The hotel. Once somewhere for a weary business traveller to lay down their head for the night, or a holidaymaker to base themselves for that well earnt break from the norm. Like many sectors the modern hospitality sector has embraced technology to become intelligent, automated and connected and the modern guest experience is as far from that simple idyll as the factory of the 19th century is from today’s smart factories.
The hospitality sector is providing staff with cloud hosted Unified Communications (OnlineUC) tools that reduce their operational costs whilst increasing their productivity, improving their security and enhancing the guest experience.
Sound too complicated? Well it doesn’t have to be – it can be incredibly simple so let’s break things down into three logical sections:
1. Reduce cost and increase productivity in the hospitality sector
Here are some of the key issues hospitality sector organisations face if their employees can’t communicate anytime, anywhere, via the medium of their choice:
- Calls, messages and emails are missed resulting in missed bookings, delayed orders and poor communication with customers – all resulting in a poor customer experience
- Call charges across the network increase overheads
- Important decisions are delayed as staff don’t have access to the right information
- The likelihood of security breaches increases due to employees using non-approved apps and devices whilst handling customer information
- Lower employee job satisfaction manifests as organisation is seen to be “behind the times”
- Productivity and efficiency suffer due to information not being recorded properly, if at all, and not being easily shareable
- Time is wasted in and traveling to meetings when a video conference would suffice
- Higher costs incurred because of labour and wasted time managing and maintaining an on-premise PBX
So how does hosting telecommunications in the cloud address these issues?
Today’s OnlineUC solutions enable organisations of all sizes to enjoy next-generation communications and collaboration, without the cost and complexity of a premise-based PBX. Hosted in the cloud and accessible by an easy-to-use web portal, cloud communication offers fantastic features such as:
- instant messaging
- video conferencing
- out of the box CRM integration
- free calls internally, to 01/02/03 (local) and to mobile numbers
- real-time staff availability
- compliance features
- built in redundancy
- simple user based licencing
- simple and easy to scale
- easy to use web portal and management
These features enable hospitality organisations deliver the seamless experiences that your employees, customers and suppliers now expect, and offer tremendous potential to improve productivity and reduce costs.
- Having one number and voicemail for multiple devices (including mobiles), meaning when someone calls the number of your pub, hotel or other location, it will never be missed.
- Calls between locations, to local numbers (01/02/03), and mobile numbers are free!
- The software integrates with your calendar, CRM and other apps meaning you always have access to relevant information and can make decisions quickly and efficiently.
- Everything is in the cloud so there is no need to send customer information or spreadsheets to each other. They are just available wherever you are on any device.
- Your employees will love the technology and its ease of use, making them more productive and in turn, making your job positions more attractive than your competitors.
- Productivity and efficiency is increased because everyone in your organisation is now connected in real time. They know when each other are busy, online, in meetings or away so it’s easy to get in touch at the right time, not the wrong time.
- It’s so easy to set up video conferencing and meetings that traveling miles to be together is no longer a necessity which is good for you, your vehicles and the environment. You can even push a conference call from desktop to mobile with one click without interruption; pretty cool.
- The biggest and best advantage is that you don’t have to mess around hiring techies to install and route calls to clunky phones anymore. Your costs go down across the board as you save on labour, minutes, maintenance, downtime, and more.
Sound convincing? There are so many benefits to enabling mobile working and unified communications which brings us onto our next point. Many people decide to implement something similar themselves but without all the safeguards, features and integrations that a proper online UC solution offers. The next section explains why that is a bad idea.
2. How to get OnlineUC right in hospitality
Not all cloud communications solutions are created equal.
Some organisations may opt for an out-of-the-box solution, but end up deploying something that just doesn’t match their expectations. Hospitality organisations with a significant proportion of staff working in and frequently visiting different locations should prioritise solutions that offer seamless user experience (UX), mobile integrations, support for multiple identities as well as full visibility and control.
Many organisations realise they need to adhere to the new requirement of mobile working but try a DIY approach without the sufficient knowledge or tools to implement it correctly. This results in a range of devices and applications that cannot talk to each other; which will have a negative impact and in some cases worse than not deploying mobility at all!
An Ineffective unified communications strategy can result in poor service to customers, suppliers and others due to lack of features; increased risk of security breaches, loss of valuable information and data, lower productivity as lack of ability to collaborate properly, lack of clarity around cost, lack of visibility or contactability, and no separation between personal and work functions.
Trying to “hotwire” a system to be a UC / mobile solution can have much graver consequences than steering clear all together. But luckily, cloud UC has become so affordable that this is no longer necessary.
3. How do you move your communications to the cloud?
Today’s cloud communications solutions enable organisations of all sizes to enjoy next-generation communications and collaboration, without the cost and complexity of a premise-based PBX. Cloud communications enable you to deliver the seamless experiences that employees, suppliers and customers now expect, and offer tremendous potential to improve mobile productivity.
Daisy Corporate Services can help you move from a traditional on-premise PBX to cloud with no disruption. We will do a full audit of your infrastructure, plan and then project manage your deployment including the transfer of existing numbers. Post deployment, we will manage all updates, fraud detection, security and implementation of new features, so you can focus on the metrics that matter to you.
Are you looking to upgrade your communications solution to the cloud? Daisy are the UK’s #1 independent provider of secure IT communications and cloud and can provide end to end solutions across your entire infrastructure.