YOTEL's Customer Service Transformation with Premium Plus and Zendesk

In the fast-paced world of hospitality, exceptional customer service is crucial. YOTEL, a modern hotel brand known for its innovative approach and tech-savvy designs, understood this well. However, they faced significant challenges in their customer service operations that made it difficult to provide the seamless experience their guests expected. Enter Premium Plus and Zendesk – a partnership that would revolutionize YOTEL’s customer service landscape.

The Challenge: Navigating a Complex Customer Service Terrain

YOTEL’s customer service team was struggling on multiple fronts:

• Disjointed Communication: Tracking responses and maintaining communication quality was extremely difficult. With queries coming from multiple channels, staying organized was nearly impossible.
• Lack of Insights: Without clear reporting, understanding customer issues and responding effectively was a major challenge.
• Overwhelming Volume of Repetitive Queries: Simple questions like “What’s the check-in time?” flooded the inbox, taking up valuable time.

Halomi Sukhbaatar, CRM Management consultant at YOTEL, described the situation: “We had a lot of challenges communicating with customers and tracking the operations team. There were no insights into what was happening in terms of customer communications.”

“The combination of  Premium Plus and Zendesk sealed the deal”

The Solution: A Unified Approach with Zendesk and Premium Plus

To address these issues, YOTEL needed a robust, scalable solution. They found it in Zendesk, implemented with the expertise of Premium Plus. Here’s how the transformation unfolded:

1. Implementation of Zendesk to 24 hotels around the globe on a single Zendesk instance. Every hotel has its own team, so support is not centralised and offered a challenge for initial implementation, since different hotels or countries could have different approaches to the same issues and some hotels in the same country or branch could also share resources or agents.
2. Premium Plus Custom Branded Email Template helped creating a consistent look for YOTEL’s brand.
3. Advanced reporting with a custom-made report on all Zendesk activities, providing great insights to improve efficiency and productivity across hotels. Zendesk’s reporting features gave YOTEL a clear view of customer interactions, allowing them to identify and address pain points more effectively.
4. Custom-made help center, tailored to their needs and with special development to accommodate having articles per hotel or grouped per hotel on the same help center, making it clear to customers where and how to find information pertinent to one specific hotel. This empowered customers to find answers independently and streamlined internal processes.
5. Premium Plus helped YOTEL by consolidating communication channels. We supported integrating all customer interactions into Zendesk’s unified platform. Whether through email, social media, or web forms, all queries now funnelled into a single, manageable space.
6. Automated Responses: By automating answers to common questions, YOTEL reduced the burden on their staff and ensured consistent, accurate information was always provided.

“The primary goal was to quickly and easily solve our customers’ problems, assist our team to do so with automation and intuitive UX design, and simplify their tasks,” said Halomi. “We needed a platform that brought everything together – email, social media, and form inquiries – all in one place.”

The Implementation: Fast, Focused, and Effective

YOTEL’s experience with Premium Plus was outstanding:

• Swift Setup: Within just two weeks, YOTEL’s ticketing system was up and running. This rapid deployment was critical in minimizing disruption.
• Phased Rollout: The Help Center and other features were gradually introduced, ensuring a smooth transition and continuous improvement.
• Ongoing Support: Premium Plus didn’t just implement the system and leave; they provided continuous support, refining and optimizing the solution based on real-world feedback.

“From the moment we signed up, we got off the ground in two weeks. It’s the fastest I’ve seen any platform get up and running and we started seeing results instantly in my professional experience,” Halomi noted.

The Results: Tangible Improvements Across the Board

The impact of Zendesk and Premium Plus on YOTEL’s customer service was profound:

• Improved Responsiveness: YOTEL’s response times improved dramatically. They could now quickly identify and rectify any service gaps.
• Higher Customer Satisfaction: With better service came happier customers.
• Operational Efficiency: Automating repetitive queries and consolidating communication channels freed up staff to tackle more complex issues.
• Successful Rollout: The full system, including the Help Center, was rolled out to all YOTEL locations within three months – a proof of the efficiency and expertise of Premium Plus.
• Business Performance Insights: Through reporting and analytics, YOTEL has a clear understanding of where changes are needed and can prioritize these adjustments for long-term continuous improvement.

“The responsiveness of our team improved immediately. We could quickly identify which hotels were lagging in their responses and took swift action to improve. Most importantly, we now had a clear view and understanding of where we needed to make improvements,” explained Halomi. “Since implementing Zendesk, we’ve had almost zero complaints on our social media because inquiries are now directed to the right team and are addressed very quickly.”

Conclusion: A Partnership for the Future

YOTEL’s success story shows how important it is to have the right tools and partners. With Zendesk and Premium Plus, they not only overcame their immediate challenges but also set the stage for future innovations, including AI integrations. For decision-makers in customer experience, support, and operations, YOTEL’s journey underscores the importance of choosing scalable, efficient solutions and partnering with experts who understand your unique needs.

“Working with Premium Plus has been one of the most pleasant experiences I’ve had with implementers. It was the fastest and easiest implementation, needing much less micromanagement,” Halomi concluded.

In the world of hospitality, where every interaction counts, YOTEL’s success story is a powerful reminder that with the right strategy and support, you can achieve remarkable improvements in customer service and operational efficiency.