With Zammad, we're perfectly equipped for our growth

Why a Ticketing System?

Adina Hotels are currently represented with eleven hotels in Europe. They use a total of around 30 different systems for bookings, payments, and much more. A large part of the related support requests from the employees goes to the Systems department in Berlin.

There they are answered by Daniel Bollmann and his colleague - in German and English. Until June 2019, this happened via a classic Outlook inbox or simply by telephone. "However, this was very uncoordinated," says Bollmann. "We had to send emails back and forth all the time ... we needed a structured approach. So we were looking for a ticket system.

Today all employees are registered in Zammad - the Systems team as "agents" and their colleagues as "customers". But how was the transition?

The Start With Zammad

During the research, different tools from big players (such as Jira) were compared to those from smaller providers. "It was clear: the tool must be simple and stable, and shouldn’t need much maintenance,“ says Bollmann. "It should be as easy as possible both for agents and customers. Everyone should be able to learn how to use it quickly.“ Does Zammad fulfill this? "Oh yes - and even more: It also offers first-class support and comprehensible documentation that is always up to date. That makes it perfect."

Adina Hotels decided to implement the system step by step. "First we wanted to try it for half a year to see if Zammad would suit us," Bollmann remembers. "In June 2019, we started testing Zammad. A few weeks later, all other teams joined us. Soon after we extended the license – the half-year period wasn’t even over yet!“

"During the implementation, we simply introduced Zammad as a virtual new colleague. This made it clear to all employees: "When I need support, I write to the always helpful Zammad!“

"In the beginning, we sometimes had to remind our colleagues to send their issues via Zammad," says Bollmann. "But that works better and better. It is now also an integral part of onboarding and we do regular training sessions with the teams in our hotels. So everyone knows: the virtual colleague "Zammad" is always there, and even if it takes a while, you finally get an answer. There are no questions about the tool itself and it was widely accepted right from the start.“

Everyday Life With Zammad

My day begins with a look around Zammad, prioritizing the tickets," says Bollmann. "Since many questions repeat themselves, the text modules are a great help. Everything I learn in everyday life with Zammad I add to the knowledge base. This way, all tricks and tips can be viewed by all employees – and also by future colleagues.

The Systems team draws many conclusions from the daily work with Zammad and the resulting reports. "Zammad tells us a lot about our workload. This enables us to better measure, estimate, and plan our time spent answering incoming tickets."

But the system also clarifies questions that could not be answered before. "We learn a lot about our training needs," says Bollmann. "Do the same questions or problems always repeat themselves? Then we should have a session on this! In fact, we even created "Training need" as a tag in Zammad!“

But Bollmann also sees other advantages: "We also benefit from the ticket history. Questions such as "Who applied for these rights" and similar can be answered in a flash. Thanks to the full-text search, we always find the answer quickly. That wasn't the case with Outlook in the past, where you had to dig through the archive with a lot of effort. Provided the emails were saved in the first place..."

And not only that:

"Zammad is also very stable. It always does what it is supposed to do and what you expect.“

What does the future look like?

What is the future for Zammad and Adina Hotels? "We have many plans for the future," reveals Bollmann. "On a small scale, we would like to improve our automation. Currently, the prioritization and allocation of cases is done manually - this is something we can and will improve. In the long term, other departments will also use Zammad for inquiries.“

And on a large scale? "In the future, there will certainly be plenty of other ways to use Zammad. At the moment our focus is on our growth. Next year we will open numerous new hotels. That will be very exciting. Basically, Zammad scores with us in every respect: it is efficient, very user-friendly for both agent and customer, and offers great support. In other words: with this tool at our side, we are perfectly equipped for the future!“