Gemstone Chooses UniFocus Programs

Luxury asset management company now using GUESTScope® and STAFFScope®

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. October 14, 2008

DALLAS, TX, October 9, 2007. In the luxury-hotel and resort market, attracting and retaining employees who have a passion for creating compelling guest experiences is a huge competitive advantage. With this in mind, executives at Gemstone Hotels & Resorts have implemented two UniFocus solutions - STAFFScope(R) and GUESTScope(R) - to enhance the excellent employee-relations and guest-services programs the company already has in place.

Gemstone Hotels & Resorts, LLC, based in Park City, Utah, is a full-service operating and asset-management company that specializes in luxury and upscale urban hotels and complex resorts. Dallas-based UniFocus is a global company that provides hotel, resort, casino and conference-center operations with the most comprehensive, state-of-the art performance-management solutions in the industry. STAFFScope(R) is a Web-based employee-survey program geared toward helping organizations key in on staff concerns, creativity and suggestions, thereby increasing employee morale and productivity, and decreasing turnover. GUESTScope(R), also Web-based, measures guest satisfaction, intent to return or recommend, value and other factors, and provides comparative data analysis for clear insight into operational strengths and weaknesses.

"Although Gemstone properties have long used employee-opinion surveys and a variety of guest-feedback mechanisms, we were looking for a sophisticated tool for correlating and analyzing scores gathered from the surveys," said Mark van Hartesvelt, Principal of Gemstone Hotels & Resorts. "We have been aware of the strong reputation of UniFocus for many years, and we found just what we were looking for in UniFocus' STAFFScope(R) and GUESTScope(R) solutions - mainly because their data integration is superior to other solutions we looked at - and also because UniFocus' staff members are knowledgeable and helpful, and their support system is great."

Van Hartesvelt said Gemstone recently implemented both systems in all its hotels and resorts. "We are looking forward to utilization of the benchmarking against our competitive set in terms of guest and employee satisfaction, as well as comparing the results more efficiently across our property portfolio," he said. "The immediate, real-time guest-feedback results GUESTScope(R) provides will help us to more effectively and quickly address challenges and provide positive reinforcement and coaching to our staff members as indicated.

"In addition," van Hartesvelt said, "we believe that STAFFScope(R) will allow us to continue addressing employee concerns and to build effectively on our successes. The structure of the reports makes it easy to navigate, understand and analyze the information. We believe that employee satisfaction is one of the most important factors in maintaining high guest satisfaction scores, and STAFFScope(R) will be a big part of that effort."

Key features of STAFFScope(R) include:

---|Web-based technology that enhances standard paper survey formats for easy and fast deployment across an entire organization.

---|State-of-the-art online reporting applications for every level of the organization.

---|Roll-up reports for multiple properties.

---|Essential benchmarking by market segments.

---|Scientifically proven identification of the Critical Staff Factors that make organizational change occur.

---|Integrated goal setting and action-plan tracking functionality

---|Training and support by a UniFocus team with decades of hospitality and human-resources experience.

Among GUESTScope(R) features are:

---|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 for insight into operational strengths/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 diagnosis 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.

"When a leading luxury-hotel, resort and asset-management firm such as Gemstone Hotels & Resorts chooses our solutions to enhance their already well-operated properties, it's truly gratifying," said UniFocus CEO Mark Heymann. "We're pleased to be partnering with Gemstone, and we believe our relationship is further confirmation that our products, services and solutions and not only the most advanced but simple are the best to be found."

For more information on STAFFScope(R), GUESTScope(R) and other UniFocus management and financial solutions, visit the company's Web site, www.unifocus.com.