Turningstone Resort & Casino
Most casinos require many software systems to manage their day to day operations. Read below to learn how Turning Stone Resort & Casino reduced administrative tasks by 92% and improved their user and guest experience by switching to Book4Time.
Happier Staff, Increased Efficiency, and a Four-Star Rating
The Benefits of an Operations Upgrade
Everything should feel effortless and enjoyable.
On the back end, however, spa operations can be
anything but serene.
Shane Bird
Director of Spa Operations at Skana Spa
I have a lot of experience with spa operations,
having worked in this business for 22 years. Today,
I’m the director of spa operations at Turning Stone
Resort and Casino in central New York. We have
two spas here at Turning Stone: our day spa and
salon, Ahsi, and our resort spa, Ska:ná. I oversee
everything from menus to staff, facilities to the
guest experience—anything that encompasses the
spa experience at our resort. I joined Turning Stone
with a very clear three-point mandate: make the
spas profi table, improve staff satisfaction, and get
us rated in Forbes Travel Guide.
An experience marred by frustration and inefficiency
I had my work cut out for me. Back in 2013, there
were times that the spa lobbies would be completely
empty. Part of that stemmed from a lack of brand
presence and brand awareness, everything from
how the spas were marketed to how the phone
systems worked. There was one phone number for
Ahsi and another for Ska:ná, and often guests would
call one, not knowing the other existed. The number
for Ska:ná was only publicized in one guest book at
the all-suite hotel and nowhere else. Right out of the
gate, I combined phone systems to a central number,
where guests could choose whether they wanted to
book a service at Ahsi or Ska:ná.
Staff makes or breaks the guest experience at a spa, and there was a lot of discontent among our staff. They felt they didn’t have a voice. So another one of my top priorities was to engage the staff, listen to their needs, and address their pain points.
One of those pain points was the laborious software
that we used. It wasn’t integrated with anything
else; there was a separate application to book
services, another system for POS, and yet another
for payroll. Doing payroll itself was monstrous. It
used to take me six hours just to reconcile providers’
commissions, and I had to do that every week. It was
also frustrating for our finance or IT departments; a
server-based platform like the one we used meant
the IT staff had to constantly monitor, maintain, and
troubleshoot on-premise servers.
The guests also felt the impact of our inefficient
system. Not only were they in contact with frustrated
staff, but during the checkout process, they would
have to wait in line to sign a receipt like they were
at a sandwich-making station—a stark contrast
to the luxurious experience they received during a
treatment. It wasn’t how we wanted them to end
their experience with us.
A new system, an easy sell
I first encountered Book4Time back in 2010. I was the
director of another spa, and we wanted to implement
an online booking system. Almost everything back
then was server based, and Book4Time’s software
was ahead of the curve. After exploring the market,
I was convinced that a cloud-based platform would
give us more flexibility. We wouldn’t have all our data
on site, but on the other hand, our IT team wouldn’t
have to maintain servers.
A cloud based booking platform that gives providers flexibility, and eliminates the need to maintain servers.
By coincidence, I met Book4Time founder
Roger Sholanki, and we had some really great
conversations. His perspective and goals meshed
well with my vision for a platform, so I implemented
Book4Time at that location. It was a great success.
Fast forward 10 years, and I knew that’s exactly what
we needed at Turning Stone.
The success of a spa often comes down to incredible
executives and general managers. I proposed
Book4Time to the Turning Stone’s executive team,
outlining how it would improve the experience for
guests and staff, as well as our bottom line.
They trusted me and were supportive, but they also
wanted IT to weigh in. It was a great move and an
easy sell—I just told IT they wouldn’t have to babysit
someone else’s property anymore. Sure, they’d have
to keep an eye on interfaces, but they wouldn’t be
responsible for maintaining and troubleshooting
those servers like in the past. IT’s response was,
“Please and thank you. When do we start?”
Implementation was very simple. I earmarked
some of my staff as trainers, then Book4Time
took us through the ins and outs of the system,
explaining how to create facilities, services, users,
and permissions. We then put everyone through the
process and went through a dry run before we went
live. The entire setup only took a little more than
a week.
I was comfortable with launching so quickly not only
because I was familiar with the platform, but because
I knew Book4Time has a built-in help centre. If any of
us forgot our training or how to run a certain report,
we had access to that built-in help desk. That gave
us all peace of mind.
Integrations that Enhance Scalability
Because our spas are part of a larger property,
we already have purchasing and retail software.
Book4Time’s multiple functions seamlessly integrate with our existing systems, presenting a
unified façade for our guests. For example, we don’t
use Book4Time’s membership and gift card modules
but guests can easily see and use their membership
or gift card through the Book4Time interface—they
don’t know we have separate systems working
behind the scenes.
robust reporting capabilities allow you to see operations at a glance and make fast decisions around pricing and services.
Before we implemented Book4Time, we couldn’t
even have a conversation about guest preferences
because we didn’t have adequate reporting capabilities. Book4Time has robust reporting functionality
that allows us to see operations at a
glance. Initially I was focused on the basics: What
are our top sellers? Who are our most frequent
guests? When are our busiest times? From there, it’s
easy to make decisions and ask more complicated
questions, such as: How do we incentivize our
top guests to bring a friend? If our weekends are
becoming busy, should we charge more for services
during those times? How much? If we see services are
underperforming, it’s an easy decision to eliminate
them. Likewise, we can create new services based
on the ones that consistently perform well. With
Book4Time, it’s easy to see trends and make fast
decisions around incentives, pricing, and services.
Even though we don’t use all of the platform’s
functionalities, that’s part of its appeal. It’s not a
one-size-fits-all solution, and even though it works
for us as part of a larger organization, it can also
work for smaller spas. Other divisions at Turning
Stone all have their own systems specific to their
domain, such as purchasing or rewards. If you’ve
ever worked with finance folk, you know you don’t
want to move their cheese, so to speak. It’s nice to
have a platform that interfaces with other systems
without disrupting anyone else.
Benefits for Guests and Staff Alike
Book4Time has had such a positive impact on our
operations. Our guests can now book online 24/7
instead of waiting for the hours where someone
would be at reception. Pre-pandemic, 10% of our
guests booked through our online portal, but now
that number has jumped to 20%. Guests also
don’t have to wait for printouts after finishing their
treatments; it’s all done online.
Having remote access has also been a big advantage
to staff and service providers during the pandemic.
We reopened after lockdown in June 2020. People
have been in and out of the facility to comply with
our new distancing and occupancy guidelines, but
regardless of where people are, they can log into
the system and run their own reports, see their
commissions, and schedule appointments. I’ve been
under quarantine myself and had to work from home,
and there have been times where staff members
went to my office to connect with me, assuming I
was on site based on my activity in the system.
Multiply that experience by the 100 staff members
across facilities, finance, and IT who have increased
access to the system. Our providers can now see
what they have scheduled for any given day and
whether there have been any last-minute changes.
Before, they could only discover this information
once they arrived on site. Service providers can also
see their commissions much more clearly. The six
hours it used to take to perform payroll? That’s a
15-minute process now, and the burden has been
entirely removed from the finance staff.
A game-changer for our organization
The market has changed since I first started using
Book4Time over 10 years ago. There’s a lot more
competition among cloud-based platforms, and
spas have ample choice. I continue to choose
Book4Time not only because of how user-friendly itis for guests, staff, and providers, but also because
of their excellent service and support.
When we were shut down during the pandemic, the
Book4Time team was in touch with me to discuss
how they could help when we reopened. When
confronted with new customer needs that a software platform doesn’t address, some companies will put
their hands in the air and say, “That’s just how our
software is.” Book4Time has always been malleable
in that regard, reaching out to me for feedback on
ways to improve their product.
The changes we’ve made have led the Forbes Travel
Guide to award Ska:ná with a four-star rating, the only
spa in central New York to receive that recognition.
The spas at Turning Stone gained ease and efficiency
at every level, and Book4Time has brought us into
the 21st century.
