Hart Hotels Partners with UniFocus' GUESTScope

Watkins Glen Harbor Hotel Deploys UniFocus' Advanced Feedback System

. March 11, 2009

DALLAS, TX, Maech 11, 2009 - UniFocus, a global pioneer in the hospitality industry for performance, workforce management and feedback solutions, announced a partnership with Hart Hotels to deploy GUESTScope at The Watkins Glen Harbor Hotel, a luxury 104-room facility on Seneca Lake. The prominent developer, owner and operator chose GUESTScope for its newest boutique property because of its proven capabilities to relate guest feedback results with key performance indicators, creating actionable intelligence to drive ROI and profitability.

"We're pleased to announce our partnership with Hart Hotels as hospitality organizations increasingly see the value of our advanced GUESTScope system reflected in their bottom-line," said Mark Heymann, President and CEO of UniFocus. "At a time when ADR and occupancy are trending downward, it makes sense to make an investment in your guests to gain the vital knowledge that creates customers who return and recommend.

"The critical differentiator of GUESTScope is its proven ability to pinpoint revenue at risk due to dissatisfaction and then provide precise knowledge to make successful recovery efforts in real time," continued Heymann. "Depending upon the amount of effort spent to keep the 'convertible' guests, we estimate the ROI could be as high as 300% on recovered room revenue. This fact alone warrants such an investment in your customers."

In today's soft market environment it's more critical than ever to increase the "wow" factor in the service experience to gain loyal guests and meeting planners. However, those kinds of personalized experiences require a higher and more pervasive level of intelligence than that typically gleaned from standard surveys.

"Our management team at Hart Hotels has always believed that success can only be measured by guest satisfaction, perception of their service experience and the price-value equation," said Kenneth Best, Assistant VP of Operations. "UniFocus' GUESTScope provides the kind of advanced survey analytics that enables us to know what our guests are thinking and to provide a personalized response to let them know we care."

Many luxury boutique hotels understand that more personalized service keep guests coming back. Loyal corporate and leisure travelers can make up to 80 percent of their business. UniFocus' GUESTScope system utilizes scientifically developed questions that identify room revenue at risk, so that hospitality organizations aren't fighting the twin battles of lost revenue-and spending more on the cost of new customer acquisition.

The Watkins Glen Harbor Hotel brings a new concept for relaxation and meetings to the Finger Lakes Region, located on the harbor at the southern tip of Seneca Lake-on the Seneca Wine Trail. The four-story hotel features luxury rooms, a ballroom, indoor pool, fitness center and 4,200-square-foot conference center.

In addition to the capabilities mentioned above, GUESTScope features include:

Sharp focus on measuring crucial outcomes that really matter in the customer experience: Satisfaction, Intent to Return/Recommend, and Value (The SIRV Monitor).
Patented components that deliver proven results through brief, easy-to-understand questions that increase response rate.
Training and support staff with vast hospitality and service industry experience.
Comprehensive trending and comparative data analysis that furnishes the clearest insight into operational strengths and weaknesses.
Benchmarking analysis that provides understanding of a property's competitive position.
Extensive report drill-down capabilities that get to the level of detail needed to diagnose results-even to tracking the performance of a particular room.
Advanced open-ended comment search capabilities that quickly provide in-depth understanding of the "whys" behind results.