How important to your business are the booking and accounting records kept on your computer disks?

Are you really sure that your backups will be up to date and useable when you need them?

Just as an umbrella is the best way to make sure it doesn’t rain, you can relax when you use our automatic on-line backup system. We can set this up for you so that your latest backup is taken off site every day and stored in a secure data centre, accessible only to your authorised people. You will have one folder for each day of the week so there will be 7 different sets as well as an archive covering everything in the past 5 years. If any backup or upload is missed, your PC will warn you. This extra peace of mind comes at less than £1 per day and includes our help with recovery.

Have you ever wondered what a data centre looks like? There's one here somewhere:

The Westland Hotel in Bayswater Road, London

This hotel has been in the ownership of the same family for more than 50 years. During that time they have cared for it and developed it, welcoming guests to London from all over the world.

Now under the directorship of two generations - Bertie and his daughter Shirley. The hotel has to date undergone a heavy investment in refurbishment of rooms, public areas and most recently the kitchen and restaurant along with further development behind the scenes.

Having invested not only financially but also wholeheartedly over the last 50 years, the Isseyegh family has created a Hotel which is often likened to a home away from home by its National and International visitors alike, who in turn are welcomed into the extended family.

An established user of Welcome Computer Systems for 5 years now, the Westland have added the On-Line booking module to make it easier for their guests who wish to check on availability and prices while booking over the internet. Find out more about The Westland by visiting their website : http://www.westlandhotel.co.uk/.

Welcome at Swinton Park

Dee Trainer is Reception Manager at Swinton Park, which is a 30 room luxury castle, one of the highest rated hotels in Yorkshire or Cumbria. Dee says:

“The hotel has used ‘Welcome’ as its front of house booking system since it opened in March 2001. During this time the hotel business has grown year on year and the Welcome software has very much been a part of that development, both in terms of a live booking system, and as a tool to build databases and provide management reports. In recent years we have added an on-line booking facility, purchased the conference diary software ‘Timetable’ and most recently added the ‘Welcome Secure’ Credit Card system.

“The team at Swinton Park Hotel find the Welcome software very user friendly and recently were all very complimentary about some additional training that was delivered by Welcome’s Engineer Duncan Woodward. The training was very bespoke and covered a huge variety of topics ensuring lots of areas were covered in a short amount of time. Finally, the 24-hour support that Welcome offer is always an added comfort – and it is always great to have a friendly professional at the end of the phone that can sometimes almost fix a rainy day!”

SUPPORT AND UPGRADES

Free improvements

It has always been our policy at Welcome to keep striving to improve the c omputer experience for our customers. In the past 3 years, driven largely by user feedback, we have been working hard on improvements to our Welcome 21 Booking System, which is the heart of our product range. Any hotels supported by us will have the benefit of all of these upgrades, designed to make the system easier to use, more secure and more comprehensive.

Accounting

Daily Rate Overrides. This provides a spreadsheet of dates and packages to make it easy for managers wishing to adjust actual room rates for any future dates.

Corporate customers with special negotiated packages can access these under their own dedicated passwords to make internet bookings.

Packages and package items are now much easier to manage, with the introduction of a Wizard and drag-and-drop functions. The price tester makes it easy to check before confirming changes.

Pro-Forma Invoices can be printed in a specific style, showing agreed charges on a booking prior to arrival.

Letters, statements, invoices and E-mails can all be previewed and edited before sending.

Security

Password changes are logged in the audit trail.

The amount of free disk space is continually monitored to provide plenty of warning if a clear-up is needed.

Archiving and database scanning is extended to enhance the reliability of the critical data and to provide for comprehensive choices if any recovery is needed.

The phone logger and interfaces program does not need to be closed when data is archived to ensure that it needn’t be overlooked once the archive is complete.

Storage of end of day, week and period reports streamlines the recovery of any performance and accounting records.

Ease of Use

The booking changes form has been altered so that details which change during a stay, such as the number of guests or the package, are easy to enter and track.

Booking lists show more information and list headings have been made easier to read.

Gross Average Room Rate has been added to booking reports. Many other reports have been enhanced, such as the Top Customer report, Cashier Changeover and the Chase Dates report.

An html help file, integrated throughout the system makes information much quicker to find and link, in the familiar style of other Windows® packages.

Improvements with the handling of Assignments on the booking chart (usually used for controlling the availability of rooms for On-Line booking).

The Text editor program, which sets up standard letters, statements and invoice headers, has been completely re-designed making it a lot easier and more efficient to use.

Multiple Customer Profiles means that each booking can refer to one address for the invoice, another for the home address, an employer’s address etc.

Customer satisfaction ratings

Customer satisfaction ratings

As most of our valued support contract customers will now be aware, we have been asking for your thoughts about the service we provide via our Support Renewal Surveys.

The feedback that we receive from these surveys is invaluable in helping us to improve our service further. When your Survey arrives we would be very grateful if you could spare a few moments to complete the questions and return it to us. Of course, if there is anything you would like to raise with our Support Desk at any other time, please do not hesitate to call us on 0845 4582121 or e-mail us at support@welcome-computers.co.uk.

The Support Renewal Survey for Aug/Sep/Oct 2008 rated ‘Helpfulness of Staff’ very highly with an average of 92%. Satisfactory response time achieved 84%, Software Reliability and Software Functionality were both 82%. 100% of our surveys were completed.

Software Support puts Welcome hotels on the map

In addition to the advice and remote assistance that is available from the Support Desk, customers with a support contract also benefit from a free listing on our Welcome Anywhere website.

If you would like to review your current listing please go to www.welcome-anywhere.com, select your region and then the map town closest to your hotel. The listing for each hotel can include up to 5 photos, a description of the hotel and links to the hotel’s web-site and on-line booking page.

We are in the process of enhancing this web-site and will be adding more detail for each of the hotels listed. This will include the number of bedrooms and the AA and/or ETB rating. We will also be able to indicate if pets are allowed and if the following facilities are available: parking, telephone, television and internet.

If you would like to ensure that your listing is one of the first to be enhanced, please e-mail the above information to our Support Desk at support@welcome-computers.co.uk.