Libra OnDemand provides a comprehensive Web-based suite of hospitality-specific CRM applications designed to drive sales and increase revenues. Libra OnDemand solutions are used by some of the world’s highly regarded hospitality companies. Sulcus Solutions provides integrated computer systems for the hospitality industry that address every level of the guest experience from initial prospecting to guest satisfaction and after-sale guest care.

“We’re pleased and excited to be partnering with a leading international provider such as Sulcus Solutions,” said Libra OnDemand CEO Gregg Hopkins. “Under this agreement, Libra OnDemand will power the CRM solution specifically developed for the hospitality segment in Spain, while Sulcus establishes its own pricing for the product and related services. In essence, hoteliers will receive the same powerful CRM tools and services as users in the USA with Libra OnDemand, only it will be packaged and managed as Sulcus OnDemand.  It’s the same proven, in-demand solution but with a new name to support its regional host.”

Ramon Alandi, Sulcus’ CEO, said the agreement came about due to the Spanish hospitality market’s increased need for a CRM solution that could be integrated with property management systems in Spain. The new Sulcus OnDemand solution will be integrated with Sulcus’ Medallion property management system, Squirrel point-of-sale system, and other hospitality property management systems not represented by Sulcus to improve productivity and enable the sharing of comprehensive guest information throughout all areas of a hotel. Sulcus also has plans to convert the Libra OnDemand application to Spanish.

“Libra OnDemand offers updated and valuable information to sales-and-marketing teams and guest services staff, and helps to tighten the coordination between them,” Alandi said. “It is simple and very user-friendly. Guest information, corporate accounts and prospect data are easily accessible and organized perfectly for the optimization of e-mails, phone calls, schedules, meetings and so forth. As a result, employees will have updated and complete information, making their jobs easier, while guests receive top-quality service—which means our clients will improve their business.”

Alandi said the agreement is a win-win arrangement for both companies.

“The benefit for Libra OnDemand is that it is partnering with a solid, well-known company with a very good reputation in the Spanish hospitality industry,” he said. “For Sulcus, the partnership with Libra OnDemand represents the culmination of a successful investment and research process by which we can now offer our clients the newest and best software solutions for present and future market needs in this part of the world."

About Libra OnDemand

Libra OnDemand leverages the power of the world’s most popular on demand platform (salesforce.com) to provide a comprehensive suite of hospitality specific applications: customer relationship management (CRM), sales force automation (SFA), loyalty & rewards management, reporting & data analytics, and integration & centralization tools.  Designed to drive sales and increase revenues for the world’s premier hospitality organizations, Libra OnDemand is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application that is easy to use and requires zero upfront investment.

About Sulcus Solutions

Sulcus is a leader in providing information technology in the Spanish hospitality market, with more than 500 installations. Through strategic alliances, Sulcus offers the most competitive software solutions in the market and focuses on delivering end to-end enterprise software solutions for independent hotels and restaurants, corporate chains, spas, youth hostels and restaurant chains to help them better run their business.

CELEBRATION, FLA. AND SYDNEY

About McLaren International

McLaren International, founded in 2004 and with offices in Sydney, Australia and Singapore delivers a range of 'best of breed' technology solutions and services to a diverse range of industries including Hospitality, Exhibition and Conventions Centres, Aged Care, Mining and Enterprise. The team of Account Managers and technology professionals at McLaren International possesses extensive experience across these industries and has selected a range of exceptional applications to supply and support to the Asia Pacific Region. They have established long-term relationships with a customer base that spans the world’s leading hotel companies. These include Accor Hospitality, Hilton Hotels and Resorts, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Langham Hotels, the InterContinental Hotel Group, Hyatt Hotels and Resorts and Marriott International, just to name a few. In addition, the company holds long-standing relationships with a number of service integrators, telcos, ISPs and technology vendors including Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent and NEC. For more information about McLaren International contact marketing@mclarenint.com or visit the website www.mclarenint.com.

About Libra OnDemand

Libra OnDemand leverages the power of the world’s most popular on demand platform (salesforce.com) to provide a comprehensive suite of hospitality specific applications: customer relationship management (CRM), sales force automation (SFA), loyalty & rewards management, reporting & data analytics, and integration & centralization tools. Designed to drive sales and increase revenues for the world’s premier hospitality organizations, Libra OnDemand is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application that is easy to use and requires zero upfront investment.

Well search no more. If the property you are staying at is using Libra OnDemand Customer Portal, you can now easily find all that information from the comfort of your hotel room on your own PC.

Our Customer Portal team just released a fantastic mash-up of Google Maps and Yelp, providing an interactive map that lists local attractions and consumer reviews for restaurants, boutiques and spa salons located near the property where the guest is staying.

A few mouse clicks - and you are on your way!

This news came less then a month after we launched Twitter integration with Libra OnDemand CRM at Hitec and although Libra is not involved with Hyatt at all, it serves as an excellent proof-of-concept for what we had in mind developing a similar concept in our application.

CRM is all about customer interactions, and obviously Twitter has become a communications medium hat many people like to use. In addition to enabling concierge communications, also important is the ability to track any mentions of the hotel or its brand name in twittersphere and respond to any such tweets.This is like a real-time TripAdvisor, when I can post a tweet about my stay experience and have the property respond in a minute and even offer assistance if I need it. Think this scenario: A guest that is lost tweets to his friends: "Can't find the [hotel name here] - am lost in this city!" The hotel picks this up and responds with: "Hey call us at ***** and we'll come get you!" (I've heard a similar story actually happened with a guest at a Millenium property).

Using Twitter becomes even more powerful when you integrate your customers' tweets with their CRM profiles. You now have a full picture of your client's social profile that can be a powerful tool in your communications. "Did you finally find that hotel you were looking for?"

Source: Hyatt Extends Concierge Service to Twitter (http://dennisschaal.blogspot.com/2009/07/hyatt-extends-concierge-service-to.html#comment-form) by Dennis Schaal - Hyatt has quietly branded its dialogue with customers on Twitter as HyattConcierge Service.

CELEBRATION, FLA. — JUNE 23, 2009 — The Peabody Orlando, a four-star, five-diamond convention center hotel, is getting to know its guest better than ever before thanks to the comprehensive suite of Web-based applications provided by Libra OnDemand, based here, that manages customer relationships, drives loyalty initiatives, focuses sales, manages catering events and performs on-demand business analytics. Libra OnDemand will be on display at the Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition & Conference, June 23-25 at the Anaheim (Calif.) Convention Center in Booth No. 844.

“Libra OnDemand hit our radar after partnering with MTech and its HotSOS (Hotel Service Optimization System, pronounced “Hot Sauce”) product for guest-response, and it immediately filled the CRM (customer relationship management) void that we had been looking for,” said Brian Seays, Peabody Hotels Regional IT Director. “We knew there had to be a better way to manage customer data in a way that allowed us to do something meaningful with it. We have a lot of software and business partners that provide us with business intelligence tools to farm data, but what we end up with is a lot more data – none of which is very useful.

“Early on with Libra OnDemand we saw the benefit from the system’s power – which is infinitely scalable – and we also were impressed with the Libra OnDemand team’s immense knowledge of hospitality industry,” he added. “With Libra OnDemand built on the salesforce.com platform, it allows us to open up our systems to this incredible engine and do things with data that we never thought would be possible without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. The data we collect is shared across many disciplines because it interfaces to the top three to five property systems, and that helps us in managing our e-marketing effort and creating a rewards program that is fully integrated with our property management system.”

The Peabody Orlando, located in the midst of the 7-million-square-foot Orange County Convention Center, is a custom-built Orlando hotel catering to the meetings and conventions industry nationwide. The hotel has established itself as the Orlando convention hotel of choice for the nation's professional meeting planners.

“For Peabody Hotels, our No. 1 concern on a daily basis is providing exceptional service to guests,” Seays said. “Because we are more convention and business traveler than leisure guest, it’s been difficult for us to cultivate a rewards program that speaks to both types of clientele in a way that meets the Peabody’s excellence service standards. Libra OnDemand and the salesforce.com platform give us a dynamic rewards program out of the box. It identifies one guest from another, recognizes stay patterns, and lets us know exactly how valuable a guest is to us. When that guest comes back, we can acknowledge his or her loyalty by providing a special service.”

Gregg Hopkins, Libra OnDemand CEO, said he is proud of the relationship already established at the Peabody Orlando and he looks forward to expanding that relationship to the Peabody Memphis in Tennessee and the Peabody Little Rock in Arkansas.

“Having spent more than 20 years in the hospitality industry, I’ve witnessed hotels struggling in their guest-relationship efforts, and we are proud to say that today’s Libra OnDemand is proving its weight in gold to our customers,” Hopkins said. “I was honored when MTech introduced us to the Peabody Orlando as a CRM solution to enhance HotSOS and help supplement the Peabody’s efforts to better manage their guest-request/response process. HotSOS helps the Peabody Orlando maximize and streamline guest-services processes, such as guest request and incident tracking/reporting, rapid-response internal-defect reporting and preventive-maintenance workflows. Libra OnDemand definitely is the ideal CRM solution to complement HotSOS and other guest-centric property solutions.”

Hopkins said the integration capabilities of Libra OnDemand, in particular its ability to interface with other guest-service touch-points such as comment card system, guest loyalty programs and guest-incident tracking through HotSOS has made it an indispensible solution.

“Gone are the days when hotel operators could cast a large net and send everyone the same discount promotion,” Seays said. “Hotel guests and travelers are more sophisticated than that, and they need marketing materials that target them specifically, not as a market segment. Based on our success with Libra OnDemand at the Peabody Orlando, we envision bringing it to Memphis and Little Rock in the near future.

“And I don’t know that we will stop at just Peabody’s,” Seays added. “We have an additional benefit as The Peabody Hotel Group of managing hotels outside the Peabody flag. As long as Libra OnDemand continues maintaining our CRM program as it is currently, there is no reason why it wouldn’t benefit any hotels we manage across the country.”

Leader in Customer Relationship Management empowers guests to personally control their hotel experience and update their contact info, preferences, loyalty points, etc., via customized hotel Web site portal;

Visit Booth No. 844 at HITEC

CELEBRATION, FLA. | JUNE 16, 2009

Libra OnDemand is giving "Power to the People" as a way for hotels to capture more accurate customer profile information and enhance the guest experience. The developer of the hospitality industry’s first on demand Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution will unveil its "Customer Portal" at HITEC, the Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition & Conference to be held June 23-25 at the Anaheim (Calif.) Convention Center in Booth No. 844.

Using a customer facing application, Libra OnDemand empowers guests with upcoming reservations to use the Customer Portal to print property maps with directions, coordinate airport pick-up or even request room assignments. Additionally, customers may review concierge offerings and make activity reservations for their stay. The Customer Portal can be extended to include links to a hotel’s Web booking engine, car rental reservations or airline check-in options, thus providing guests with a single access point to all their travel online.

"Consumers are hesitant today to turn their personal information over to reservations agents or front desk staff in fear of identity theft or worse, and therefore hotels are not easily able to obtain true guest profile and preference data," said Gregg Hopkins, Libra OnDemand CEO. "Instead, hotel marketing managers send surveys to try to capture that information, but most of the queries are based solely on post-stay statistics.

Through our new customer facing portal, travelers can take the initiative to manage their personal information, update preferences and track rewards in a safe, secure environment that they control," he added. "The Customer Portal also provides a set of applications that are stay-specific. These features allow in-house guests to learn about hotel amenities, along with local attractions, weather and maps."

The Libra OnDemand Customer Portal empowers guests to:

• Request housekeeping services,
• Review their bills,
• Schedule spa appointments, golf tee times and other activities,
• Make dining reservation,
• Request room service,
• Post online surveys, and much more.

"Guests that have already checked out can also benefit from using the Customer Portal," Hopkins said. "The site provides the ability to view past stay information and guest folios, sign up for email offers, post travel reviews and update their stay preferences for future visits."

He explained that the Customer Portal integrates seamlessly with the Libra OnDemand CRM application. Guest information, stay preference updates and survey results are automatically reflected on the customer’s profile, triggering any pre-defined task assignments and workflow rules. For properties using the Libra OnDemand Loyalty and Rewards Management features, the Customer Portal provides the ability for loyalty program members to view and manage their membership data online, redeem reward points, purchase gift certificates and request room upgrades.

"Hoteliers looking for control over their guest history data for improved marketing need to give control over to their guests via the Libra OnDemand Customer Portal," Hopkins said. "We look forward to showing hoteliers how it can be done at HITEC. Pre-scheduled booth appointments are encouraged."

To pre-schedule an appointment with the Libra OnDemand team at HITEC, call 407-412-9296.

The first step towards an effective CRM practice is to clearly define your company’s business objectives and requirements, as well as the desired functionality of your CRM system. Start by obtaining a list of the needs and wants from everyone within your organization who will “touch” the CRM system. This includes operations, sales, marketing, accounting, service and IT organizations, as well as members of the executive management team. I can’t stress enough that the likelihood of your CRM project failing is very high if you do not involve your key stakeholders early enough in the process.

Your requirements list should include the following:

1. Vendor Requirements
2. Functional Requirements
3. Usage Scenarios/Work Flow
4. Technical Requirements
5. Integration Requirements
6. Cost and Budget Requirements
7. Implementation Requirements
8. Training and Support Requirements

Second, you should identify measurable goals such as return on investment and desired productivity improvement. The benefits that can be achieved with a CRM solution are clear – enhanced productivity, reduced costs, increased revenues, along with improved customer acquisition, service, satisfaction, and retention. Yet, for many small and mid-sized hospitality organizations, the large initial investment needed, combined with the long, expensive implementations required, make most on-site licensed CRM packages too cost prohibitive. Additionally, few companies can devote their limited IT resources to installing and configuring hardware and software, testing the application, and supporting ongoing maintenance and upgrades.

Hosted CRM, also known as on-demand CRM, provides a simpler, faster, and more affordable way for businesses to take advantage of powerful technology tools that streamline and automate the way customer interactions are managed across touch points. With on-demand CRM, all hardware and software components are purchased, installed, tested, and maintained by a third-party hosting provider at a remote site. The hosting service provider also stores and manages all customer-related data. Companies need nothing more than a standard Web browser to access and utilize the CRM application and its features.

On-demand CRM makes the process of customer relationship management easier and more cost effective for businesses with IT and budget constraints. It provides all the standard functionality of licensed CRM solutions, as well as the security, reliability, and performance companies need to ensure smooth customer operations, without the time and expense associated with in-house systems.

Most on-demand CRM solutions employ a pay-as-you-go pricing model that eliminates upfront costs or initial fees. You pay only for the services you use, making this approach ideal if you want to avoid wasting money on unused licenses or advanced features and capabilities you simply don’t need. With on-demand CRM, financial impact is minimized and ROI is dramatically accelerated.

Additionally, there is no software or hardware required with on-demand CRM. So, there are no complex, labor-intensive implementations and no ongoing maintenance and support. Time-to-deployment is shortened, and your application will be up-and-running quickly. And, because little burden will be placed on your IT department, your technical staff will be free to devote more time to other important projects. And, on-demand CRM can minimize your training requirements. Because the application and its functions are accessed via an intuitive Web interface, ease-of-use is enhanced, and your staff can work in an environment they are already familiar with.

Opting for an on-demand CRM solution instead of a licensed on-site one means that you will have to relinquish a certain amount of control over your data. Therefore, when choosing a provider to host your CRM application, the integrity of your mission-critical, confidential customer data is of the utmost importance. You don’t want to lose this vital information, or have it fall into the hands of your competitors. Your hosted CRM provider must have stringent measures in place to protect your data from security breaches. Additionally, they must have procedures to prevent loss of vital data and ensure uptime and information availability during outages and system failures.

Today, on-demand CRM solutions provide all the standard features of in-house licensed customer relationship management packages, including components and modules for sales force, marketing, customer service, and help desk automation. Many applications available through hosting service providers also include comprehensive business intelligence capabilities for forecasting, reporting, and trend analysis.

Implementing and maintaining a comprehensive, effective, and affordable CRM solution for your hospitality organization is easier than you might think.

Entering its 5th year, Hotel Technology Forum, organized by the Hospitality Technology magazine, brings together over 125 high-level hotel executives for an inclusive leadership forum and relationship building event. With an agenda tailored towards results-driven executives and delivering a unique mix of strategic insights and tactical analysis, the hands-on nature of the Hotel Technology Forum offers a unique opportunity to gain valuable insight into the challenges facing hotel executives.

Libra OnDemand is proud to be a Silver Sponsor of this event. We are looking forward to the opportunity of introducing Libra OnDemand and our Software-as-a-Service CRM solution to the leaders of the hospitality industry.