GEC NEWS WIRECustomer service, a hallmark of the hospitality industry, has been elevated at Time Hotels with the recent upgrade of the group’s communications and contact centre systems. With collaboration solutions from Avaya, guests can now expect minimised holding times while contacting hotel support, through the channel of their choice. The new Avaya platform helps make it possible for the group to automate key guest services including wake-up calls, reservation reminders, and requests for information on hotel services and local attractions.
The telephony systems overhaul is part of a wider technology upgrade at the hotel group. To simplify licensing, improve availability, and reduce hardware costs and admin intervention, the IT team intends to migrate their contact centre to the cloud with Avaya. Also, in the pipeline are plans for a mobile application for guests as a logical extension to the mobile and online check-in services already offered.
Time Hotels is on track to undertake the management of dozens of properties in the next few years. With Avaya’s communications platform offering the ability to scale up to 3,000 users across 150 locations, and its contact centre solution capable of supporting up to 250 agents, the team is confident they can continue to enhance guest experiences.
Thanks to the upgrade, Time Hotels’ guests can take advantage of immediate, multi-channel support via the telephone, email, fax and web chat, which is expected to have a positive impact on customer satisfaction levels, and the group’s reputation. In parallel, with the help of Avaya technology, employees can now utilise their own mobile phones as desktop extensions wherever they are.
As a result, staff can provide on the go customer service and respond to guest requests even while away from their desks. This has eliminated the need for the group to provide employees with corporate mobile devices, driving down operational costs.
Explaining the group’s decision to upgrade its communications infrastructure, Joseph Fayad, Corporate Director IT, Time Hotels, said, “Connectivity today is a critical aspect of the hospitality industry. It is essential to have proper infrastructure to provide the reliable services our guests need. IT’s role is to make the business run more efficiently. An efficient communication system takes this role further by making the business dynamic enough to adapt to future technology evolution.”
“We are looking to incorporate the application and using guest mobiles to communicate with the hotel when they are on the hotel premises. We have 100% wireless coverage in all the facilities, so the ability to use the application inside the hotels amongst employees as a mobile extension has saved us a lot of money on hardware,” Fayed explained.
Key takeaways
Strategy
- The telephony systems overhaul is part of wider technology upgrade at the hotel group.
- There are plans for a mobile application for guests as logical extension to the online check-in service.
- Plans for mobile application as extension to online check-in services.
Execution
- Time Hotels has elevated Guest Services with Avaya Communications Systems and Contact Centre Upgrade.
Costs
- To simplify licensing the IT team intends to migrate contact centre to the cloud.
- Avaya’s platform offers scale up to 3,000 users, 150 locations, 250 agents.
- Eliminated need for Group to provide employees with corporate mobile devices driving down costs
- The group cut communications expenses by 30% while enabling guests to take advantage of channels of their choice.
People
- Guests can expect minimised holding times while contacting hotel support through the channel of their choice.
- Employees can utilise their mobile phones as desktop extensions wherever they are.
- The new Avaya platform makes it possible to automate key guest services.
