Hotel Plaza Kobe Puts Key Customer Service System on Fujitsu PRIMERGY TX200FT Systems Protected by Marathon Software
THE COMPANY
Hotel Plaza Kobe, Co. Ltd. is a midsize hotel in Kobe,
Japan. “To survive amidst fierce competition we
needed to build strong relationships so that our
customers come to love our hotel,” said Daiki Hara,
board member and business manager for events.
The hotel redesigned its management system to allow
staff to provide extraordinary, personalized service
so that each customer will think of the hotel as
“my hotel.”
THE SITUATION
The hotel implemented a new management system
using the PRIMERGY TX200FT fault-tolerant
server platform (with Marathon everRun FT™
software), running Windows® 2000, and the CLERKS
software package.
By unifying customer information from its lodging,
events, and restaurant departments in a simple, faulttolerant
system, the hotel made key information
available to more of its staff, including its most
inexperienced employees. It also reduced
management’s workload and interruptions caused by
nightly batch processing. The increased availability of
customer information allows the hotel to develop
strong customer loyalty. It also allows the hotel to live
up to its slogan: PLAZA Surprise! where it provides
each customer with a personalized surprise. “We
want to develop a reputation for service so that when
a customer comes to our facility for a birthday or a
wedding anniversary, the whole staff knows that
customer and is able to say, ‘congratulations!’ We
want to devise a service that fits individual customers
and presents them with something that is personal
and moving.”
In addition, the hotel wanted to reduce system
administration requirements. Fumihiko Ohashi, hotel
manager and deputy system administrator said, “With
the scale of our hotel, it was difficult to dedicate a
full-time system administrator, so system
administration was done in conjunction with another
job. Trouble would often occur during nightly batch
processing, and resolving it would cut into key hotel
management activities.”
THE SOLUTION
Faced with addressing both the needs of
management and the system design challenge, the
hotel decided to re-architect its hotel system. They
evaluated proposals from several companies. They
found that European- and American-style systems
centralize the operations of large-scale hotels and
support advanced features, but their base schemes
use separate databases to manage the
accommodations, events and restaurant departments.
Hara points out, “When the databases are separate,
it is difficult to make use of customer information
across departments.”
The Hotel chose the CLERKS hotel application
system proposed by Fuji Telecom, Co. Ltd. “Because
CLERKS is designed for new hotels, it allows each
departmental database to be unified. It is also flexible,
and can be customized as needed,” Hara said about
their reasons for adoption. Also, with Fuji Telecom’s
enthusiasm, they delivered the architecture and
concluded the project in just three months.
They put the CLERKS system on Fujitsu PRIMERGY
TX200FT fault-tolerant server running Windows®
2000. Protected by Marathon’s everRun FT software,
the server is able to run nonstop, 24 hours
a day. This server reduces server administration
time, allowing hotel staff to focus on important
hotel business.
As the system was implemented, they established an
integrated guest relations policy and the PLAZA
Surprise! vision took on a central role.
INSTILLATION RESULTS
The new system began operations in April 2004 and
is currently the heart of guest relations. The hotel is
moving ahead with plans to make data entry and
retrieval easier.
“Currently, we are conducting a service development
project, seeing what kind of customer service we
can provide and evaluating various service plans,”
says Hara.
“Because more and more client PCs were being used,
the amount of management work for the entire system
increased. And when server troubleshooting was
added on top of that, it really was a problem. With the
installation on the fault-tolerant server, we’ve been
freed from supporting server faults, the load has been
significantly reduced, and it’s been a great help,”
says Ohashi.
PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE
Aiming to maximize customer loyalty, the hotel is
“creating fans” based on this system architecture.
Hara says, “We want the customers who come first
for bridal parties, to come back throughout their lives
to celebrate special events such as birthdays and
wedding anniversaries. By bringing along the next
generation, we believe that we can develop
strong customer relationships and promote client
loyalty,” explaining the hotel management’s view of
lifelong use.
The hotel IT staff is considering further improvements
to customer service with easy-to-use systems
developed by Fuji Telecom and Fujitsu. Saitoh said,
“We are thinking about systems that will enable our
newest staff members to provide the same high level
of service as our more experienced staff. That is how
we want to create loyal customer who say, ‘This is
my hotel.’”
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