By Jeff Sefton

During the hotel property management software evaluation process you should be asking the PMS vendor if the system you are considering is Payment Card Industry, Data Security Standard compliant.

It is the hotelier’s responsibility to protect their customers’ personal information including credit card numbers. Since hotels accept payments from guests and deposits for reservations, and process and store this information in their Property Management System and On-line Booking Engine, it is necessary that the Hotel management understands the importance of payment card industry compliance (PCI) and what it means.

Your Hotel does not want to be in the position of having a system breach where your customers have their personal information exposed. This sort of situation has the potential to lead to a public relations nightmare for your business. Making sure that your Property Management System Vendor is in compliance with the Payment Card Industry standards helps reduce risk to your customers and your business.

However, it’s also important to understand that using a compliant PMS does not eliminate the possibility of a system breach – Using a PCI compliant vendor is just one of the steps you need to take to reduce risk to your customers and your business.

Image Credit: Purple Slog

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Choosing a strong and diverse evaluation team to help select the best tools to run your hotel is a good first step in gaining buy-in from your hotel team – It is important to have everyone on-board when a new property management system is selected for your property.

Everyone involved in your organization from the owner, hotel management company and senior management to the front desk, reservations, sales and housekeeping department needs to be invested and committed to the project.

Project Manager

Prior to beginning the evaluation process, it is important to designate a project manager that will be accountable and see the project through from start to finish.

The Project Manager is usually the first person appointed to the evaluation team. This choice may already be determined…possibly a consultant has been hired for the job, a manager at head office, a manager at the hotel, someone in operations or someone in the information technology department.

Evaluation Team

• Evaluation team members might consist of operation managers that use functionality geared to specific roles as well as front line staff that would use the property management software on a daily basis
• Staff in various positions such as Front Desk Clerk, Reservations Clerk, Housekeeping Managers or Supervisors, Sales Staff, Accounting Staff, Concierge Staff and staff in the Information Technology Department would be able to offer different perspectives
• Consider representatives from these departments to be included in the evaluation process – Their experience with past systems as well as their department processes and their insight into what functionality they need to best serve the hotel guests will be very valuable when building your requirement list.

Setting Expectations

• The Project Manager should set expectations and objectives of what is to be accomplished during the evaluation process and provide this information in writing to the team
• Setting expectations and objectives will help to keep the evaluation process on track
• The team needs to understand that although comments and suggestions are appreciated and necessary, not everyone’s wants will be fulfilled
• The goal is to choose the best system to meet the property’s business needs while providing the best overall tool for all departments
• There will be some areas and functionality that will require compromise
• Sorting out items that are needs as opposed to those that are wants is essential during this process.  Items that are determined to be needs should be qualified as such.