The Challenge
- Need for one system to manage payments and commission
- Lack of integration between POS systems
- Time-consuming challenge for simple tasks
The Approach
- Spa Management System
- Online Booking
- Payment System
The Results
- 95% reduction in time spent on payroll
- 92% decrease in time spent on administrative tasks
- Improved user and guest experience
Turning Stone Resort Casino is a beautiful, sprawling, property in Upstate New York. The resort is home to two spas, Skana and Ahsi’. Skana consistently ranks among the top spas in America and has been named the number one spa in New York State for two years running on Spas of America’s Top 100 Spas list. Most recently in 2018, Skana was awarded the Forbes Travel Guide 4 Star Award.
Turning Stone actually grew out of a bingo hall built in the middle of a cornfield nearly 24 years ago by the Oneida Indian Nation. Today, Turning Stone is an award-winning destination resort with more than 23 restaurant and dining options, a 125,000 square foot Las Vegas style gaming floor, a 5,000 seat arena, a cabaret-style Showroom, five beautiful golf courses, several bars, cocktail lounges and nightlife venues and two spas.
“It’s remarkable what the Oneida Nation has done for this region,” says Shane Bird, Director of Spa Operations at Turning Stone.
The Challenge
Too many systems trying to work together to accomplish simple tasks was creating a complicated, time-consuming challenge for staff at Turning Stone.
“We had this glorified calendar,” says Bird. “It booked appointments, but didn’t have any interfaces for any of the POS systems. So then, sitting next to it, you had a separate POS system through which you would process all the services and actually do the transactions.
“In order to do commissions or anything else you would have to run the reports in the booking software and then turn around and correlate those with what really went through the register, tabulate those, set the commissions, put them in a graph and then submit them to payroll.”
Payroll for the spa was taking 6-7 hours a week to process commissions alone.
“And that’s just one aspect. If someone wanted to pay for multiple services it was incredibly cumbersome,” recalls Bird. “It was just really challenging and time-consuming.”
This was obviously not making it easy to provide the superior and memorable guest experience Turning Stone prides itself on providing guests.
The Solution
Book4Time cloud-based spa software was introduced in order to provide one platform to manage Turning Stone’s many needs – including online booking, scheduling, payroll, and reports – in one place.
Bird, a repeat customer, explains, “Before coming to Turning Stone, I already had about four years of experience with Book4Time because I brought it into Wild Horse Pass in Arizona and found that it fit my needs.”
“Book4Time has made it possible for staff at Skana and Ahsi’ spas to focus on doing what they do best, providing a memorable – even life changing – experience, which is invaluable.”
Benefits & Results
Using Book4Time’s booking and payment systems, Turning Stone reduced time spent on payroll from 6-7 hours a week to about 15 minutes. This is a 95% reduction in time spent or 350 hours (nearly three work weeks) saved per year.
But that’s not all. Bird says, “It was taking another 5-6 hours every day for someone in finance to sit and audit the transactions. Book4Time has eliminated all of that. Bird says:
“We estimate that our time spent on administrative tasks overall was reduced by about 92%, which is monstrous.”
With 20,000 square feet of space and 21 treatment rooms, it’s imperative for Turning Stone to keep operations running smoothly. This means receiving immediate technical assistance should anything falter.“
We now have a system that’s web based, so when you have a bump or hiccup, there’s no more wasting time waiting for a solution. It’s much more fluid. We send an email to support and support comes back in a couple of minutes. You know somebody is actively looking at it.”
The cloud-based platform also means that guests can book their own appointments from anywhere and at any time, and the staff can log in to see their schedules, or run their own reports to see what their commissions are going to be.
“That’s huge,” says Bird.
Also, out of the many valuable reports always being generated by Book4Time, Bird says his favorite things are “being able to see what my occupancy is, what the utilization is, what my best sellers are, and who my top guests are. All of those things are quickly done with Book4Time.”
Implementing Book4Time spa software has dramatically streamlined a complicated process at Turning Stone Resort Casino.
