What’s Next For The CRS?
Single-screen inventory and rate management for hoteliers, and single-screen, graphic-laden booking engines for consumers are the latest innovations.
By Derek Gale, Associate Editor -- HOTELS Magazine, 9/1/2006
 The Langham Place Hotel, Mongkok, Hong Kong, aims to remove the distance between guests and their families back home by uploading personalized photos to guestroom telephones. |
Have cell phones turned handsets into has-beens? Two luxury brands explain why they won’t give up on the devices.
The way Nick Price sees it, the choice is simple: Hoteliers can install an intercom system or a carrier grade telephone system in guestrooms. And there’s probably a case to be made for an intercom system—after all, it is really all that is necessary for ordering room service or dialing the hotel operator. And yet Price, chief technology officer for Mandarin Oriental Hotels Group, has chosen the latter, opting to install Percipia IP telephony systems in the company’s New York, Washington, D.C., and Hong Kong properties. Why? He feels that there are circumstances in which guests will prefer to use guestroom IP phones rather than their cell phones for paying calls. “I believe strongly that certain circumstances will call for that, and guests will be happy to have done that and paid reasonably,” he says. Those circumstances involve international calling and conference calling.
But first, Price says, to be successful in getting guests to use hotel room phones again, hotels need to establish trust and be transparent with their pricing. The formula is “showing the guest what they are being charged, showing the guest what they will be charged, and showing the guest what they did pay,” Price says. The problem with that approach is that it was not possible with traditional guestroom handset. “The technology behind traditional telephone service in a hotel has not allowed transparency and pricing to be made available to the guest,” Price says. “That led to distrust and a decline in the utilization of the telephone product.”
Enter the IP phone. “We are working on this now—showing the guest in real time what they are being charged,” he says. “It’s a matter of being honest about what you charge. Nobody likes being ripped off, and even worse is thinking you are going to be ripped off.”
 Personalized favorites, including hometown weather forecasts and radio stations, show up on handsets at the Langham Place Hotel. |
Once guests feel a level of trust and comfort with pricing, they will choose to use guestroom phones for multiple reasons, Price believes. First, there is the matter of quality. IP telephony systems and IP phones offer a higher quality signal, better voice delivery and better sound, for an all-around higher quality voice conversation, he says. “Even if they are calling internally to order breakfast, guests are aware immediately that they have a higher quality product than they normally have,” Price says. “So subconsciously, they may be saying, ‘That was a pretty good conversation I just had, maybe I should try this for a conference call.’” Add to that the concept of personalization. The Mandarin Oriental hotels with IP telephony systems are currently working on integrating those systems with their property management systems to be able to store frequently-used telephone numbers, for example, making the system guest-aware. “So if we have a customer with five favorite numbers, those can be properly populated in advance of check-in,” Price says. Also, for groups traveling together, phones can be preloaded with other group members’ names on speed dial.
Another attractive concept for both hoteliers and guests is the flexibility that can be offered with IP telephony. For international and conference calling, Price talks about giving guests the option of choosing phone carriers or packages of telephony services. So for a businessperson from the United States staying in a Hong Kong hotel, for example, the hotel could offer a package where the guest can make as many calls as he or she likes, or has a certain number of minutes to use throughout his or her stay, for a set price.
 This diagram illustrates how Mandarin Oriental uses Percipia’s technology to personalize guestroom telephone welcome screens, including talking to guests in their preferred languages. (Click image for a larger view.) |
One thing Mandarin Oriental is not doing nor planning to do is looking to generate advertising revenue with the screen real estate on guestroom IP handsets. “We don’t use the real estate for any kind of advertising purposes that companies are promoting,” Price says firmly. “I’m against that.” Instead, Price feels that a reasonable use of that space is promoting the phones features to guests. “Guests are not dumb,” he says. “You don’t need a tent card to explain the phone options when you have a screen sitting there waiting to do something.”
Personalizing The Guest Experience
Customer relationship management and personalization are not new concepts, but Langham Hotels International may be the first hotel company to think of the guestroom telephone as a central device for putting these concepts into action. At the Langham Place Hotel, Mongkok, Hong Kong, as information is gathered and the staff gets to know the hotel’s guests, returning guests will find personal, customized content uploaded onto their guestroom IP phones before they enter their rooms. From frequently dialed numbers to personalized stock profiles and even family photos, Langham is aiming to remove the distance between guests and their everyday lives. This may mean showcasing hometown weather forecasts, news headlines, or even favorite radio stations. And to provide additional convenience, guests can update their personal profiles anytime online. “For over a century hotels have been delivering special preferences to return guests to make them more comfortable. So it is a natural extension to now personalize the technology and use the technology to ramp up return guest special treatment,” says Brett Butcher, managing director of Langham Place Hotel
| IP TELEPHONY PROVIDERS |
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This is not a complete list of vendors. Avaya www.avaya.com |
The hotel uses a Cisco IP telephony solution combined with specially commissioned software to connect guests with their families and happenings back home. The platform also provides guests with seamless free worldwide SMS and e-mail messaging and mobile guestroom phones that work hotel-wide. “Ultimate guest service is always the philosophy behind the technology offered,” Butcher says. “What other hotel gives guests the ability to, free of charge, send an SMS worldwide? Things like this make us stand apart and underpin guest loyalty.”
Both Langham and Mandarin Oriental have found reasons to embrace the latest technology in guestroom handsets, even as the use of mobile phones continues to grow. Ultimately, for these companies it comes down to welcoming guests, making them more comfortable and offering them useful services that contribute to a better overall guest experience. By thinking about what the guest wants, these operators are in turn giving themselves an opportunity to increase both loyalty and revenue. What more could you want from a guestroom telephone system?
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