For many organisations, delighting customers and driving up customer revenues at the right cost is a constant tension. But in today’s tough markets your running costs need to receive additional attention. The challenge is to cut costs while retaining customers and growing market share. Without this balance, success may well be limited. Utilise can help you to proactively manage your costs. Our projects to date have typically achieved a 20-30% reduction in a number of the costs incurred by hotels and guest houses.
Reducing costs has immediate bottom-line benefits that would take a great deal of work and effort to match through increased turnover. In a difficult economic climate, effectively managing these costs down can make the difference between profit and loss for some businesses.
“Often with very high consumption, 80% of hotels pay more than they need to on their energy bills”
Case Studies
Energy
Busy managing the business, dealing with staff issues, customers and suppliers, time spent trawling through energy contracts often feels like time wasted. You may have many locations or perhaps many gas or electricity meters within your operation. Utilise can help you manage your complete portfolio. Many hotels and guest houses have welcomed our free service that will do all of this for you.
Taking care of your administration and going to the whole market then producing a competitive tendered report, to ensure that you are getting the best prices available.
To support a busy hotel manager, firstly we got full contract information on the entire energy portfolio. We diarised all relevant dates and managed the contract dates. At the appropriate times we tendered all of the energy contracts with the dependable suppliers in the market. With- comprehensive and transparent market reports they could see exactly what new prices were available. We demonstrated, against their renewal and current prices, the exact savings for each meter. We made independent recommendations (we work for the client, not the suppliers), but the choice was always theirs to make.
The company now have an Individual Account Manager who they can contact about any issues with their supply or contract. The friendly personalised service has resulted in this company being confident that they can concentrate on running their business, while they know that Utilise are managing their costs.
Utilise only deal in fixed-prices. An hotel saved 22% p.a. with prices fixed for a two year term to protect them from future price increases.
LPG
LPG is a cost-effective energy source for a number of, hotels and guest houses across Britain, Our clients use LPG for heating and cooking preferring its higher temperatures and controllability.
Supply is from either bulk tanks installed on your premises, or from a range of gas cylinders. LPG is sourced from all the major UK oil refineries. Bulk LPG is delivered to customers nationwide via fleets of tankers. The gas cylinders are delivered by truck to customers all over the UK.
Utilise recently worked with a rural guest house by clarifying the terms of the existing contract, then arranged for an industry expert to visit the site to investigate the health and safety requirement for using LPG on-site, and then arrange to quote for the LPG with a fully transparent pricing proposal.
The exercise achieved a cost savings of 12% p.a.and had provided the client with a specialist relationship manager to advise on LPG, together with a 24/7 emergency helpline.
Telecoms and ICT
The ICT needs within a modern hotel or guest house are potentially very complex. A high quality business grade broadband ensures that you have a wide variety of solutions to satisfy your demands. If you are wishing for your customers to have internet access or if you just wish to have best-quality broadband for your own online booking or ordering systems, our experienced technical sales team will go through all the options available to you in plain English and guide you to selecting the correct solution. Our consultants will manage the project from the initial contact to maintaining the system throughout its lifecycle
Our telecoms team analysed the telecoms usage including landlines and mobiles ascertained that many hotels were only using a fraction of the calls that they were paying for. Utilise then tendered the contract to all of the major mobile operators and achieved substantial savings with better quality smart-phones. A VoIP system is currently being considered.
The exercise achieved a cost savings of 24% on landlines and 31% on mobiles.
Insurance
Whether you run a bed and breakfast, a boutique hotel or a guesthouse, the appropriate insurance cover is essential. When it comes to the hospitality industry, every business is unique. From Buildings and Contents cover through to Business Interruption and Loss of Licence, hotel and guest house insurance policies can be designed specifically for your business.
Cover can include: Buildings Insurance; Accidental Damage Cover; Loss of Licence; Business Interruption; Employers’ Liability; Public Liability; Products Liability; Legal Expenses Insurance including cover for contract disputes.
We know that providing the best possible service to your clients is your priority, and we understand that there may be times when you need some extra support with issues which may fall outside of your control.
Postage
If you send more than five letters or parcels per day from your charity, there may be savings available to you. Also costs for bulk mail shots of bills and newsletters can be greatly reduced when you need to advertise promotions, events or provide client information updates.
We can arrange for a review of your operation with a “no cost, no commitment” audit, enabling you to check if you are buying optimally or not.
You can achieve postage savings on all mail categories including: letters; large letters; packets; parcels. This applies to Next Day, 2-3 day, and seven day UK postal services.
For lower volumes of mail where either postage stamps or franking machines are currently being used, our postage experts have recently brought in savings of over 12.5%.