[Butler-Lee] "Successful B&B business : a seamless communication with on-site teams"

Hanok SN02 by Butler-Lee

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"By communicating clearly and quickly with the on-site room managers, we've been able to maintain room quality high."

– Butler-Lee Room Operations Team, Manager Yoo Dae-eun –

Q. Can you introduce yourself and the team?

Butler-Lee Management Support Team 💼

Hello, I'm Hyunjin Jang, a manager in the Butler-Lee Management Support Team. Currently, I'm responsible for both management support and room operations at Butler-Lee, which operates Hanok stays.

I've worked in positions that involve interacting closely with customers in my previous company as well. Many people find it challenging or stressful to deal with customer interactions, but I've always enjoyed working closely with customers. (shy laughs)

The current management support tasks and room support tasks that I handle at Butler-Lee also involve a lot of interaction with customers, which I find enjoyable.

Butler-Lee Room Support Team 🧤

Hello, I'm Yoo Dae-eun, a manager in the Butler-Lee Room Support Team. At Butler-Lee, I'm responsible for room operations and customer service.

Butler-Lee is my first job, and I've been working here for about a year and a half. I've always enjoyed meeting people, and I've had a keen interest in the hotel industry from the beginning. My experience with Hanok has been the most enjoyable, so I felt a strong attraction to Butler-Lee, which exists at the intersection of hotels and Hanok.

My current tasks at Butler-Lee also involve active communication with customers who visit Butler-Lee and on-site managers, so I'm enjoying my work.

Butler-Lee Introduction 🏡

Butler-Lee started in 2021 and currently operates a total of 29 Hanok stays nationwide. We remodel abandoned Hanoks and plan spaces to provide customers with a differentiated Hanok experience.

Since we manage all rooms internally, we make sure to provide consistent customer experience and highly maintained facilities. This is why we needed solution like Shopl to efficiently manage room preparation and facility maintenance.

Q. What is Butler-Lee HQ teams' role?

💼 The room operations team is responsible for the overall customer experience, from reservations to check-outs, at Butler-Lee Hanoks. About 40-50% of our customers are foreigners, and we strive to provide services through online concierge and mobile check-in.

Even though it's contactless, we pay special attention to the cleaning and preparation of rooms when customers check out. Since our 29 Hanoks are located in different places, communication with the managers responsible for room management is crucial, and we make a lot of efforts in this regard.

🧤 The management support team assists in room preparation by hiring on-site managers and managing work status. Recently, as Butler-Lee's unique Hanok brand gained recognition in Korea's hospitality market, we've received many collaboration inquiries from various brands.
We're also working on collaborations with various brands, including furniture, appliances, food, and amenities, to provide customers with more enjoyable and unique experiences.

Hanok SN01 by Butler-Lee

Q. What was the most challenging aspect of managing many rooms?

As mentioned earlier, we pay special attention to room management to provide customers with a high level and consistent experience. In particular, we consider the cleaning and preparation of rooms important as we offer online check-in/check-out.

At first we used Slack for communication with on-site managers, but as communication increased and requests from on-site teams were all different, it became challenging to manage all channels. The information we needed to understand the situation were always not enough.

As we continue to expand, the current communication method seemed inadequate for systematic room management.

We also tried using Monday.com for work management. When on-site managers conducted room cleaning, they updated the status according to the progress of the work. However, there was no clear way for the headquarters to visually monitor the status of actual rooms. We had to exchange photos through the messenger, which led to channel fragmentation and made it difficult to manage rooms.

It was even more challenging because on-site managers are usually in their 40s~50s, and they were not familiar with using different tools.

Q. Since using Shopl, what has changed the most?

The best thing about using Shopl was that everything, from working hour tracking to work status sharing and real-time chatting, could be done within a single channel.

On-site managers are particularly satisfied with this aspect. It allows for efficient work without the need to switching tools. From the manager's perspective, everything is visible in a single channel, from work management to communication, making it very convenient.

Moreover, we receive room status reports with images, along with room issues, through Shopl. This helps us visually assess the status of rooms and efficiently manage room operations in a systematic manner.

Q. What Shopl feature are you most satisfied with?

# Report # Chat # Posting board

I'd like to recommend the top three features that we use the most at Butler-Lee. If you need room or facility management, Shopl can be incredibly useful.

It definitely helps bridge the gap between the headquarters and the field, ensuring that the quality of rooms and services remains consistently high.

1. Clear visibility on room conditions

⛔️ Difficult to know room conditions & cleaning status

We used Monday.com for work management, where on-site managers would update the status according to the progress of room cleaning.

For HQ teams, there wasn't a clear way to visually assess the actual status of the rooms, which was inconvenient. We had to exchange room photos through messengers, causing a dispersion of channels and making it difficult to manage tasks.

As HQ teams couldn't visit each Hanok all the time, it was crucial to understand room status after each check-out. Small issues that could lead to bigger problems could be prevented in early stage. But the existing messenger had its limitations.

✅ Full visibility on room conditions

Now, the headquarters receives room status reports through Shopl, both before and after room cleaning. When a customer checks out, the cleaning manager immediately inspects the room.

We receive two reports: one before cleaning, and one after cleaning. Reports include photo images taken at sites, allowing the headquarters to visually check the room's condition.

The reports also include checklists for items that need to be checked during room preparation, such as inventory, arrangements, and condition of amenities. This ensures that on-site managers can manage these items systematically and without omission.

Also, as Shopl works perfectly well on Mobile, cleaning managers can work on their smartphones from day-one.

2. Systematic Lost&Found management

⛔️ Communication Gap on Room Issues

In room operations, various issues can arise. It's common for customers to leave behind items, and being in the hotel industry, we encounter various issues like equipment malfunction, damage to furniture, appliances, and more.

Previously, communication involved all three parties. On-site cleaning manager to Head of Cleaning, then to HQ teams. This process often led to issues being overlooked or miscommunicated. Moreover, issue reporting via phone calls was lacking followups.

We had to fix the channels to approach issues systematically and improve efficiency. More importantly, we needed a solution for timely followups of all these issues.

✅ Swiftly sharing and resolving room issues through 'systematic management'

With Shopl, we use Issue Posting Board feature to share and resolve issues in rooms.

Each posting with tracking number allows us to quickly check posts and follow up on issue progress.

When on-site managers discover issues with room facilities or various items duringroom cleaning, they post images and details on the Posting Board. The HQ teams can then identify and communicate about the issues through comments.

All communications are traceable now, making it possible for us to systematically manage issues without any omissions.

In the end, swiftly identifying and addressing these issues is crucial to maintaining the quality of rooms.

3. Handling both work and real-time chat in one tool

⛔️ Separated communication and reporting channel caused inefficiency

As mentioned earlier, using separate messenger and work-related solutions resulted in a lack of integration.

Checking work status in a different tool and then communicating through phone or Slack was cumbersome.

In HQ's office environment, a messenger like Slack is sufficient. However, on-site work is different. Cleaning managers have various age groups, and switching between multiple apps is challenging and inefficient.

✅ Single tool for Task & Communication

Using Shopl, we can manage work and communicate in one tool. Now, on-site managers can use a single app for everything, which is more convenient.

For HQ teams too, all room-related topics are discussed through Shopl, and everyone has access to full information needed for decision making.

In cases like ours, where we manage dozens of individual Hanok stays, maintaining synchronization between headquarters staff and on-site staff is crucial.

To streamline on-site operations and provide a high-quality customer experience, I recommend trying Shopl.

"With Shopl, we've been able to work more seamlessly with on-site teams."

– Butler-Lee Management Support Team, Hyunjin Jang –

Today, we introduced a case study of Butler-Lee, which maintains and operates dozens of Hanok rooms at a high level using Shopl.

If you want to manage on-site team communication better, why not start with Shopl?