Your hotel’s communication system is one of the most crucial pieces of your operation, but it can be a costly burden to maintain. In the last few decades, thousands of hotels worldwide have switched to a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) system that allows them unprecedented flexibility, versatility, and reduced costs. Your hotel’s PBX shouldn’t be a burden. It should be a vital tool that makes your staff and hotel more efficient. Thinking about making the switch? Here’s what to consider.
What Does My Hotel Need to Switch to VoIP?
Lots of hoteliers are nervous about making the switch to a modern, digital PBX system. Significant infrastructure changes to their hotel can interrupt daily operations and cost them revenue. In the vast majority of cases, these fears are unfounded.
All you need to get started with VoIP is a reliable internet connection throughout your hotel — for a hotel with 250 trunks, we recommend that bandwidth for the whole system have speeds of around 15 Mbps. If your hotel is extremely remote or internet service is hard to come by, it may be challenging to achieve the speed required for a VoIP solution.
Network quality is also a key consideration. In some hotels, especially very large buildings or older construction, wi-fi has trouble propagating throughout the premises. Luckily, the cost of adding additional routers or repeaters to ensure that every VoIP trunk has a stable connection is minimal compared to what you’re already paying for analog phone service.
That’s all you need! If your hotel has power and internet, we can tailor an installation plan designed to be quick, professional, and cause minimal disruption to your hotel’s operations — no rewiring or digging up your grounds necessary.
Compliance With New Laws
Changing the way an analog phone system directs calls is no easy task — since the system is run through physical copper wires in the walls, you need to move and patch wires to redirect calls in a significant way. With VoIP, all call behavior is digital. If you’d like incoming calls to the hotel’s main number to ring the manager’s cell phone rather than the front desk, it’s a matter of a few clicks in a browser window to make that happen.
Where that level of convenience becomes especially important is in the realm of legal compliance. In 2018, Congress passed two new laws concerning the ways that hotels and other MLTS systems handle emergency calls. Those laws will take effect gradually in 2021 and 2022, but they’ll require significant changes to the way emergency calls are directed and reported within your hotel. Complying with the laws with an analog system will be nearly impossible, and non-compliance could put your hotel at risk of severe fines and liability.
These won’t be the last laws to affect how hotels and other large buildings handle their phone calls, and you’ll want your systems to be ready for any new legislation when the time comes. Only a VoIP system can offer you the ability to add, change, or remove features on the fly to comply with any regulations that might arise.
The Benefits of VoIP
When thinking about a switch to a VoIP system, the final consideration is how much it can help with your hotel’s day-to-day operations. Some of the benefits you can expect:
- Automation of simple tasks like wake-up calls and room service
- Easier multitasking thanks to customized call forwarding
- Continuous operation with no downtime thanks to a hosted solution
- Staff that are more mobile and interactive with your guests
- Quick transferring of essential calls to managers or supervisors
- Less stress among your staff, translating to more efficient performance
You’ll also enjoy better scalability, higher call quality, and 24/7 service and support for your new phone system, all at a reasonable monthly cost.
