24 Nov 2022 How to get your hotel communications ready for anything
More than any other industry, hospitality has had a tumultuous few years. From COVID to the cost of living, there’s been a vast number of challenges to face. Among the lessons learned, these difficulties have shown that preparation is key.
If you and your team can react to unexpected situations efficiently, then your business can keep the lights on and customers happy. The subject we’re getting at is business continuity, and it’s a term every hotel should get familiar with.
What is business continuity?
It’s a relatively new term, but one that has gained a lot of traction in the business world over recent years. Business continuity, often known as disaster recovery, is the act of implementing technology and processes that keep your business running smoothly, even if unexpected circumstances occur. Our specialisms (internet connectivity and communication technology) play a big part in this.
Why is business continuity important for hotels?
When it comes to keeping a hotel running smoothly, communication is everything. You need to know that your guests are always having their requests met. Your reputation is on the line.
Thankfully there are a huge range of tools and tricks that help to provide an extra layer of resilience to your operation. From ways to help your staff reduce waiting times, work with greater flexibility and even nurture long-term customer relationships.
Here’s a few of our favourites.
Embrace communications on the move
How can you ensure that all guest requirements are actioned when your team aren’t always in one place? Whether staff are in rooms or in the kitchen, your front desk staff may still need to contact them, and the way to do this is through cordless handsets.
Cordless handsets are a fully functioning business phone system, in your pocket. They connect to your hotel’s Wi-Fi, meaning you can make and receive calls no matter where you are on site.
If you’ve used similar systems before, you might be familiar with calls dropping out while staff are on the move. Not with One Connectivity. Our team are connectivity experts, taking time to strategically place Wi-Fi access points throughout your site to ensure calls stay crystal clear, even when you’re moving between floors!
Avoid downtime, every time
As we said before, with hotels, reputation matters. Especially in cities, if a potential guest can’t get through to your team first time, they might start looking elsewhere. That’s why your technology needs to be resilient enough to handle outages and avoid downtime.
Our cloud phone systems fit the bill here. Unlike a traditional phone system, which is hosted on-site and liable to any outages that affect your hotel, a cloud system offers more resilience.
It features something called geographic redundancy, which means your phones will be hosted in a data centre in a different region to your hotel. That way, if there’s an outage in your area, your phones won’t be affected. Likewise, the data centres themselves are backed up too, so if one goes down, it won’t affect you! It will just “fail over” to another data centre, with no interruption in service.
Cloud systems are also accessible from anywhere, so if a member of staff can’t reach your site, they can still handle their calls. We’ll also routinely update your system with new features and security patches, to keep your hotel communications in great shape.
Develop your customer service
When you invest in new technology, your business should naturally see a short-term boost. The features we’ve just described definitely fit this bill. But you’ll also see some long-term improvements, and customer service is a great example of this.
Your hotel property management system (PMS) is likely the backbone of your customer service. It’s essentially your front desk’s best friend, with all the insights and details you need to provide a great experience. Did you know it can connect with your phone system though? With our hotel package, your phones can draw data from the management system as and when needed. Here’s a few examples.
When a guest dials in with a booking enquiry, their database entry pops up on-screen. This means you know who they are, what they’ve booked, and any requirements they’ve had from stays in the past!
Similarly, when making calls, you can dial directly from the management system, just by clicking the contact number.
Your management system and communications can be consolidated into a single platform. Meaning you can use one device to handle phones, reservations and check ins. It’s a fantastic way to boost efficiency throughout your hotel. This is also great for providing accurate billing information from the phones in each room!
Embrace all channels
A great communications service, and one that provides the business continuity we mentioned earlier, is one that customers can immediately get to grips with.
Integrating your PMS alongside your phones gives your staff a great deal of control, but also means you can respond quickly, no matter the service guests find easiest to use. At One Connectivity we can offer live chat integration, so your guests can get in contact in an instant. We also offer voicemail to email, so you can efficiently reply to out of hours callers.
For more information about any of the services here, get in touch at 0115 896 88 60.