With nearly 20 years of experience designing, installing and supporting technology solutions in Hotels, we have gained an uncommon understanding of the needs of hotel operators (owners, management companies) and those at the front-line (staff and guests). With this experience, we will attempt to provide a useful guide to understanding Hospitality Phone Systems.
Most industry contacts refer to the hotel phone system as the "PBX." While staff and guests may not know that the term "PBX" stands for "Private Branch Exchange," they benefit from it daily. The hotel operator benefits when a caller books a room, block of rooms, or conference. Hotel guests benefit when they use the speed dial buttons on the guest room phone to chat with front desk, request more towels, place room service order, or request a wake-up call. In the case of an emergency, the important emergency/E911 allows vital communication between the public and first responders.
When considering what PBX to purchase for a hotel property, you must decide weather a hosted (Controller in the Cloud) or on-premise (Controller on site) is a better fit for your property. Each system will require hardware on-site. Theoretically, the hosted system will have less physical equipment on-site. However, this depends on the wiring infrastructure of the hotel. For example, new construction hotels may be wired with Cat5 or Cat6 Ethernet cabling for both house and guest room phone positions. Existing hotels are more likely to be wired and terminated to support analog phones. While it is often possible to pull new Cat5 or Cat6 Ethernet to the Front desk and Executive positions, it is often too costly to install new wiring into each guest room. In this situation, you can consider a hybrid solution with VOIP to Front desk and Admin, Analog to guest rooms.
With the on-premises PBX, the total cost of ownership is typically lower. Leading on-premise PBX such as a Mitel 400 or Mitel 3300 typically come with a one-year manufacturer warranty. These systems are popular and common so there are a good number of Mitel certified dealers in each state. Mitel will continue to offer software support and certified dealers will typically offer support agreements to handle remote support and/or agreements with remote and on-site break-fix included.
With a Hosted PBX, A controller is hosted at the provider's data center(s). However, there is still certain amount of hardware required at the site. In new build hotels, you have the option to install Cat6 Ethernet to all phone positions. With Ethernet, the phones are powered by POE Switches. In most existing hotels, you will have a mix of IP Phones and Analog Phones. While the Front desk and Administration phones may have Ethernet wiring for IP Phones, most guest rooms are wired and terminated for analog guest room phones.
A Hosted PBX typically requires that a vendor's SIP telecom services be in place. A premise-based PBX can use a vendors SIP services OR traditional PRI, T-1 and copper (POTs) trunk lines. Either system can be configured to take advantage of new Voice products such as Voice PRI's and SIP Trucking services. In most cases, SIP trunking services should be utilized as they provide a lower cost for hotels. If a hotel has not shopped their Telco/Voice products in 3 or more years, it is possible to see a savings of 20-50% by moving voice traffic away from traditional carrier services and to the Internet based services.
While fewer and fewer guests are using in room phones to place outside calls, they still use the hotel PBX to deliver a positive guest experience. The Hotel PBX, whether hosted or on-premise, benefits guests by providing easy access (Speed Dial Buttons) to front desk, room service, and wake-up calls.
Hotel phone systems must include emergency/E911 calling.
From a hotel operations standpoint, communication is KEY. A reliable PBX will assure that all calls are received and handled properly. With current staffing challenges, Hotel phone systems can utilize features and functions like Automated Attendant and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to assist guests.
A best practice is to integrate the Hospitality phone system with the PMS - Property Management System. This integration allows the phone system to "Clear the Cache" between guests. When a guest checks out, and a new guest checks in, private guest data like call lists and voice messages on the voice mailbox are automatically erased. The system is clean and ready for the new guest.
Both Hosted and On-Premise PBX solutions should come with Business Class or Enterprise Class equipment. This equipment typically comes backed with a minimum of 1-year warranty. When maintained properly, the equipment can last 10+ years.
During the initial 5 years, the systems typically function well with professional remote support and a couple on-site maintenance visits per year. When a system is 5+ years old, it will typically require more calls to support and may see some functionality issues. You may need to replace a hard drive. If your support vendor keeps good records and system back-ups, this repair can happen quickly with little downtime.
When a system is 10+ years old, OR, when the manufacturer announces the End of Support, you may start to lose functionality and parts will become harder to locate. At some point, when you begin to lose functionality to major features such as vmail, you will need to make the choice to invest in a repair or replacement.
Rather than just bracing for the inevitable day your phones go dark, we suggest taking a proactive approach to replacing your Hotel Phone System when the manufacturer considers it EOL – End Of Life & EOS – End Of Support and/or when failures or service outages start to grow in frequency and costs.
When you install a visitor-based phone system, you should factor support into your decision. While it is important to select the appropriate technology, the long-term success will depend on the support partner. Regardless of the technology, carriers will experience outages and on-site system hardware may fail or partially fail. There will be situations where you require assistance with features, call routing, moves, adds, changes to the system. To assure long-term success and ROI, partner with an established provider of hospitality phone systems. An established provider should have certifications in the systems that they are proposing. Also, they should offer a support agreement with a SLA - Service Level Agreement. Look for a Service Level Agreement that provides both call center availability and on-site break-fix guarantee to assure up-time.
When the same company manages the on-site equipment and the hosted Voice Lines, you have streamlined operations, one hand to hold to keep all system functions, applications, and components working property.
ITG has experience servicing and supporting on-premise and hosted voice solutions. ITG can offer to manage your new hospitality phone system and your new voice services. Depending on the age and brand of your existing system, ITG may be able to support your legacy hardware and integrate it with newer Voice services. You can streamline operations by utilizing ITG Phone System Support and ITG Voice Circuits.
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