Maestrani Schweizer Schokoladen AG

Interview with Caroline Derungs (Head of Experience World) :

What motivated Maestrani to implement the visitor management system with n-tree?

n-tree was a good fit for us because it is a Swiss company that knows the challenges of an experience world and the entire tourism industry in Switzerland. We didn’t have to explain our operating system and what we need for it. In n-tree, we had found a partner at eye level who understood what we were talking about and where the challenges lay in our business. With n-tree you can feel the
expertise and that they also specialize in smaller leisure facilities. The match was simply very good for us.

How did the planning and project implementation work?

That worked very well. We received a project plan from n-tree and then went into implementation very quickly. With a
test environment and training courses. Petra from our team, who was mainly involved in the implementation, was
very well looked after and trained. In general, we were very well looked after. Everything was very forward-thinking and you could just tell that n-tree wasn’t doing this for the first time… Day X, when we went live, offered a few minor surprises, but still went very well. We were all very well prepared and had enough staff available. We were impressed by how calm your technicians remained throughout. In the end, everything went smoothly for our visitors.

The n-tree system is still very new in your company, can you already see positive changes and if so, which ones?

We have managed to bring in more people via the online store. The n-tree ticket store is definitely much easier than the online store we had before. That’s definitely a big plus! The fact that the application at the POS and in
The fact that the back office has become much simpler and more user-friendly has caused a great deal of rejoicing in the team… We used to sell 15% to 20% of tickets via the online store, today we are at around 30%. Last week we even had a day when we sold more tickets online than at the box office for the first time. So we have almost doubled our online sales and are definitely on the right track…

What was the biggest challenge for you in the project?

I had never evaluated and implemented an IT system before. When we realized that we would like to find another partner for the whole
system, we have created a catalog of services. This resulted in a specification sheet, which we sent to various providers as a tender. We received very surprisingly positive feedback from many people about how good and detailed our requirements profile was.
is described. We quickly weeded out the providers who we realized had little knowledge of smaller companies in the Swiss tourism industry. And that is precisely the specialty of n-tree. In my opinion, n-tree has slightly underestimated our complex entry tickets, which are booked as slots. We have over 60 ticket variants on offer. Our offer is therefore
and we also work with many partners, such as a nearby zoo. Some of our ticket categories are also available as a combined offer with such partners. We are also involved with various tourist destinations in the Eastern Switzerland-Lake Constance region. They issue guest cards, which is a very attractive offer. The challenge is
The main task is to read these guest cards in order to be able to send the correct invoice to the partners. These interfaces must be submitted correctly and still pose a challenge in some cases.

How do employees find their way around the system?

The n-tree system is basically easy to learn. The challenge in further development lies in the complexity due to the large number of ticket categories. For us, these categories and the use of promo codes are essential.

What do you want from n-tree for the future?

That n-tree remains open to our ideas. If we have an idea in the area of marketing, n-tree takes it up and supports us. That the network works and that you help us to learn from others. For example, if other small businesses have something that could help us optimize and expand our system, we would love to hear about it, so n-tree could give us suggestions for optimization.

n-tree would like to express its sincere thanks for the trust and cooperation and looks forward to a successful future together.