After check-out: the bill, feedback and preferences
What Achekam's Hospitality pack does after check-out, from settling the bill to the thank-you e-mail, a short feedback form and the guest's preferences.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Hospitality businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.
The guest hands back the key, says thank you and drives off. Over the stay, your team learned a good deal: they like a room away from the road, take their coffee black and early, travel for a family occasion every winter, and were not impressed with the shower pressure. In most venues, all of that leaves with them. The next booking starts from scratch, and the guest notices.
Check-out is the moment to keep what you learned and to find out what you missed. Achekam's Industry CRM, with the Hospitality & hotels pack, builds that into the end of every stay. This article explains each step, for guesthouses, lodges and hotels in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.
What the pack does after check-out
After check-out, the Hospitality pack:
- settles the bill;
- sends a thank-you e-mail and a short feedback form;
- notes the guest's preferences for the next stay.
These steps follow on from check-out, so none of them depends on someone remembering to start it.
Settling the bill
The stay's charges are settled as the guest leaves. Restaurant and bar sales are different: they are rung up at the till, not in the pack. A guest's dinner and drinks are paid at the till as they go, or on a tab settled before they leave.
That makes one check at the front desk essential. Before the guest goes, confirm with the bar and restaurant that nothing is still open in the guest's name. An open tab is far easier to settle across the counter than by e-mail a week later. How tabs are held and settled from any till is explained in open bar tabs and parked sales across tills.
The thank-you and a short feedback form
The pack then sends a thank-you e-mail with a short feedback form. Short is the important word. A form with a handful of questions gets answered; a long survey gets ignored.
Good questions are specific and easy:
- How was your room?
- How was your sleep?
- How was breakfast?
- Is there anything we could have done better?
- Would you stay with us again?
Every answer is worth reading, and someone should be named to read them. A complaint deserves a personal reply from a manager, not a form letter. Praise for a named staff member deserves to be passed on to them the same day.
Noting preferences for the next stay
The third step notes the guest's preferences for the next stay. This is where a venue earns repeat business.
Useful preferences are practical and specific:
- room type, floor or view;
- bed and pillow preferences;
- dietary requirements and allergies;
- early or late check-in habits;
- occasions they have mentioned, such as an anniversary trip each year.
Write preferences as facts the next shift can act on: "prefers a ground-floor room", not "fussy about rooms". Leave out opinions about the guest, and do not record sensitive personal information you would not want the guest to read. A good test: would you be comfortable if the guest asked to see what you had written about them? In South Africa, what you note about a guest falls under POPIA, and the Information Regulator, which oversees POPIA and PAIA, registers information officers and handles complaints and enforcement.
How a noted preference pays off
A guest stays for a family wedding. During the stay, housekeeping notices a request for foam pillows, and the restaurant notices the guest skips breakfast but always wants a strong coffee at the bar mid-morning. At check-out, the front desk gathers those notes and records them as preferences. Months later the same guest books again. The note is there: foam pillows on the bed before arrival, and a word to the bar. The guest notices that nobody had to ask, and that is the kind of thing guests tell their friends about.
Tasks for the front office
In the Industry CRM, a workflow creates its tasks stage by stage, so follow-up tasks arrive with the stage they belong to rather than all at once when the booking is made. Tasks can have subtasks up to three levels deep, which suits follow-up work.
A typical set after a stay:
| Task | Subtasks | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Settle the bill | Check bar and restaurant tabs; confirm payment | Front desk |
| Thank and ask for feedback | Send e-mail; read the reply; respond to any complaint | Front office manager |
| Record preferences | Collect notes from housekeeping and the restaurant; add them to the guest | Front desk |
| Act on feedback | Pass maintenance issues to the right person; follow up | Duty manager |
The maintenance item matters more than it looks. If a guest mentions a dripping tap, the next guest in that room should not have to mention it too.
Feedback is only useful if someone acts on it
Read the month's feedback together once a month: front office, housekeeping, kitchen. Look for what keeps coming up, good and bad, and decide what to change. Then check whether the comments change the month after. If the same complaint about the same room keeps returning, the problem is the room, not the guests.
The guest's history also feeds the next booking. When they book again, the preferences you noted are there for the team, and the new booking follows the stages set out in reservations from enquiry to check-out show. Guests who came for a conference or a function leave a different kind of feedback, about the event; conference and event enquiries to function sheet covers that route.
Decide your feedback questions, name who reads the replies, and agree how preferences should be written. The next guest to check out will leave behind something your team can use when they return.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
