What this usually looks like
Most in-house systems start as a form on the website and a list behind it: a notebook at the desk, a shared spreadsheet, or a database someone built years ago. It works until the person who built it moves on, or until volume grows.
Searching stays manual. Every claim means someone reads the list and decides whether anything fits. Every update to a guest is an email somebody has to remember to send.
How Boomerang handles it
- Matching that runs on every new item and every new claim, with candidates ranked by score for staff to confirm.
- Guest self-service: a claim page with live status and follow-up questions, filed in under 45 seconds with no app.
- Automatic guest updates at every step, co-branded with your venue.
- Shipping labels at discounted carrier rates (USPS, FedEx, UPS and Royal Mail), paid by the guest, or pickup with a signature.
- An activity history on every item and claim, and a signature or release record at handover.
- Unclaimed views and row level exports of inventory and claims, for auctions, donations and audits.
How partners handled it
A regional US airport moved off paper notebooks. Every item is now logged on tablets with a printed label, about 90% of claims are filed online by guests, and preparing for an auction went from reading notebooks line by line to a filter and an export.
Read the regional US airport storyOne of the top 10 airports in the US and top 25 globally replaced an in-house form. After the matching engine was rebuilt on its data, the engine found 86% of recovered matches, up from 64%, and staff accepted about 40% of suggestions, up from 8%.
Read the top 10 US airport storyMost partners prefer to stay anonymous, so stories use a venue descriptor. Every number is real. More results are on Impact.
Follow-up questions
Can you import our existing records?
Yes. We bulk import your existing inventory for you, so go-live is seamless and the whole back room is searchable from day one.
Do we have to change our website?
Only to add one claim link. Guests can also reach your claim page by QR code, your help desk or confirmation emails. No app download is ever required.
Will our staff have to relearn everything?
Onboarding includes a kick-off call, hands-on training, recommended SOPs and printable QR signage for every location. Larger rollouts add on-site workshops.
Can we get our data out?
Yes. Row level exports of inventory and claims are included, and every item and claim keeps its activity history.