Workflow Sample: To Drop Typical Japanese CRM into a Business Process

An accommodation booking system. Messages are mechanical though it is not bad at it.
Reminders come in 10 days in advance, and once more the day before. Or a questionnaire email arrives 'the next day after returning home'...

But, what if there was a heartwarming sentence added?
'How was the walk to Kinkakuji on the day you leave? Since light rain was falling, all of us employees had been worried.' Such thoughtfulness would make a tourist happy. This is what we call hospitality.

The following is an example of Reservation Management flow with 'human processing' added.

[Booking flow]

In this Workflow, it is assumed to send email on '10 days in advance' and 'the day before'.
It is very useful If you send an email directly from (or BPMS) Workflow system, because it is possible to utilize business data in the system. For example, it is possible to edit the Email statement from "a state in which such travel dates and names of customers (guests) is inserted into the template text". It also reduces critical mistakes in the guide mail, such as wrong staying dates or customer's name. If the booking person was not so busy enough to add some sentences, he or she could add a message such as 'Rain is expected tomorrow. You can also walk the underground path though it takes a little longer.'.

In this case, it is also assumed to send a thanks email "after the stay" as well. There, it is possible to create mail text with reference to of the note taken by the employee as business records. The landlady herself could write for example 'we appreciate that you gave us a word of praise to our dishes.', referring the note from the employees such as requests, Inquiries, special handling, and comments by the customer.

Such hospitality against every each customer is a characteristic of a Japanese Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Not limited to the inns hotels, various efforts have been made in a variety of industries.
e.g. Mail order companies, Car dealers, Photo shops, Moving companies, Taverns and Restaurants, Campground, Scuba diving club...

By the way, in the Cloud-based Workflow "Questetra BPM Suite", automatic calculation of date, such as "the day before" or "10 days in advance", is achieved by placing a "Service Task" which performs calculations automatically. For the details of the ServiceTask, see "Modeling: Formats of Data Calculations and Data Assignment".

P.S.
Why '10 days before'? Not '7 days before'?
In the service business that require a reservation, busyness is determined according to the day of the week. If you set the rule "that 7 days prior" to guide in advance, then you will have to do a lot of guiding work on "the busy days", and do a small amount of work on "the slow days". It is ingenuity in order to equalize the amount of work every day, so you can do a large number of advance guide work on "slow day."

[Booking flow: "3. Create 10 days advance guide"screen]