Success Story: An AI-Powered Management Platform for a Hotel Gardening Company
At a glance
- 200+ gardeners looking after the gardens of 40+ hotels across Spain
- One platform replacing WhatsApp groups, paper and spreadsheets across every hotel
- 5 minutes: how long it takes for a hotel to be told that a gardener hasn’t clocked in
- Every task closed with photo proof, before and after
- AI-written monthly reports for each hotel, ready to review and send
- Voice notes from the field turned into structured incidents by AI
The client
A gardening company with more than 200 gardeners looking after the grounds of over 40 hotels all over Spain. Each hotel has its own team working on site every day, and supervisors look after one or several hotels each. Their clients expect immaculate gardens, and they expect to know immediately when something goes wrong.
At that scale, every small gap multiplies: one missed absence, one lost incident or one late report, repeated across 40 hotels.
The challenge
The work was running on WhatsApp, phone calls and spreadsheets:
- No proof of work. Hotels had to take the company’s word that recurring jobs (pruning, irrigation checks, seasonal planting) were actually done.
- Absences discovered too late. When a gardener didn’t turn up, the hotel often found out before the company did.
- Incidents lost in chats. A fallen branch or a broken sprinkler was reported in a WhatsApp group, and nobody could tell later whether it had been fixed.
- Materials ordered by phone. Requests for fertiliser or tools had no record, no approval and no stock control.
- Monthly reports done by hand. Every hotel expected a monthly summary, and supervisors spent hours collecting photos and notes to build it.
What we built
A responsive web platform that works on the gardeners’ phones, the supervisors’ tablets and the office computers, with three roles: administration, supervisors and gardeners.
Hotels, zones and teams
Every hotel is set up with its zones, each with its own photo, and its team of gardeners. Supervisors can look after several hotels and switch between them in one click. Tasks are assigned to the hotel team, and gardeners complete them from their own phones.
Tasks with photo proof
- Recurring tasks (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly), including seasonal jobs with a window, such as “May to June”, instead of a fixed date
- One-off tasks, including those that come out of an incident
- Closing a task requires a photo, usually a before and an after, plus an optional comment
- Comment threads on every task and incident, so the conversation stays with the job
- Supervisors choose which completed tasks go into the hotel’s monthly report
Incidents the hotel hears about immediately
Anyone can report an incident with photos. The moment it’s created, the supervisor, the office and the hotel’s own contact list are notified by email, and again when it’s resolved. Before filing, the app reminds the gardener to call the hotel’s maintenance manager straight away if the issue is serious.
Materials and inventory
Gardeners request materials from the app. Supervisors approve, reject or mark them as delivered, everyone involved is notified at each step, and stock is tracked per hotel with adjustments and history.
Attendance, schedules and absences
- Connected to the card readers at each hotel, so every clock-in and clock-out lands in the platform in real time
- Working hours per hotel and per day of the week
- A calendar per gardener for holidays, sick leave and personal days, so planned absences never trigger an alert
The automation and AI layer
This is where the platform stops being a register and starts doing the work.
An attendance watchdog
Five minutes after the start of a shift, the platform checks who hasn’t clocked in. If someone is missing, it emails the hotel automatically (“X gardeners are missing, more information shortly”) and alerts the supervisor, who records the reason and the replacement plan. If the supervisor hasn’t done so within three hours, the alert escalates to the office. When everyone is on time, nobody is bothered.
Monthly reports written by AI
At the end of each month, the platform puts together each hotel’s report from the tasks marked for it, with their before-and-after photos, the incidents resolved and the attendance summary. AI writes the narrative: what was done in each zone, what came up and how it was solved, in a professional tone and in the hotel’s language. The supervisor reviews and edits it, then sends it. What used to take hours per hotel is now a review.
Voice notes from the field
Gardeners work with their hands, not keyboards. They can record a voice note instead of typing. AI transcribes it, works out what it is about, and fills in the incident or task comment for them: description, zone and urgency. The gardener just checks it and taps send.
Notifications that reach the right people
- In-app notifications for supervisors and the office: new incidents, material requests, unexplained absences
- Email alerts for critical events, sent to the right internal people and, for incidents and absences, to each hotel’s own contact list
How we worked
We started with workshops with management and supervisors to write down how the business really works: who does what, what the hotels expect, and which situations need an alert. That became a detailed product specification, and we built the platform in short iterations, deploying each module to the real teams and adjusting it with their feedback. That’s how details like supervisors covering several hotels, the “call first if it’s serious” reminder and the seasonal task windows came in.
The results
- Hotels see the work. Every job comes with photos, and every month arrives with a report.
- Absences are handled before the hotel notices. The client is informed within minutes, with a plan behind it.
- Nothing gets lost. Incidents, requests and comments live with the job, with a full history.
- Supervisors spend their time in the gardens, not in spreadsheets. Reporting, alerts and follow-ups run on their own.
- A professional image that wins contracts. Proof of work and monthly reporting are now part of what the company sells to new hotels.
Key takeaways
- Off-the-shelf tools rarely fit field services. A platform built around how your teams actually work gets used; a generic one gets worked around.
- Automate the alerts your clients care about. Telling a hotel about a problem before it notices is worth more than any feature.
- Put AI where the time goes. Reports and typing on a phone were the bottlenecks, and that’s exactly where AI does the work.
Need a platform like this?
If your teams still run on WhatsApp, paper and spreadsheets, we can build the platform around the way you work, with AI and automation built in from day one. Book a free discovery call.
