Simplify guest communication and payment
User Needs
Communication with Guests
In sales and catering management, converting leads and managing events can span from 6 months to a year. Throughout this period, there is ongoing communication between prospective guests and the sales and events managers across multiple channels. This extended interaction poses a challenge in maintaining clear and consistent communication.
Cost Transparency
Since it wasn't possible to provide guests with live updates of their booking changes, users relied on the feature called Connected Invoice that ties booking expenses to the invoice to reflect actual costs. However, in some jurisdictions, changing fields that impact the total amount due can invalidate the invoice.
Chase Payments
Currently, we offer several methods for users to chase payments, including the Scheduled Payment feature. However, aside from displaying scheduled payments in an invoice, the feature does not allow users to process payments directly.
Product needs
Although the Connected Invoice served as an alternative to communicate booking updates, it was not a true invoice and did not comply with legal requirements. Additionally, we provided a regular Invoice that separated booking items from invoiced items. Having these two features coexist created product complexities and caused confusion, particularly for new users, making it difficult for the Customer Success team to train and support effectively.
Business needs
Event Temple primarily serves hotels and venues, helping them sell and manage events efficiently. To meet the growing demand for guest communication, the product needs to offer more guest-facing features to remain competitive.
This is what our customers are asking us for!
During the beta testing phase, the feature received positive feedback from current users. We are continuing to refine it for a full launch, which will bring even greater value to our customers and our business.
We reached out to users actively using the Connected Invoice feature to understand how it fit into their processes and benefited them. The interviews revealed that our product lacked the functionality needed for users to communicate effectively with their guests.
Scheduled Payments
To unlock its full potential, we are moving Scheduled Payments outside of the invoice, allowing users to collect payments directly through this feature. This approach not only simplifies Invoice but also encourages the guests to make their payments on time.
Consolidate Communication Channels
The Guest Portal becomes the single channel for the guests to track booking updates and communication with sales and events managers. This feature has the potential to replace the Banquet Event Order, traditionally used in hotels and venues to manage event details and communications. This change reduces the number of documents users need to generate and simplifies the product overall.
Approach to Scheduled Payments
Initially, it was uncertain whether users preferred guests to pay directly through Event Temple or via generated invoices. I encouraged the team and stakeholders to choose the former option, as it was simpler to implement and streamlined our invoicing process. By committing to this solution and moving quickly, we were able to test our assumptions and learn more rapidly.
Scope Adjustment
The original solution was rather complicated. During the implementation, the engineering team and I quickly identified the rabbit holes that could derail our progress and confuse our users. After discussing these concerns, we decided to start from scratch and propose a simpler solution.
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