What's new in Oaky? [Q4 2023]

The end of 2023 proved to be both exciting and productive for the Oaky team. To set you up for success this year, our team was hard at work releasing fresh enhancements and updates and embarking on big, ambitious tech projects – all geared towards enhancing your user experience and empowering you to maximise your upselling capabilities.

Ready to explore these enticing developments? Let's get started.

Feature: Maximise your upsells by sending pre-arrival emails to same-day bookers

Imagine turning every reservation, even those booked on the same day, into a potential ancillary revenue boost. Now, every Oaky customer can unlock this long-awaited possibility and:

• Send pre-arrival emails presenting your offerings, including extra services and room upgrades, to same-day bookers

• Communicate your offers to all the guests arriving at your hotels

• Boost your ancillary revenue through upselling to those booking last minute.

Not only does this amazing feature benefit your ancillary revenue, but it also improves the guest experience. You can rest assured knowing that all your guests are aware of your versatile offers and have the chance to personalise their stays, taking their experience from good to great.

Feature: Eliminate confusion with our enhanced deal-time picker

Your guests are sure to appreciate this feature. We've upgraded the deal-time picker in the guest app, adding a.m. and p.m. to time selections.

There’s no more need to scroll through the entire list to find the right hour of the day. Now, your guests can smoothly set the exact time for their deal delivery. For example, a guest wants to reserve a table for 7 p.m. With the updated time picker, they can specify the time without having to navigate through the entire list to find 19:00.

This feature caters not only to guests but also to various hotel departments, reducing confusion by providing a more precise time-selection process.

Feature: Be in the know about upcoming arrivals (only for the Front Desk Upsell module)

As a front desk agent, do you start your day by reviewing the list of arriving guests? Thanks to the latest addition to our Front Desk Upsell module, you now have quick and easy access to the list of arriving guests for the day.

This enhancement eliminates the need for manual searches, offering you the inside scoop on each reservation. With the list of arrivals at hand, you can identify potential upsell opportunities and proactively plan your communication with arriving guests.

Feature: Avoid frustration at checkout thanks to improved tax-exclusive rate management

Is it common in your country to present prices excluding taxes? We've introduced a new enhancement to some of Oaky’s 2-way integrations that will ensure seamless alignment between the rates on your guest landing pages and those synced back to your PMS.

The new enhancement has been implemented for the following integrations so far:

• OPERA on-prem via OXI

• OPERA Cloud via OHIP

• Stayntouch

• Shiji

• EMMA.

With this improvement, you can enjoy improved communication and synchronisation between Oaky and your PMS. It will help eliminate surprises at checkout, such as your front desk agent suddenly realising they've charged less than intended or guests discovering an additional charge due to incorrect tax settings.

To specify the type of rates you prefer (tax-inclusive or tax-exclusive), simply let your dedicated Oaky CSM know, and we’ll set it up for you.

Feature: Customise dynamic rate display

With our latest enhancement to the dynamic pricing feature (available for PMS and RMS integrations), you can gain control of how your dynamic prices are displayed. By simply toggling the switch, you can decide whether to round the dynamic rates automatically. This feature aims to bring more clarity to the rates, allowing you to present pricing information in a way that best suits your strategy. It also ensures a more transparent and user-friendly interface for both you and your guests.

Developments behind the scenes: Improvements to deal and reservation import flows

In our ongoing commitment to enhancing Oaky’s efficiency and your user experience, we've embarked on two big projects focused on refining and restructuring deals and reservation import flows.

• Improvements to room upgrade and deal flows: What’s in it for you?

Through meticulously restructuring and refining how we manage room upgrade and deal requests, our goal is to simplify and streamline flow maintenance. This, in return, will facilitate more efficient development of new features and products on top of the existing infrastructure. Soon, we’ll be able to extend features currently available for room upgrades to service deal flows and vice versa seamlessly.

• Enhancements in the reservation import flows

Another significant improvement happening behind the scenes is aimed at improving the speed of the software. We are fine-tuning the volume of incoming data from our integration partners to the Oaky system, aiming to improve load times and ensure system stability.

Stay tuned for further updates on these developments!

Coming soon: Two-way integration with the Shiji Enterprise Platform

Are you using the Shiji Enterprise Platform or planning to make a switch? We have great news for you — our two-integration rollout is around the corner. Backed by Shiji Group, Shiji PMS is an API-first comprehensive property management system designed to meet the evolving needs of the hospitality industry.

Soon, Shiji hotels will be able to enjoy the perks of fully automated upselling, which include:

• Real-time sync between Oaky and Shiji PMS, providing room and service availability and enabling automated approval of requests

• Hassle-free upselling thanks to reduced manual work

• Enhanced personalisation of room upgrade and deal suggestions, and, as a result, more upsell revenue and increased TRevPAR.

Final thoughts

Stuck with manual upselling or struggling to kick off your upselling strategy? Thousands of hotels worldwide use Oaky to streamline their upselling processes. Explore the testimonials from our customers and learn how Oaky's upsell engine has transformed upselling from a tedious process with limited results into an enjoyable and effective revenue booster.