Customer Spotlight: Soho House & Co

About Soho House & Co

Soho House was founded in Greek Street, London, in 1995, as a private members’ club for those in film, media, and the creative industries. Their portfolio has since expanded to include 25 establishments across the UK, Europe, North America, and Asia, with several more in the pipeline. While each site flaunts its distinct personality, they all share the mission of offering members and guests a home and a community away from home.

We recently had a chat with Lukas Peter, Global Head of Revenue at Soho House & Co to find out how he and his team have benefitted from Lighthouse’s Rate and Business Intelligence tools. He outlined how these solutions save time, and facilitate well-informed decision-making, and what he appreciates most about Lighthouse’s customer service.

Ease of use and smooth roll-out

When I first joined Soho House, I worked with the team to build up the revenue department from scratch. Finding and implementing relevant systems was part of this project. We were looking for a solution that would provide accurate live competitor data all while being easy to set up and use. Rate Insight stood out to us since it looked both straightforward and highly effective.

Having worked with Rate Insight for over four years now, I know it was the right choice. First, it was extremely easy to set up and we went live in no time. Second, it’s an intuitive tool and the entire team enjoys working with it. Finally, we couldn’t be happier with the high-quality, live data.

Shortly after implementing Rate Insight, we also began using Business Intelligence. Here, the learning curve felt a little steeper. That was partly because the business model of our members-only club differs from the traditional hotel for which Business Intelligence was created.

However, after a short while we were able to fully leverage the solution’s data and I wouldn’t want to go back to working without these accurate, real-time, and well-presented performance insights.

Saving time with immediate access to reliable live data

Implementing Rate Insight proved to be a massive time saver. In the past, we had tasked our night team with running manual rate shops on the competition. This took them several hours and yielded complex Excel reports that were often outdated by the morning. Now I can see all the live compset data for any property in the portfolio whenever I refresh my browser.

The room type comparison in Rate Insight allows us to drill down and see how we measure up against other properties on a deeper level. This has proven especially effective at newer sites where we’re still finding our place in the market and need to refine our positioning.

Apart from that, the price positioning graph is my favorite part of the tool. It illustrates how our rates compare to our compset and it even reveals the rate evolution for each date. This easy-to-read visual format shows me if we’re appropriately positioned or if we need to adjust our rates to drive more business on certain dates.

Faster, more accurate performance reporting

Business Intelligence saves us hours on pulling reports and collating cumbersome spreadsheets. Now we just click a button and get a property’s full performance reports. They’re easy to read and provide accurate actionable data in a visual format.

The detailed segmentation insights are helpful for us because they let me track each membership tier’s production. Since I can look at this data for individual properties and our brand as a whole, I spot opportunities for improvement and can act on them quickly. These insights have proven invaluable, and I wouldn’t want to work without them anymore.

Data as a guiding light in challenging times

Lighthouse’s BI solutions have been enormously helpful during the pandemic. We used Rate Insight to follow the compset’s price changes in real time and monitored their reactions to the radical demand shifts. This live information helped us stay up to date and manage our positioning even during the most volatile periods.

We also leveraged Rate Insight’s data to quickly adapt our strategy and make necessary rate adjustments in time. In short, Rate and Business Intelligence provided the information we needed to get all our properties through the crisis in one piece. Without these tools, this would have been an even bigger challenge.

Fast, dedicated customer support

The customer support has been fantastic from the get-go. This goes for our account manager as well as the technical support team.

Their response time is extremely fast. We usually get answers within just a few minutes. If the agent can’t resolve our request right away, they immediately assign it to the right person. Knowing this, I can always be confident that they’ll handle my case quickly and effectively.

Customer support has even reached out to us proactively when they detected an issue with data integration. We quickly took the needed actions and were able to avoid any downtime or delays.

A word to your peers

Getting Rate Insight and Business Intelligence has been one of the best investments we’ve made regarding revenue management. These solutions save us vast amounts of time every day and provide the detailed market and performance data we need to always remain well-positioned and capture bookings at optimal rates. The added revenue this generates goes far beyond the monthly subscription for Lighthouse.

Finally, their outstanding customer support sets them apart from other hotel tech vendors.