Challenges in hospitality and service
In the hospitality and service industry, prioritizing customer needs is essential and utilizing advanced technology such as UCaaS can greatly enhance customer support. Let’s explore the advantages of using UCaaS and telephony for companies in this field.
Companies like Airbnb and Uber have revolutionized the sharing economy by prioritizing access over ownership. In this new market, the hospitality industry’s adoption of UCaaS is vital for meeting guest expectations. The objective of seamless guest experiences is now more crucial than ever.
As expectations rise, guests are often frustrated by:
Lost reservations, failed guest requests such as missed wake-up calls, issues with package tracking and delivery and inability to communicate with a designated contact person.
What is UCaaS?
UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) is a cloud-based solution that brings together various communication channels into one unified system. This allows for a seamless communication experience across various locations, making it ideal for hotel chains, conference centers, restaurants, and other venues.
UCaaS is the next evolution of traditional UC (Unified Communications) which improved communication services by integrating telephony, PBX, chat, mail, and video calls. However, traditional UC required costly maintenance and management. UCaaS, on the other hand, is a subscription-based service, making it much more cost-effective and easier to manage.
UCaaS in retail, banking and healthcare
UCaaS has already brought significant changes in industries such as retail, banking, and healthcare. It enables faster transactions, advanced features, and extended real-time services in retail environments. In healthcare, it supports telemedicine and makes it easier for physicians to consult with each other.
How UCaaS help meet challenges in hospitality and service
UCaaS improves the guest and worker experiences in a number of ways, resulting in satisfied guests, more motivated staff, and increased profits. Let’s examine how UCaaS can enhance the guest experience, simplify operations, and boost productivity in the service and hospitality industry.
1. Simplified deployment and operations
With UCaaS, traditional location-based telephony becomes obsolete, and a subscription-based service like UCaaS results in lower costs for hardware. Cloud-based communication is easily integrated across all locations and departments and can be easily scaled up or down as needed.
Guests can interact with your hotel or service through phone, online, mobile apps, and contact centers, and receive prompt, accurate responses to their requests. You can also integrate diverse services such as property management, front desk services, room billing, and instant messaging. This also helps the members of the hospitality team to be more efficient and less stressed.
UCaaS also offers the possibility of providing bundled services to guests from anywhere, at any time, through their smartphones. Conference centers are ideal candidates for UCaaS as it allows for quick responses to a wide range of requests from hundreds or even thousands of guests and attendees. Additionally, it is also possible to increase revenue through customized communication services such as video conferencing and voice over WiFi.
2. An improved customer experience
Hotels are inundated with inquiries, requests, and changing reservations, making modern communication essential as both customer satisfaction and productivity are at stake. Today’s guests interact with hotels through more channels than ever before. A guest may book a room on their computer, then monitor the reservation on their phone. Guests may also reach out to your contact centre for assistance. UCaaS provides a seamless guest experience across all channels.
Employees armed with mobile devices are better equipped to serve guests. They can quickly respond to special requests, for example, relaying emergency announcements to guests. Business travelers enjoy more seamless transitions between calls, contacts, and concierge services. Every second saved enhances guest satisfaction, and ultimately adds to the hotel’s bottom line.
3. Productivity and the virtual front desk
The increased use of mobile devices parallels the increased implementation of UCaaS. For example, employees may check guests in using tablets, and guests may arrive at their room to find a mobile tablet waiting for them. Digital connections that reduce phone conversations increase efficiency for all parties.
For many workers, making a positive impact on guests’ lives is one of the most rewarding aspects of the job. UCaaS enables employees to serve guests in unique ways, such as instant messaging, video calls, and by integrating communications with CRM systems.
For hotels, employees and guests are no longer tied to a physical location thanks to the concept of the virtual front desk. Guest communications now consist of more than just phone calls and knocks on the door. Integrated digital communications benefit both vacationers, business travellers, and hotel employees alike as all parties find the virtual front desk more freeing and productive.
4. UCaaS helps relieve IT pressures
In the hospitality industry, disruptions to critical communication services can quickly escalate into a crisis. Cloud-based UCaaS is a solution to this problem. Many businesses that adopt UCaaS experience a significant improvement in uptime. The need for IT workers to put in overtime to fix problems with in-house systems becomes a thing of the past.
Cloud-based UCaaS is often much easier to manage and administer compared to outdated and expensive on-premise systems. A cloud-based solution allows for automation of certain tasks, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and saving time for the business.
5. Scalability across many locations
Multinational hotel chains can greatly benefit from transitioning to the cloud. Mergers and acquisitions often leave hotel chains with outdated and incompatible communication infrastructures, but with a cloud-based UCaaS solution, it’s easy to manage and administer different locations from one central location. Making changes such as updating opening hours for a location or reordering call queues in the PBX can be done easily and quickly.
6. Accommodates heightened guest expectations
Hoteliers are aware that many business travelers are familiar with the latest developments in modern digital communication, and they expect the same convenience and productivity when they travel. Back at the office, many such guests already enjoy the productivity gains of UCaaS.
To meet this expectation, it is important to provide guests with the information they need quickly and without confusion. Integrating a streamlined communication system with an effective mobile app creates an ideal user-friendly interface. Making a reservation at the spa, ordering room service, or completing an early checkout can all be done easily and quickly. Overall, guests should have a seamless, frictionless experience.
7. Personalised service
To create an experience where guests feel valued and important, UCaaS helps bring a new era of personalized guest services. For example, a repeat visitor with a history of using the gym can receive texts about fitness center hours.
Vacationing guests want to escape the regular workdays and traffic jams during their daily commute. They want to feel like they’re not just part of the crowd. Business travelers desire personalization for productivity, and international travelers face a variety of challenges such as jet lag.
Failing to take care of guests can lead to alienation and negative reviews online, which can greatly impact profits. UCaaS brings coherence and efficiency to the high-stakes hospitality industry. It is crucial for hospitality professionals to adopt a modern communication infrastructure.
Why HybridFlow works so well for companies in the service industry
The team at HybridComms has been developing cloud-based solutions since 2002. Today, their communications platforms are used in a variety of industries and more than 350,000 users already benefit from the efficiency and accessibility of HybridFlow product.
HybridComms offers UCaaS solutions that are well-suited for the hospitality industry, providing positive gains in productivity, guest satisfaction and security. Some specific benefits that HybridFlow can provide include:
Efficient call management – the provided statistics
allows you to get an overview of missed calls, answer ratio, and more. Through
this information, you can provide better support and a more personalised
service to your guests.
Seamless integrations – our telephony solution is
easy to integrate with CRM tools like Salesforce, Hubspot and many others.
Personal support – we always provide a Customer
Success Manager that is dedicated specifically to you from the onboarding
process and forward.
Conclusion: Benefits of UCaaS in hospitality and service
It is clear that customers are reaching out through more platforms than ever before and their expectations are higher. For service-related industries, it is crucial to be present where your customers are and provide them with the service they desire, tailored to their needs.
UCaaS makes it easy to implement and fully scalable according to your company’s needs. It allows for a better customer experience by ensuring all channels are in sync with each other, making it easy for guests to reach you through their preferred channel.
If you are concerned your phone system isn’t keeping up with your business get in touch – we would love to show you how HybridFlow is helping our customers be better!
Get in touch for a chat or a quick Demo – We love to talk!
hello@hybridcomms.io – or give us a call
Call the Hybrid Team today on 03300564565 , or email us at hello@hybridcomms.io
