Philadelphia's award-winning, five-diamond Rittenhouse Hotel prides itself on service that spans specialized clock plates keyed to a traveler's hometown and getting a limousine for a guest on time. Facilitating such niceties is software that ties customer relationship management to the Rittenhouse property management system.

“To try to keep track of these kinds of things on paper is impossible,” says David Benton, vice president and general manager of the 98-room downtown landmark. “Now, it's become child's play to be able to process all this personalized information.”

Manufactured by Gold Key Solutions, the Concierge Assistant software “replaces thousands of pieces of paper,” Benton says. “We used to have a piece of paper called the 601, so when a guest told the concierge he had a limousine coming at 9 a.m., the concierge had to leaf through 20, 30, 40 of these. With Concierge Assistant, we press Limousine and in a nanosecond, all limousines booked for that particular date pop up on screen.”

Benton has customized Concierge Assistant to the Rittenhouse, linking it to the PMS. “What's very important to me and to others is what happens overnight,” Benton says. “There could be a situation where an engineer has gone to a room at 3 in the morning and not been able to fix a problem.” Now, the data can be entered and stored for the morning shift.

“If the task hasn't been completed, it doesn't change color,” he says. “Ones in a certain color are still pending. I go on every morning and see what happens overnight. I can look at it any time and see who's doing what.”