Front Desk
Professional passenger processing — fast but still friendly
Much of your company’s reputation is formed already at Front Desk – if staff are able to assist your passengers swiftly and accurately this will contribute greatly toward overall guest satisfaction. At Rescompany, we certainly recognize the vital importance of minimizing processing delays and providing the best possible operational support to your frontline staff; and, as a logical consequence, we developed the following set of modules.
Front Office
The Front Office module offers the most comprehensive feature set, ranging from processing guest reservations; executing guest check-in/check-out; managing visitor lists; issuing passenger cards; sending guest messages; managing cabin inventory; posting / discounting / voiding charges, acquiring payment card data, and settling on-board accounts; and more. Furthermore, in addition to the dedicated passenger manifests for customs / immigrations clearance – such as the US eNOAD and the UK BCP – there is also a Manifest Wizard with which complex manifests can be generated directly by crew members themselves.
The set of pre-defined standard reports include House Keeping reports, Birthday lists, Guest Bills, Lifeboat / Muster station lists, Special Requests / Special Assistance / Kids and Teens reports etc., and if a new, bespoke report is required it can rapidly be developed thanks to the powerful Reporting Engine.
The flexibility of the Front Office module allows it to be used both at desktop PCs at Reception Desk as well as on laptops during temporary deployments in the Cruise Terminal area during guest embarkation.
eCheckIn
In order to improve mobility, ease of use, and offline support, Rescompany added the eCheckIn module to the product portfolio. This module, which runs on tablet computers, can be deployed in Cruise Terminals to replace many or all of the usual, laptop-based check-in terminals, and will support roaming and queue killing.
Additionally, thanks to its offline capabilities (which improves operational resilience in case of network outages) eCheckIn can be also used in locations away from the ship, such as hotel lobbies or airport coaches, to execute check-in away from the Cruise Terminal, thus reducing embarkation processing times even further.
Card Wizard
Although board card printing is available in Front Office, the Card Wizard module offers dedicated functionality, typically used for complex batch printing operations during the preparation phase of a large-scale guest embarkation, and for printing all the additional types of cards supported by Resco PMS, that is, crew cards, visitor cards, server cards, and system account cards.
In addition to printing, board cards can also be encoded to carry various kinds of embedded data. This can be performed using different technologies, such as writing to magnetic stripes or storing data on RFID chips.
Back Office
The Chief Purser’s little helper
The primary tool available to the Chief Purser is the Back Office module. Here, pursers can easily manage the ship’s on-board accounts for Guests, Crew, Staff, and for so-called System accounts. Furthermore, actions such as account routing, transfer of charges, discounting / voiding, and payments / settlements are readily available and straightforward to perform.
The management of cruises is another important area. For instance, Business Day switch-over and Cruise close-down procedures are fully supported, cruise itineraries and location information can be managed here as well.
Naturally, the Back Office features are complemented by a wide variety of reports; e.g., standard Account List, Sales, Balance Revenue, Payment and Auditing reports are available, and can be further customized based on complex client requirements.
Reservation Import
In case automated transfer of cruise reservation data from Resco RCS is not in use on the vessel, the Reservation Import module can be used instead to batch-load bookings for guests scheduled to arrive for a particular sailing, together with their excursion bookings and any other pre-booked services.
Resco PMS supports not only generic CSV/Excel-based file templates – which can be used as a basic but powerful means of data import – but also a number of client-specific custom reservation import formats of varying complexity; further imports can be developed, based on customer request.
Cashbook
The Cashbook module is designed to be used by Purser or Crew Purser on board the ship and can keep track of all incoming and outgoing cash flows. Multiple cashbooks can be created to handle more than one currency, and can be kept open for a cruise, month, or season at a time. A number of detailed reports can be generated and their data exported to a range of different common file formats, such as Excel and PDF.
Safety/Security/eMustering
When knowing who is where is essential!
The well-being of every guest and crew member on a ship is of vital importance, and Rescompany naturally offer solutions to deal with all aspects of safety and security – both aboard and on shore.
In addition to controlling physical ship access, the Gangway module keeps track of people’s movement on and off the vessel, which offers the crew a real-time view of exactly who is present on board, and provides the data needed to initiate a mustering at any given time.
Running on mobile devices, the eMuster module can be used in General Emergency, Crew Drills, Muster Station, Abandon Ship and Landfall situations. The Emergency Control Centre (ECC) is set up on a PC on board, with the mobile devices communicating with the ECC as well as with each other. Guests can be checked into the muster stations manually, or by scanning guest ID cards with barcode or RFID support. The pictures taken of guests upon embarkation will be displayed on the mobile device at time of check in, to ensure positive identification.
The eSouls module – the latest addition to Rescompany’s set of safety tools – can be deployed at a cruise line’s shore-side Operations Centre to provide time-critical mustering information via satellite.
POS/ePOS/Food Order
Powerful, flexible, mobile
Rescompany’s ePOS is a point-of-sales module that is suitable for use in bars and restaurants, as well as in the boutiques, casinos, SPAs, and other typical concessioner outlets.
Posted sales are immediately visible on guest accounts, and an advanced Surcharge Engine supports complex and powerful rules to be defined for various discounts, fees, taxes, and all-inclusive setups.
Crew can use the same physical POS station by switching between outlets and post against different revenue departments.
The ePOS module can run on POS terminals, tablets and even standard PCs – this allows departments without dedicated touchscreen hardware (say, Housekeeping or Reception) to still post any sales quickly and efficiently using their regular workstation and mouse.
When deployed on a tablet, ePOS enables wait staff to place orders for guests while moving around dining rooms or bars, allowing the galley and the bar to start preparing the orders without delay.
The accompanying POS Management module allows Provision Masters to perform daily deduction from Inventory; Bar, Shop and SPA managers may use it to add or amend details of the products and services they have on offer; and shore side staff may be interested in sales reports to identify top-selling items.
Detailed reports of per-item/per-server sales, voids, discounts, and more are readily available, and existing reports can be further customised or new ones created according to the needs of the client.
For companies with Fleet Management needs the setup of items, layout, surcharges, discounts etc. can be done centrally ashore and synchronised with onboard system. POS sales can be synchronised almost instantly with Resco Central for complain resolution, reporting, marketing and prediction analysis.
Furthermore, the sales data collected on board immediately alters outlet stock levels visible in Resco Inventory. It can be also used to perform automated deductions through Rescompany’s interfaces to other inventory systems or be exported to shore-side data warehouses.
Food Ordering
An extension to the Resco ePOS module, called Food Order, supports your service staff in bars and restaurants when they take orders at tables. Food items can be quickly selected from a set menu and assigned to the proper seat at the table. Items are grouped into starter / main / dessert, but can easily be moved between groups, and the menus can be based on templates.
Since orders are transferred automatically to bar and galley, waiters can give their full attention to interacting with the guests. In the galley, contextualized status screens show orders pending / fulfilled, and highlight order delays and last-minute adjustments, thus ensuring that chefs can rapidly assess the overall service situation and are able to process outstanding orders in a timely fashion.
Thanks to the seamless integration with ePOS, waiters can effortlessly move between taking orders for food and for beverages, thereby following the same simple workflow at all times.
To help the galley prepare each day’s service, detailed historical data can be analysed to estimate the number of dishes needed for each sitting, through day-on-day, week-on-week or prior-cruise statistics.
Excursion Sales
Sail the seas, then see the sights
Shore excursions play a significant role in ensuring a great overall guest experience, and Rescompany offers the comprehensive and intuitive Excursion Sales module to support your on-board operations.
Pre-booked and pre-paid excursions can easily be imported together with related cruise reservations from Resco CRS or through separate, dedicated interfaces – or even via the powerful Web API.
Then, during the cruise, guests can walk over to the vessel’s shorex desk and discuss with your sales staff what exciting trips are available, or simply use the stand-alone kiosk at their leisure. The shorex kiosk is a multi-language, self-service solution; it presents trip details, availability information, and pricing. Guests can also view prior bookings and make new ones through web, mobile phones and Interactive TV (ITV).
The Excursion Sales module handles all relevant data management, such as sales, cancellations, refunds, discounts, wait-listing, participant lists, ticket printing and more, while also offering detailed reports on vacancies, cancellations, sales and revenue, with the possibility of exporting these data to multiple file formats.
Additionally, excursion data will be automatically synchronized back to your shore-side office in near real-time thanks to Resco’s advanced and high-performance Fleet Management system.
Loyalty Management & Resco CRM
Recognize and reward your repeaters
The Club Enrollment module allows your guests to participate in a loyalty programme, which can easily be tailored to fit corporate branding and other marketing requirements.
New members of the programme can sign up via a user-friendly web portal – prior to embarkation or during their cruise – as well as via their smartphones. This interface provides members with the ability to select welcome gifts; update their personal details; check their points and tier status; and manage redemption.
As a special recognition of your most valued guests, or perhaps to give newcomers a warm welcome, you can issue gifts and vouchers that guests can later claim whilst on board.
Thanks to the tight integration with the Resco CRM solution, point earnings during a cruise and any changes to the club member’s profile will be synchronized ship-to-shore so that once the guest debarks those updates will be immediately visible shore-side as well.
The historical data of past cruises and spending patterns of your passengers are available on shore-side – enabling you to identify patterns and develop optimal marketing strategies – as well as in the PMS/POS, helping your crew enhance the on-board experience and properly recognise your most valued guests.
Inventory & Supply Chain
Follow the (material) flow
The powerful Inventory module can be customised to follow your company processes to source and procure various type of stock items, from food & beverage inventory to inventories for uniforms, consumables & durables, onboard boutiques, and so forth.
The ship-based part of the Inventory system handles ordering, invoicing and stock takes, and is based on the concept of having one Main Store, which can be made up of several Store Rooms, and multiple Cost Points, with items being issued in the inventory module when they physically change location aboard the vessel.
The POS sales data generated on board update outlet stock levels in Resco Inventory in real time. Additionally, there are system-level interfaces available to automate deductions in external inventory systems, and data can also be exported to shore-side data warehouses as required.
The system is geared to provide guidance during demand planning, and provide forecasts based on historical data of consumption by various criteria, including regions, age groups, nationalities, etc. Any previous order can be used as a template when preparing a new one, with projected quantities adjusted automatically and manually. As a final step, wizard-like functionality is used to reconcile orders with deliveries and invoices.
Rescompany is further extending this functionality by adding Central Supply Chain management of inventory items, with data being transferred and synchronised continuously between shore and ship. Products can be created and amended, both locally and centrally; cost and sale prices adjusted; and item availability and delivery information updated. Inventory documentation, such as orders, transfers, invoices etc. is also being exchanged, and is immediately available for adjustments – both locally on the ship, as well as centrally in shore office.
Full procurement life cycle – including vendor management and communication, support for negotiations and contracting, logistics and shipment, budgeting, costs tracking and analysis – is now becoming part of the Supply Chain functionality as well.
A dedicated web portal and a mobile app are available for suppliers to provide quotes; participate in bidding processes; and handle orders, agreements and invoicing; thus allowing the suppliers to interact directly with the Resco system. Optionally, such information can be imported from CSV/Excel files, or provided through the Resco WebAPI.
eConcierge: Inventory operations on a mobile phone
Inventory: stock on hand data available on ePOS terminals
Naturally, a wide variety of common reports is readily available – including Stock Book Reports, Consumption Reports and Forecast Reports – with customer-specific reports quickly added if needed.
Crew Management
Care for your crew
Most crew management-related activities are handled in two dedicated Resco modules, called Crew Administration and Safety Management, which complement each other and offer a comprehensive set of features to assist Crew Purser and Safety Officer, among others, during their daily duties.
Crew Administration deals with a wide array of duties, such as arrival/departure lists and sign-on/sign-off during crew rotation; Human Resource activities and management of contract details; declaration of personal effects for customs purposes; tracking and confirmation of position changes; management of certificates and their expiry dates; courses and trainings; and much more. A rich set of reports is also available, to support the creation of cabin lists, days-at-sea, black lists, sign off slips, etc.
Basing on the crew data maintained in Crew Administration, the Safety Management module is then used to handle the crew from a safety perspective, i.e., to inspect Courses and Certificates; to assign safety number and positions; to set up, enroll, execute, and keep detailed track of the attendance of all types of safety drills. The reporting capabilities include the generation of mustering and lifeboat reports, fire team lists, safety card handouts, and drill attendance records.
However, crew management is certainly not limited to just those two modules – rather, it is seamlessly integrated into all relevant areas of Resco PMS. For instance, once signed on, crew will automatically appear in the Gangway module; their on-board accounts will be visible in Back Office; and the eMuster system will of course recognise crew members, to allow assignment and tracking during drills and emergencies.
eConcierge
The crew member’s Swiss Knife
The eConcierge mobile app is a cross-platform, cross-role tool added to the Resco PMS software suite to aid crew members during their daily efforts, by improving both their mobility and performance.
Running on standard Android and iOS mobile devices, eConcierge offers a wide range of features, such as issue tracking (AVO), point-of-sale (POS), check-in/check-out and various other reception desk functionality.
Offline capabilities ensure eConcierge can be used even when wireless connectivity is limited or non-existent (typically in enclosed spaces, when operating outside, or if the network itself is affected by an issue). Data will re-synchronise automatically once connectivity has been restored.
AVO
AVO – or Avoid Verbal Orders – allows crew members to effortlessly communicate maintenance issues to the party responsible for fixing them, for instance: air conditioning problems to the HVAC Engineer, a broken door to the Carpenter, and so forth. Each issue added to AVO is given a unique reference number, used to track the issue as its status changes throughout its lifecycle.
Naturally, AVO is available also on standard workstations and not only on smartphones and PDAs, allowing, e.g., receptionists to enter new issues and browse through existing ones using full screen, keyboard and mouse.
Check-In
Adding mobility to the normally quite static embarkation procedure enables check-in staff to roam the terminal or re-position themselves quickly if/when such need arises. Compared to the full-featured Front Office module, the check-in functionality in eConcierge reduces of the inherent complexity in order to adapt a rapid and highly streamlined process instead.
With much of the data populated upfront, and sporting easy-to-operate entry forms, the processing is both swift and accurate – the app can even scan documents, such as passports and national identification cards, using the normal embedded camera found in all of today’s mobiles.
POS
To complement Rescompany’s ePOS module, which can run on both desktop computers as well as tablets, the eConcierge mobile app offers point-of-sale functionality too. Thanks to the support for smaller form factors, devices are highly portable – most would fit snugly in a pocket – and waiters will be able to carry such light-weight devices throughout the entire shift without getting worn out and tired.
In a fast-paced restaurant or bar setting, the user interface must be responsive, accurate and have an operating system-native feel, and that’s what we have focused on: Browsing and searching through even large groups of sales items is fast, as is switching between currently open transactions. And when selecting the paying guest, embarkation photos are displayed, thus ensuring the correct board account is chosen.
Ticketless Excursions
Excursions – is used to manage shore excursion operations in port by checking in participants as they arrive at a meeting point on board. The bookings are then synchronised to a mobile and used at each bus to log each person who attended. Walk-ins are also catered for and are charged when the device is synchronised back on board.
Resco’s excursions app saves paper and time spent distributing tickets to cabins, as well as removing touchpoints. Guests spend less time queuing and reports of all people on each bus / tour can be provided.
eGuest
The finishing touch to a great guest experience
The Resco eGuest module is a feature-rich, cross-platform mobile app, running on Android, iOS and Windows smartphones. It offers your passengers a wide range of information, allows online booking of activities, supports personal messaging, and more.
To guarantee it’s fresh, information presented is retrieved directly from Resco’s database. Guests can look at deck maps; study the cruise itinerary and read up on the ports visited; get the latest news; learn about the onboard restaurants, bars and other outlets and services; browse and book events and activities, such as shore excursions or restaurant tables; check their personal details, reservations, messages, and account balance; etc.
Naturally, the app can also be rapidly tailored to your specific requirements and themed to fit your overall company branding, ensuring a consistent and coherent corporate image.
Resco Business Intelligence
Gaining essential insights from your data
Advanced reporting is part of the package – the Resco BI offers you a separate platform consisting of tools for transformation of raw reservation, passenger, and on-board systems data into meaningful and useful information for business analysis purposes.
Reports created with Crystal Reports use real-time data and can be generated on request or scheduled to run automatically and be distributed by email. Data can be presented also over BI dashboards, an approach that allows users to modify the layout the way they need it. Dashboards are based on templates — a set of those already comes with the system, and can be used to create more, by using the provided dashboard designer.
By using the Resco BI tools the user can access company data at anytime, anywhere – on mobile devices, in web environments, or within the Resco application itself. Effective visuals and graphical trend comparisons, such as year-on-year and week-on-week are also available.
Fleet Management
No ship is an island
Thanks to the Resco Central module, or RCS, Rescompany’s clients can now take control of many of their ship-related management tasks while still operating out of shore-side offices. This concentration of information helps ensure consistency, reduces latency, and greatly improves both efficiency and correctness of data updates.
Naturally, medium and large fleets of ocean-going vessels stand to benefit, but Resco Central also provides significant value to those who operate river and expedition ships, where the vessels themselves often have limited manpower available to perform these kinds of tasks.
For instance, clients can handle passenger check-in processes against the central database, allowing guest embarkation to proceed even in situations when the vessel itself suffers loss of communication. Additionally, check-in activities and gangway movement data are replicated from ship to shore.
Furthermore, clients can maintain guest web portals and manage visitor portals.
For POS systems, clients can set up and maintain centralized sales item master lists and manage on board packages or promotions; this information would be entered shore-side, then distributed automatically to ships, and finally activated. Similarly, the sales postings (down to item level) generated on the ship are rapidly synchronized back to shore-side, completely eliminating the need for file-based exports of sales data at end of cruise.
Clients can also coordinate gift orders and voucher schemes; manage ship visitors (such guests or contractors), supervise shore- and ship-based loyalty enrolments and benefit redemption; perform urgent crisis management; and process complaints / claims / compensation and guest surveys.
