| Wragge has an excellent work environment, ranking 13th in the Financial Times’ “50 Best Workplaces in the UK,” and is also well known for its IT prowess. Last year its IT team was voted IT Team of the Year at the prestigious Law Office Technology Awards (LOTIES).
Despite this prowess, reception staff used a manual system until a major expansion of the head office focused attention on meeting room management.
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According to Reception Manager Caroline Kennedy who joined the firm in 1989, “We were using a ruler, a pencil and a pencil rubber.”
These implements were thrown out when Rendezvous from NFS Hospitality was selected to manage bookings in both the head office and the smaller London office. The system went live in February in Birmingham and the London and head office databases were linked in early July. Rendezvous is specifically designed for multi-site management.
The selection process was simple. “One of our staff had prior experience of NFS so as Rendezvous could meet our needs operationally as well as from an IT strategy point of view, it was a simple choice,” Caroline says. “The installation went smoothly, with excellent help from NFS.”
Caroline had specified a system that could handle bookings for the firm’s 31 meeting rooms at head office and another 11 rooms in London. The system also had to produce maintenance, catering and quarterly meeting reports. Naturally she wanted a user-friendly system. “Most of all I wanted simplicity as I had no experience of computerised room bookings,” she notes. “Once Rendezvous was installed, it was surprisingly easy to use – especially for a mature non-techie like me.”
At present, four reception staff in Birmingham and three in London use Rendezvous, and the results have been dramatic, Caroline says. “We’ve cut phone calls by a third which means much more time for quality service for staff and visiting clients.”
An online booking form was created in the corporate Intranet, Caroline explains. “We print the form off and decide the room assignments. Much of the assignment is quite personal as we know that particular partners like particular rooms. For example, some like the atrium rooms in our head office, while some want windows. Some like to meet in the older part of the building and some prefer the new extension.”
The new extension, completed in 2001, doubled the number of meeting rooms in Birmingham office to 31 while the London office has 11. Wragge has its own in-house catering and is often called on for silver service at lunchtime. “Rendezvous handles everything – menus, wine, flowers – the works,” Caroline says.
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