A Popular Colorado Ski Resort Looks to Hotel Management Technology to Please Staff and Guests

New York, NY — Colorado’s Copper Mountain Resort is using ALICE’s staff operations platform and guest engagement solution to improve staff communication and efficiency, and provide even more digital conveniences to guests. The resort, located at the base of popular ski-destination Copper Mountain, has been using ALICE since November of last year.

Copper Mountain Resort’s Lodging General Manager, Steve Miller, was looking for a guest engagement tool to enhance communication with guests, but quickly realized ALICE could also transform staff operations behind the scenes. As an expansive resort that offers lodging in over 26 buildings across three different base area villages, and with employees spread throughout, Copper Mountain had a couple of unique challenges when it came to coordinating its staff. For one, guest requests and internal work orders, which come from a wide-range of stakeholders (including guests, unit owners, the front desk, a separate luxury management team, and multiple restaurants, event spaces, and other mountain operations) were being communicated via a variety of channels (phone, email, radio, and in-person), making it difficult to organize work, dispatch it correctly, and keep track of everything. Use of radios in particular was challenging in regards to effective communication. And while radios provided staff with mobility, maintenance technician activity in particular remained organized from a central dispatching location.

Now, with ALICE’s staff management system, condo maintenance technicians are saving time and are working more efficiently. Because they now receive new work orders as notifications on their mobile devices, they no longer have to stop what they’re doing to take notes about an incoming order. Attaching photos to orders has also simplified communication for the team, who no longer has to provide detailed explanations about location or equipment condition. So too, being able to see a list of open tickets on-the-go means maintenance technicians can accept orders most geographically proximate to them, instead of returning to the dispatch building to receive their next task.

Copper Mountain Lodging GM Steve Miller is also excited about the conveniences ALICE is providing the resort’s guests. Copper Mountain has built ALICE’s guest application into the resort’s own innovative Copper Mountain Resort app, which provides resort-goers with services like lift times, trail conditions, weather reports, a resort guide and the ability to book lodging and other skier services. Building ALICE – which lets guests request housekeeping, bellman and maintenance services, and communicate directly with the front desk – into their existing guest offering is helping their staff provide even more exceptional service, as evidenced on TripAdvisor.

Lodging GM Miller’s appreciation of ALICE extends beyond the product’s benefits to the experience of working with the ALICE team. “The leadership at ALICE has been very engaged with us as we’ve worked together to customize the platform to our exact needs. They’ve taken our product feedback and requests and really helped adapt the system in a way that works best for each of our teams.” 

ALICE has found the partnership with Copper Mountain Resort to be similarly fulfilling. Says Justin Effron, ALICE co-founder and CEO: “After only a few months, Copper Mountain has become one of our highest volume users, proving just how necessary a mobile, cross-department staff solution is to running a complex, high-standard operation like Copper Mountain Resort. We look forward to continuing this productive relationship.”

Photo credit: Tripp Fay, Copper Mountain Resort

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ABOUT ALICE: By joining all the departments of your hotel onto a single operations platform for internal communication and task management, ALICE helps your staff act as a team to provide consistently excellent service. ALICE’s main product –ALICE Suite – brings together your front office, concierge, housekeeping, and maintenance teams, and connects your guests to your hotel with our app and SMS tools. The ALICE platform is also available as specialized software and mobile applications for your staff (ALICE Staff), your concierge (ALICE Concierge) and your guests (ALICE Guest). Each module is fully integratable with PMS, POS, and all other third party management systems. ALICE’s partners include 3-5 independent and managed hotels, hotel groups, residential condominiums, serviced apartments, vacation rental companies, and concierge companies looking to provide exceptional service through mobile staff technology and guest communication channels. Third-party service providers also leverage the ALICE API. ALICE was founded in 2013 by Justin Effron, Alex Shashou, and Dmitry Koltunov, and has raised $13.5M to date.