Eden Roc Cap Cana
Implementing Book4time has helped Eden Roc Cap Cana spend less time dealing with administrative, accounting, staffing, and inventory issues, and more time dealing directly with customers.
The Challenge
- No software system to manage internal operations
- Archaic operations procedures (using Excel to manage bookings)
- No customer records
THE APPROACH
- A comprehensive solution, including appointment booking
- Marketing and retention; revenue management
- Guest experience and CRM; • and inventory management
THE RESULTS
- 42% increase in sales
- Increased employee accountability
- Reduction in no-shows and cancellations
- Optimized and streamlined business operations
Eden Roc Cap Cana
Travelers don’t just want vacations
anymore. Spa visitors aren’t merely
looking for a beauty treatment. Today’s
sophisticated consumers are no longer
buying getaways—they’re booking
premium experiences.
At Eden Roc Cap Cana, we offer a
boutique hotel and spa experience
to international visitors and local
customers alike. Our 32 stand-alone
luxury suites feature private pools
for an exquisite in-suite wellness
experience. Twelve beachfront suites
offer the ultimate romantic getaway
for ocean lovers, and our villas provide
complete privacy for larger groups.
Our Eden Roc Wellness & Spa facility
is the first in the world to partner
with luxury skincare brand Natura
Bissé. We offer exclusive treatments
like the Diamond Experience Rose
massage. Combining the exfoliating
power of diamond dust with the
aromatherapeutic properties of
Damask rose oil, it is the ultimate skin
renewal treatment.
Luxury Should Start Behind the Scenes
We have always offered a premium experience to our customers. Unfortunately, we
didn’t always apply a luxe approach to our internal operations. When I joined Eden Roc
Cana in 2018, we were using Excel to book rooms and spa treatments. It was chaotic,
to say the least.
We had no real customer records. It was far too easy to delete a booking by mistake,
and it was way too complicated to cancel or reschedule a booking on request. There
was no long-term view of our operations, and my staff was afraid of overbooking
because we couldn’t look ahead to see what was available and what wasn’t.
If I were to use an analogy, I would compare this state of affairs to a car in a foreign country without a GPS. We didn’t know
where we were going. We weren’t using the latest technology to oversee our operations in a way that ensured timely scheduling,
accurate inventory control, and outstanding customer service.
As Eden Roc’s Spa & Wellness Director, I saw a lot of missed opportunities. I also recognized that our organizational disarray was
having an impact on our guest experience. I thought about implementing the booking software I’d used at my previous job, but it
felt like a stopgap because it was lacking in features and wasn’t especially user-friendly.
We were like a car without a GPS in a foreign country. We didn’t know where we were going. We weren’t using the latest technology to oversee our operations in a way that ensured timely scheduling, accurate inventory control and outstanding customer service.
Pedro Castillo
Wellness & Spa Director
From Zero to 60 in a Few Weeks
I couldn’t settle on half-measures. We were starting from
scratch, so I needed a comprehensive solution that could take
Eden Roc Cap Cana from the proverbial zero to 60 in a few
weeks. At this point, I started to think about Book4Time. I’d
met their team at ISPA Las Vegas a few years ago, and I was
impressed by the product. However, I didn’t explore it further
because my previous employer never gave me the go-ahead
to implement a new booking platform.
In the absence of any such platform at Eden Roc Cap Cana,
I took a deep dive into possible solutions and—once again—
found myself leaning toward Book4Time. It offered the perfect
combination of all-in-one functionality, ease-of-use, and
excellent support.
José Sifuentes was my point man at Book4Time from the
very beginning, and he answered all my pre- and post-sale
questions. He took the time to explain how the product
worked, and once we’d selected it as our new booking and
management platform, he followed up on our progress with
regular phone calls. As a bonus, José is a native Spanish
speaker, and it is refreshing to deal with a tech company in
our language.
Other vendors claim to offer an all-in-one wellness and
spa booking solution, but Book4Time is the only platform
that provides everything out of the box. Built-in functions
include appointment booking; marketing and retention;
revenue management; guest experience and CRM; inventory
management; and security and privacy.
Book4Time also integrates different solutions. With anyone
else, you’re looking at costly add-ons, custom coding, and
a steep learning curve. With Book4Time, we were up and
running in no time. Excel was history in a matter of days.
Online Training and Increased Accountability
Our journey began with online training.
You can learn the basics of Book4Time
in a couple of hours. The web-based
lessons are highly interactive and
easy-to-understand, but José and
his team were available to provide
personal assistance when things got
too technical.
Book4Time is so intuitive that users
can figure out most of its functions
on their own once they’ve completed
the introductory training. However, my
team was a little hesitant at first. They
were so accustomed to doing things
the hard way in Excel that Book4Time
felt unnatural to them. It took them
a week to understand that our new
platform was easier to use and a lot
more reliable.
The first big change after we
implemented Book4Time was
increased employee accountability.
With Excel, it was impossible to tell who
booked an appointment, who changed
it, or who canceled it. With Book4Time,
every staff member has a unique login
that allows us to see a history of the
entire booking process.
Let’s face it: People sometimes make
mistakes. With Book4Time, we can
now correct employee errors and
prevent their recurrence by showing
team members what went wrong. The
booking module also makes it easier to
review all the details before confirming
a reservation. Trying to sort all this out
in Excel was a nightmare. There was
no easy way to track customers and
transactions.
Now, we can fix a mistake with a click.
Increasing Customer Loyalty and Reducing Missed Appointments
Book4Time’s marketing and retention tools have also helped
transform the way we do promotions at Eden Roc Cap Cana.
For example, I like to create personalized coupons offering
discounted spa and wellness treatments to members of
groups that have pre-booked their hotel stays.
These electronic coupons can be redeemed online and
are a proven moneymaker. People are more inclined to
look up the therapeutic benefits of our spa and wellness
treatments and then book a session when we present
them with a personalized offer. We also use Book4Time to
reward our most loyal customers. On top of our international
visitors, Eden Roc Cap Cana caters to local clientele. At the
beginning of every month, I look through our records and
reward the previous month’s most frequent customer with a
complimentary spa treatment.
In the year we have been using these Book4Time features,
we’ve seen a big impact. Before Book4Time, our clients
couldn’t book online. This meant they called and we didn’t
make them reserve with their credit card. And because
sending reminders was incredibly time-consuming, we
often didn’t do it. The end result was that we frequently had
no-shows. With Book4Time, our clients reserve online and the
system automatically sends them appointment reminders. It’s
a better experience for the guests and less work for us. As a
result, we’ve reduced our cancellations by 90%.
On the sales front, we’ve increased sales by 42% since using
Book4Time. There are a few factors in play here. Since we
have better control of our inventory, we’ve been able to drive
more sales on the retail side. Due to our newfound marketing
capabilities, we can drive repeat business by offering those
incentives I mentioned. But a big part of this increase comes
down to confidence. When we scheduled with Excel, we just
didn’t have the insights needed to optimize scheduling. Our
staff were afraid over overbooking, so they underbooked. This
is what happens when you don’t have the proper visibility.
But since we can fine-tune and optimize our schedule, our
staff aren’t worried about overbooking. We can maximize
everyone’s time.
We’ve made these tremendous strides, and we’ve only
begun to scratch the surface. In the coming months, we’ll be
adopting more of the platform’s features and integrations as
we further explore its functionalities.
Book4Time Puts Me in the Driver’s Seat
Thanks to Book4Time, my staff and I are spending less time
dealing with administrative, accounting, staffing, and inventory
issues, and more time dealing directly with customers.
As the spa’s director, I can use Book4Time’s robust reporting
features to analyze sales and trends. In the past, the best I
could do was keep up with inventory levels. I can now create
new services, stock new products, and optimize staffing to
enhance the visitor experience.
With Book4Time, I feel like I’m in the driver’s seat of a luxury
vehicle. I have power steering and a sophisticated engine to
move me forward. Rear-view cameras show where I’ve been.
My GPS provides directions, and an intelligent dashboard
allows me to see that all the car’s systems are working
correctly. It’s time to hit the road.
Thanks to Book4Time, my staff and I are spending less time dealing with administrative, accounting, staffing, and inventory issues, and more time dealing directly with customers.
Pedro Castillo
Wellness & Spa Director
