As a hotel or B & B owner, you need to be able to stay organised and efficient in order to best serve your customers.
Whilst a friendly face on reception, excellent housekeeping and attentive serving staff are all vital, another key aspect to pleasing your guests is your ability to streamline your communications – at both the initial booking stage and during their visit.
This is where a reliable business telephony service steps in. By implementing a cloud based VoIP telephone system, you can increase your engagement with patrons whilst also cutting down on costs.
So let’s take a look at the many features you could be benefitting from, whether you’re a small boutique B & B or a commercial hotel chain.
Easy to remember number
Never underestimate the importance of your business telephone number. It needs to be consistent and easy to remember in order for customers to give you a call.
As soon as any element of confusion is thrown in (for example, if you have multiple numbers for different departments of your establishment), someone will be put off from picking up the phone. But perhaps your competitor down the road has a much clearer way of communicating – and so they give them a ring instead.
With a web based telephony service, you will be able to acquire a single memorable number centred in the UK or from over 50 other countries if required.
This can connect to your switchboard, meaning that callers can then make the choice of where to be directed instead of needing to know the direct line from the offset.
Simplistic call routing
To get good reviews and returning clientele, you need to be able to respond to any feedback, comment or request as soon as possible. Call routing allows you to direct calls to the correct department or member of your team quickly, significantly reducing the likelihood of further aggravation from a caller who might be limited for time or be riled up already.
By having automatic directing, you can also run your business from wherever you are. Working from home? At an exhibition promoting your establishment? No problem. Routing will map the calls you need to your mobile handset.
Voicemail to email
If for whatever reason, you or your staff members are unable to take a call or your phone lines have closed for the evening, a customer may have to leave a voicemail. Phone messages can occasionally be misinterpreted, so wouldn’t it be handy to have a transcription sent to your inbox?
That way, messages can easily be forwarded to the relevant member of staff to respond to. Say for example a guest coming to stay leaves a message to let you know of any dietary requirements – their transcribed call can be sent to a central email address, for you or an employee to forward on to the Head of Kitchen.
This method can bring together all communications via voicemail or fax, meaning that you can track them all in one place.
Web Based CRM Dashboard
If someone has made a reservation through your online system and requested an add-on such as champagne to make their break extra special, they are going to be very unsatisfied if that request is forgotten or lost in your database.
Many independent hotels and B & B’s are likely to be using older systems for their customer relationship management, where situations like this can happen. By upgrading to a cloud based system, all of your data is safe and easy to retrieve from one central place, so if an online order comes in, all of the requests associated with that booking are accounted for.
Having all of this information saved online also means that if you decide to introduce new computers or even tablets to your business, the dashboard can be accessed with a simple yet secure log in.
So if your hotel or B & B is looking to improve relationships, as well as internal communications amongst employees, why not invest in a convenient and cost effective method? Contact us today on 01225 800 800 or visit our Cloud Telephony page for more information.
Image Credit:
Hotel Receptionist via BigStock