Hotel Management • August 2021 • Bounte

Are you giving away staff resources? You are if you haven’t modernized your lost and found. Lost and found is a hassle, and sometimes a nightmare for all parties concerned. And it’s one of hotels’ drains on productivity.

Hotel employees spend tremendous time and energy tracking down guests’ lost items (46 million a year), logging, and storing found items. Lost and found procedures have many manual steps and can be as disorganized as the storage room itself.

Because it’s a back-office operation, lost and found is easy to overlook when prioritizing upgrades. “It’s a cost of doing business,” GMs say. But not having a digital lost and found process cuts into your hotel’s profitability and loyalty.

BOUNTE is a software company that modernizes hospitality and travel lost and found and parcel tracking operations.

BOUNTE’s SaaS platform combines artificial intelligence (AI), mobile, and cloud technologies to streamline and automate lost and found management without significant IT investment and oversight.

BOUNTE shrinks the time it takes to process lost and found items by 75%, compared to manual tracking methods and time-consuming data entry. Its guest-driven shipping process for item returns can add a modest revenue stream.

How easy is this? With a smartphone, take a picture of an item left behind, and it’s added to your lost and found. BOUNTE identifies the item and assigns keywords and descriptions. BOUNTE’s AI detects images, logos, brands, and colors, while its OCR technology masks credit card numbers and personally identifiable information.

Search thousands of lost and found items in less than a second with real-time queries and filtering capabilities. BOUNTE’s SMS text system automatically alerts staff to lost, found, and returned items.

Found items that go unclaimed can be managed with BOUNTE’s reporting and disposition management features.

With BOUNTE Protect, hotel staff secures found items in a sealable BOUNTE bag with optional hotel branding. Each bag has an individualized barcode for tracking and storage. Low-touch, hygienic, and safety standards applied to possessions left behind can extend a hotel’s commitment to cleanliness.

BOUNTE PT™ uses AI technology to transform package management. At intake, scan the package label with a smartphone; the BOUNTE PT app auto-checks your hotel PMS for the recipient’s reservation. At a glance, you’ll know how long an item has been stored. Respond to guest inquiries with integrated search. Signature capture on guest pick-up is integrated and supported on any touch mobile device.

If a guest has checked out, found items can rejoin their owners in three easy steps: An employee enters the parcel details and the guest’s email address using BOUNTE’s shipping wizard. The guest receives a hotel-branded email message, enters a shipping address, and selects a shipping option. The team member logs in, prints the shipping label, and calls for pickup.

Lost and found can be a guest’s final encounter with a property that makes a lasting impression. It only takes a moment to post a negative review. Getting this service right is imperative. BOUNTE eliminates the pain of lost and found processing, maximizes efficiency, and boosts the bottom line while providing an efficient, secure, positive experience for guests.