The Essex Finalizes Business in 4 Hours

"On average, we collect signed contracts and initial deposits and payments within just 4 hours – 98 percent faster than using the previous labor-intensive process."

GENERAL MANAGER

Opportunity

The Essex welcomes hundreds of groups each year to “Vermont’s Culinary Resort and Spa”. For their sales team, this meant juggling a large number of contracts and BEOs, as well as tracking multiple customer deposits and payments. Before Sertifi, it wasn’t always easy; on occasion, they even found themselves physically mailing out contracts.

As a result, it sometimes took a week or more to turn around a contract, and collecting credit card payments in a PCI compliant manner presented additional headaches. Physically storing paper (sometimes for events 2-3 years out), confirming credit cards long after it was submitted, or even just finding the appropriate person to unlock the secure filing cabinet took up significant time and resources for both the sales and accounting teams.

Sertifi Solution

For The Essex, the decision to implement Sertifi was about more than speeding the sales cycle. They also needed to find a way to bridge the gap between the sales and accounting teams, while minimizing administrative work.

Sertifi’s automated solution makes the process easy and seamless. When a salesperson generates a contract and sends it out for signature, they add in scheduled deposits along with due dates – no matter how far in the future. Sertifi handles the busywork, sending out customized reminders at predetermined intervals ahead of each payment due date. The accounting team is fully in the loop every step of the way. They are copied on emails and receive an instant notification as soon as a payment is received, so they can make real-time updates in Opera, The Essex's PMS.

Results

Since implementing Sertifi, The Essex has decreased the time it takes to collect signed and paid contracts from over a week to just four hours. In addition, they have realized significant gains across the organization, such as improved cash flow, modernized PCI compliance, better visibility into the sales cycle, and less time spent on admin tasks.

“We save hours of work for every group that comes through our doors. On average, we collect signed contracts and initial deposits and payments within just 4 hours – 98 percent faster than using the previous labor-intensive process. Now that we have Sertifi in place, I don’t know how we would operate without it," said The Essex's general manager.