Using two-way radios for hotel communications
When it comes to the hospitality industry, speed of service delivery and guest satisfaction are the top priorities.
From the front desk to room service, customers today expect a high standard of hotel and hospitality service… and one way to meet these expectations is to streamline communication.
By incorporating the right communication technology at every point of the service chain, managers in the hospitality sector can meet the ever-changing demands of guests and rapidly resolve issues.
In this blog, we’ll explain how digital two-way radios can enhance hotel communications, as well as enable hotel and hospitality managers to optimise service delivery and ensure guest satisfaction.
Meeting the needs of guests at any point of the day
To ensure services run seamlessly around the clock, front desk staff need to be able to communicate with other teams across the hotel in real time.
For example, if guests need extra towels, toiletries or emergency cleaning, or maybe an appliance has broken and needs to be repaired or replaced, these issues need to be relayed to the relevant team as quickly as possible.
Similarly, for larger operations, hotel and hospitality managers need to be able to check in with multiple restaurant, bar and entertainment managers at all times. Communication via mobile phones/laptops is too slow and unreliable. Guests won’t want to wait. So, to keep things running smoothly, hotels need a dedicated communications solution, such as a two-way radio network.
Consider the arrival of a VIP guest who phoned ahead asking for their room to be prepared; front desk staff need to let housekeeping know right away.
Rather than sending an email or making a phone call, front desk staff just take out their two-way radio, cycle to the channel for housekeeping, press the push-to-talk (PTT) button and communicate with housekeeping in real time. Housekeeping can then confirm the request (without delay) and get to work.
Once the room is prepared, housekeeping can then use their two-way radio to let front desk know (again, without delay). This means the guest isn’t kept waiting.
Ensuring site security and guest wellbeing
For security breaches or emergency situations, real-time communication is required to ensure guests are moved quickly, safely and in an organised manner. Without a two-way radio solution, providing routine updates on developments will be challenging, especially for larger hotels with hundreds or thousands of guests.
In these instances, minimising the time between an emergency occurring and communicating with the relevant teams (or emergency services and/or police where necessary) could be the difference between a small issue or catastrophic event.
Also, what about hotels with large grounds and multiple facilities? If there’s a problem in one area of the hotel, security team leaders need to be notified right away so they can make informed risk assessments. For instance, if two guests are fighting in one area of the hotel (and a security team is already on site) does the problem need to be escalated? Will it affect the wellbeing of other guests? With real-time communication, security teams have complete, site-wide visibility and can act as and when required.
Stock control and replenishment
Hotels have to keep track of and replenish a tremendous amount of guest room inventory.
If towels, bedding, toiletries, coffee mugs, plates or hangers are missing from a guest’s room – or worse yet, not even stocked – it can negatively affect the guest experience. It only needs to happen once for a guest to never return.
In these instances, it can be easy to blame housekeeping, but often the real issue is a lack of real-time communication. Supplies could be delayed or only half replenished. Bedding might still be in the laundry. If housekeeping are unaware of these issues, how can they do their job effectively?
Two-way radios resolve these issues by enabling housekeeping (and other departments) to communicate immediately at the point of need. If there’s a stock shortage in any area, it can quickly be resolved or a contingency plan put in place to keep guests happy.
Scalable, integrated communications
As hotels expand and/or introduce new facilities, restaurants, rooms and bars, a scalable communications infrastructure will essential to avoid communication dead zones or inadequate coverage (in the case of mobile phones).
This is where two-way radio networks can help. Designed for real-time and uninterrupted communication across great distances, and capable of being integrated into existing networks, two-way radios provide scalable communications, ensuring site-wide visibility.
And that’s not all. For more granular management of operations, two-way radio systems can be combined with PC systems using software such as TRBOnet and SmartPPT. This enables voice recording, data retrieval and real-time GPS tracking. Their signal can also be amplified using a repeater, resulting in far greater coverage.
Using two-way radio dispatch solutions, hotel and hospitality managers can lay a foundation for more comprehensive and scalable hotel communications.
How 2CL Communications can help
Implementing such hotel communication solutions can be a challenge – but we can help. As two-way radio experts, we can assist with the deployment and installation of two-way radio systems. We can also develop and implement bespoke systems to meet specific hotel and hospitality requirements and provide on-site maintenance and repair.
If you want to expand your two-way radio communications or improve device functionality, we offer a variety of systems and accessories.
We have everything you need to start bolstering your hotel or hospitality communications. Just get in touch to find out more.