provide outstanding, quick, and efficient customer service to
every guest, every time. We will do this while maintaining extraordinary fourdiamond amenities and guest services. We will efficiently forecast and budget to
meet our hotels demands, and accurately manage our revenue streams. We will
appeal towards a business/commercial market to attract a global, tech savvy guest
who will encounter the most efficient and accurate service available within our
market in which they hold paramount.
Front Office:
Our front office department must be run as flawlessly as possible. Our front desk agents will not
only be trained to efficiently process basic functions like check-ins and check-outs, but most
importantly be trained on the best and friendliest customer service techniques and customer
complaint resolution processes available. They will not only handle any special demands or
requests that our guests may have but also strive to surprise and delight each of our guests with
genuine courtesy and professionalism. We will strive to fill our 400 room full service hotel and
convention center and hope to have little trouble attracting corporate travelers, groups, and
upscale leisure travelers in order to meet our yearly occupancy goal of 94%. We will treat all of
our guests as VIPs. We will make real attempts to become familiar with our frequents guests by
using their name each time we see them and welcoming them back each time they stay. Our
excellent Bell Staff will be on hand to provide a seamless check-in experience; from the moment
a guest pulls up to the hotel, our overall experience will begin as follows. A hotel greeter will open
your car door as a bell person takes your luggage to our bell services, and valet parks your car.
From there, our outstanding front desk staff will check you in, explain our hotel policies,
procedures, and gorgeous amenities, and direct you to our concierge/ guest services desk where
you will learn more about the area and local attractions. Meanwhile, our bell persons will bring
your luggage up to your guest room while you explore our hotel amenities and familiarize yourself
with the area. Within fifteen minuets of check-in, you will receive a courtesy call from our PBX
staff to assure quality, cleanliness, and complete satisfaction with your guest room. Management
will always be on hand to help with any guest compliments, complaints, or other issues that may
arise. We will be the gold standard of excellent guest service.
W Hotels Front Office Department Overview
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Staffing
*ALL Staff is Scheduled Based on Occupancy*
Front Office Manager (FOM)- 1: (@50 hrs a week salary) Will assist check-in/ check-out/ PBX/
and concierge/guest services desks during high volume time.
Assistant FOM - 1: - (@50 hrs a week salary) will also assist on the concierge/guest services
desk, check-in/ check-out/ PBX during high volume time, cover for FOM when needed and cover
Supervisors Days off.
Front Desk Supervisors - 2: - (salary @40 hrs a week) 1 AM Supervisor, 1 PM Supervisor. Will
be MOD and accept additional responsibilities when both FOM and AFOM are not scheduled and
additional assistance is requested.
Front Desk Staff (GSAs) - Staff of 15: Scheduled based on occupancy. 6 Full Time (@40 hrs
per week each) & 8 Part Time (@20-30 hrs per week each) GSAs must be flexible and
some will be scheduled to assist in PBX, Concierge/Guest services, Hotel Greeter/ Lobby
Attendant. This flexibility will benefit both the staff (extra hours) and the hotel (flexible staff).
Night Audit Supervisor - 1: (salary @40 hrs a week) will be MOD and act as overnight manager
and supervise and assist night auditors.
Night Auditors - 5: 3 Full Time (@40 hrs per week each) & 2 Part Time (@20-30 hrs per week
each) Keep in mind there will normally be an Audit Supervisor on staff as well. When Audit
Supervisor is not scheduled, there will be a third auditor on shift instead to pick up slack.
In House Reservations Managers - 2: - 1 Full time Salary (@40 hrs per week) 1 Part Time
Hourly (@20 hrs per week) Will be the linking pin between Sales & Front Office as well as review
all incoming reservations and will handle all 3rd party bookings and complete daily room blocks
for incoming arrivals.
PBX 5: - 3 Full time (5 days a week @40 hrs) & 2 Part Time (20-30 hrs per week). PBX will be
trained in making reservations if the front desk is busy and/or guest does not want to be
transferred to Central Reservations line. Will conduct all guest courtesy call backs within 15 mins
of guest check in.
Concierge/Guest Services Desk 3: 2 Full time (@35 hrs a week) 1 Part time (@28 hrs per
week) - Open between the hours of 6:00 A.M. and 10:00 P.M. and close for lunch from 1pm-3pm
to save on budget since this will be the hotels slowest time (the FD will obviously remain open if
assistance is needed). Staff will be scheduled less on days of low occupancy as the Front Desk
will have the same information. FOM/AFOM will assistance during high volume times.
Hotel Greeter/ Lobby Attendant - 1 - (Full time @40 hrs hourly) Will greet guests upon arrival
and be extremely knowledgeable of hotel, it's amenities, and area activities. Will monitor and
assist guests with Kiosk check-ins in PM.
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Valet - Will be outsourced to ABC Company to lower insurance costs and minimize liability.
Bell Captain - 1 - (Salary @50 hrs per week) Will handle all scheduling for Bell Staff, manage the
bell staff, and deal with all Valet outsourcing. Bell Captain will also assist hotel greeter when
needed.
Bell Staff - 8: 5 Full time (@40 hrs per week), 4 Part time (@20-30 hrs per week) Our bell
services department will be scheduled as follows: 1 employee on each: 7am-3pm, 3pm-11pm,
11pm-7am. 2-3* employees on each: 6am-11am, 4pm - 9pm. *Based on occupancy.
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Property Management System:
Our PMS system will be a Microsoft Windows based system that will allow us to easily perform
any function needed for day to day operations. It will communicate with a central reservation
communication center (CRS) to receive reservations made by them, by travel agents, and GDS
reservations (Expedia, Travelocity, various 3rd party travel agents). All of these systems will
reciprocate and constantly communicate to maintain accurate inventories of guest rooms and
prices.
Each reservation will have its own "page" in which a guests profile and reservation can be edited
and any special guest requests can be added such as "guest wanting a king bed," requesting
"pool view “or” first floor please." There will also be an area in a guest’s profile where notes can
be saved by any hotel staff member with PMS access. This area will be used to leave information
on past history, notable trends, or anything that may need to be known for future stays, or other
useful info from past reservations. The guest profile will also have a tag to alert our staff when
VIP guests are due to arrive to allow our staff to cater to their needs. Guest profiles will give users
the ability to change room rates, change dates, take payment for room, tax, and all incidentals
and allow users to quickly and easily make adjustments to guest’s room folios. All information on
monies received or monies paid out will be communicated to the accounting department through
the system.
Visual representations of room blocks will allow for easy room management. Assigning group
rooms will be as easy as locating the reservation you want to assign a room to and selecting a
room from the grid that displays all of the hotel's room numbers in an ordered list. There will also
be an auto-assign feature to allow for rapid room assignments. These features will allow the front
office to easily assign group blocks, corporate blocks, transient guests, as well as the ability to
hold rooms for any reason, or put them out of order for maintenance or other needs.
The PMS system will have an extensive reports section where hundreds of predetermined criteria
reports can be accessed through the system, such as lists of guests who have outstanding
charges after checking out, guests who never showed up and have forfeited their reservations
(no-shows), and lists of payments made on credit that have not successfully gone through
(declined credit cards). In addition to reports with predetermined criteria, there will be extensive
customizable criteria which will give users the flexibility of creating specific reports such as "in
house, cash guest lists."
Our PMS system will have an excellent, built in, hands on training feature which will take new
users through each and every part of the system and show them how to use to its fullest
potential. Training on the system will be online and scheduled for 3-5 days for a new desk clerk.
Once complete, users will earn a completion certificate and then move on to the front desk for 2
additional weeks on hands on training. There will be an easy to use "help" button feature on each
screen and well as a "search" feature to aid users with issues the main encounter. The system’s
goal is to be as user friendly as possible.
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Reservations
Reservations will be directed to our CRS as much as possible. Our PBX staff and Front Desk
staff will both be trained in making reservations. We will have two in house reservations
managers that will also assist with guest reservations. They will also act as the linking pin
between sales and the front office and additionally communicate any special requests to
appropriate departments. Our CRS system will be directly connected to our PMS to assure
accurate inventory counts. Reservation managers and the FOM will monitor our counts and
oversell limits to assure we maximize revenues daily.
Communications
Each front office employee will be issued a hotel specific e-mail address for use primarily with
hotel staff and guest contact. All front office employees will be trained on courteous telephone
handling as each department will receive phone calls from guests. At the end of each night, once
the audit is ran, the night audit supervisor or MOD will send a daily recap email to all staff giving
the nights ADR, Occ %, REVPAR, and communicate, in detail, of any guest complaints,
compliments, or other issues that arose and/or dealt with during the date.
Revenue Management
Revenue management will be not only be managed through the property management system
through automated yield management but also personally and directly with guests through our
highly trained front desk staff. Our yield management system will use a Best Available Rate
(BAR) strategy by increasing the room rate as the occupancy rate increases to maximize
revenue. Our front desk staff will also help maximize revenue by "up-selling" guests on room
rates, packages, and other upgrades that will contribute to our revenue stream. A bonus system
will be implemented to give the front desk an incentive to "up-sell" a walk-in-guest or on
packages.
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W Hotel Front Office Dept. Budget 2011
Salary Employees
# of
Employees
Avg Hours Per
Week
Front Office Manager
Assistant FOM
Bell Captain
AM FD Supervisor
PM FD Supervisor
Audit Supervisor
Reservations Manager (FT)
Totals:
Hourly Employees
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
50
50
50
40
40
40
40
$80,000
$65,000
$40,000
$30,000
$30,000
$35,000
$35,000
7
310
$315,000
# of
Employees
Avg Hours Per
Week
Front Desk
Night Audit
PBX
Concierge/Guest Services
Hotel Greeter/Lobby
Attendant
Bell Staff
Reservations Manager (PT)
Totals:
Yearly Salary
Alloted
Average Hourly
Rate
Yearly Amount
Alloted
15
5
5
3
400
170
250
98
$10.00
$11.00
$10.00
$12.00
$208,000.00
$97,240.00
$130,000.00
$61,152.00
1
8
1
40
300
25
$12.00
$7.50
$13.00
$24,960.00
$117,000.00
$16,900.00
38
1283
$10.79
$655,252.00
Grand Total of Employee Wages: $970,252.00
Additional Expenses
Uniforms
Paper & Printing Forms
Stationary Supplies
Seminar Training
Postage
Computer Maintenace
Totals:
Monthly
Allotment
Yearly Amount
Allotted
$1,600
$1,800
$800
$1,500
$350
$1,200
$19,200
$21,600
$9,600
$18,000
$4,200
$14,400
$7,250
$87,000
2011 Budget Grand Total: $1,057,252.00
W Hotels Front Office Department Overview
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