Long-standing Tevalis client, Mollie’s Motel & Diner, wins:
First opening in Oxfordshire in 2019, Mollie’s brought contemporary Soho House interiors and an easy-going vibe to UK roadsides, with an ethos built on providing a premium experience at a great price. With major expansion plans in the pipeline, the stylish brand has partnered with industry-leading hospitality technology providers to create a progressive digital ecosystem that puts its guests at the forefront of its operations whilst explicating processes for its staff.
This year saw Mollie’s win the Best Use of Technology award at The Cateys for their integrated technology solution. This accolade is significant as recipients are nominated and rewarded by peer recommendation, meaning Mollie’s has been recognised across the industry as providing a revolutionary guest experience through its comprehensive hospitality technology ecosystem. Traditional hospitality systems are often complex and misaligned with the guest experience. To overcome this, Mollie’s and its tech partners developed the Mollie’s App: as
the primary guest interface, the app enables online check-in, a digital room key, 24-hour online chat, and control of the 50-inch Smart TVs. The app also allows guests to pre-book EV charging bays and cast Netflix or Spotify from their phone to the TV. Reviews of their intuitive app are compellingly positive, with one guest stating in The Times: “Bonus points for hotel tech that means you receive an alert as soon as your room is ready – no waiting around until 3pm.”
Integrated within Mollie’s technology ecosystem alongside the app are marketleading systems that drive revenue and sustain time, labour, and efficiency savings. Tevalis provides an operationally focused EPOS system consolidated with intuitive OnPremise and Enterprise solutions: bespoke kitchen management and Drive-Thru collection screens, online ordering, TevX mobile handheld ordering, and end-to-end stock management and business reporting. The tailored software and robust hardware communicate seamlessly, optimising
processes and increasing efficiency across the business. Tevalis also integrated with partners SevenRooms for restaurant reservations and table availability, Preoday for pay-at-table services, and Deliverect for online orders, creating a guest-focused, data-driven, and commercially affordable EPOS system that will evolve as the business grows.
Aligning with Tevalis and its partners, Mollie’s pioneering technology is also built with Alliants, Toggle, Apaleo, and Hotelappz. In-app gift cards and breakfast vouchers are provided by Toggle, increasing guest satisfaction and engagement, property management and a central transactions engine with integrated accounting are supplied by Apaleo, whilst Hotelappz implements Mollie’s CRM with the guest hub and marketing automation. Alliants had a central role in the overall consultation and design of the technology ecosystem, leading the app development and omnichannel guest experience.
Mollie’s initial objectives were to drive customer retention through an outstanding guest experience whilst automating
operations as much as possible and optimising costs and labour. Ensuring ease of use for staff as well as capturing conducive customer and business data was key, and with all systems fully integrated these objectives have not only been achieved but have surpassed preliminary expectations.
This unified digital guest-focused solution ultimately accomplished 40% reduced operational costs, increased booking conversion rates by 120%, and saved over five hours a week on customer service. Mollie’s brand ideology of bringing a truly guest-centric experience continues to be effectuated as a higher average spend per guest has been achieved and app downloads have increased by 459%.
With multiple new sites planned, including a Mega Mollie’s projected to open in Manchester in 2023, their advanced technology ecosystem needed to be immediately agile and sufficiently scalable and flexible for upcoming motels. The technology platform is skilfully designed, and its complete implementation means new deployment lead times are significantly reduced, with a
40% operations cost reduction. This uplift has come at the best time as the industry is seeing rising costs and margins across all areas of operations.
With its recent achievement of Best Use of Technology, the future of Mollie’s is bright. Its guests will continue to experience warmth and comfort in its fresh Soho House rooms, with seamless digital technology accompanying them throughout their stay.
As Darren Sweetland, Managing Director of Mollie’s, says, ‘‘As our brand and footprint continue to grow, we will continue to innovate and invest in the optimal technology to create the perfect guest experience.’’
