This case study highlights the partnership between AOL Services and B_Smart Services, a leading provider of hotel self-check-in solutions across Europe. As B_Smart scaled rapidly, their support team faced challenges with fragmented property data, slow diagnostics, and complex PMS workflows, which slowed response times and impacted guest satisfaction. To address these bottlenecks, AOL leveraged Apaleo, a modern, API-first Property Management System, as a centralized platform for real-time property and guest information.

By integrating Apaleo, AOL provided its agents with a single source of truth, enabling them to verify bookings, room status, and key card activation instantly, without navigating multiple legacy systems. Comprehensive training, combining B_Smart’s technical expertise and AOL’s internal proficiency programs, ensured agents could quickly master Apaleo workflows, accelerating onboarding and boosting confidence.

Through real-time data access, streamlined processes, and focused training, AOL significantly reduced average handle time, increased first-call resolution, and improved overall accuracy. This collaboration positioned AOL as a key partner in delivering fast, reliable, and scalable hotel support, allowing B_Smart Services to enhance the guest experience while efficiently expanding its network of properties.

1. The Challenge: Information Bottlenecks in Real-Time
Support

When AOL first partnered with B_Smart Services to manage their hotel self-check-in support,
the primary challenge was accessing accurate, up-to-the-minute property and guest data across
a diverse network of hotels. 1

•  Siloed Data: Hotel property data (room status, guest bookings, payment info) was often
  scattered across different Property Management Systems (PMS).
•  Slow Diagnostics: Agents frequently wasted time calling properties or navigating
  fragmented systems just to verify basic information (e.g., “Is this room truly clean?”, “Is
  the key card activated?”).
•  Complex Onboarding: Training agents on multiple, complex legacy PMS platforms was
  time-consuming and led to slower overall agent proficiency. 2

The goal was to provide instant, reliable support for self-check-in issues, which required
instant, centralized data access.

2. Our Solution: Apaleo – The Unified Data Platform

AOL worked closely with B_Smart Services to leverage the Apaleo platform as the centralized
source of truth for all property and guest data. Apaleo’s robust, API-first structure was the key to
unlocking support efficiency. 3

A. Real-Time Data Consolidation

• Single Source of Truth: Apaleo allowed our agents to view crucial
  information—including booking status, room inventory, guest details, and check-in
  history—for all B_Smart properties via a single, clean interface. This eliminated the need
  to access multiple hotel-specific PMS systems.
• Instant Problem Solving: Agents could confirm the status of a guest’s booking or
  troubleshoot a failed key card action in real-time, without delays. 4

B. Strategic Training and Implementation

• Seamless Knowledge Transfer: Initial agent training was conducted externally by
  B_Smart’s experts, focusing on the core principles of the self-check-in system.
• Internal Proficiency Mastery: This was followed by comprehensive internal training by
  AOL specialists, focusing entirely on Apaleo’s interface and specific workflows. This
  ‘train-the-trainer’ approach ensured the implementation was smooth, fast, and scalable
  for new hires.

3. The Results: Speed, Accuracy, and Agent Confidence

The implementation of Apaleo fundamentally transformed the efficiency and quality of support
delivered by AOL’s team for B_Smart Services.