Front office management I

Using the Telephone The nature of telephone activity in the hotel industry

Telecommunications has always been a bit of a “gray area” for most hospitality environments. Individuals in management traditionally have relied on their telecommunications vendors to advise them on the management of their systems.
In addition, they also have relied on large markups from guest phone calls to provide healthy revenue streams that not only offset the costs of providing the communications service but also added significant revenues to the bottom line.
However, with phone technology changing faster than ever, guests are no longer reliant on the property’s telecommunication system to provide them with communications to the “outside” world. The introduction of cell phones has allowed guests tremendous flexibility with regard to staying connected from both a business and a personal standpoint and has made them less reliant on the hotel for these services. In addition, hotels have had to make significant capital investments to stay current with technology.
With the introduction of the Internet and the move from analog to digital-based systems, the hospitality industry has had to invest more money with less of a return on its investment. Whereas telecommunications used to provide healthy revenues for a hotel, it has now become imperative for hotels to manage their communications effectively to realize profits in this department. As such, this document is intended to provide some clarification to help managers manage their telecommunication departments effectively.
Traditionally, telecommunications in the hospitality environment has been composed of three major components:

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  Private branch exchange or switch
  
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  Voice mail
  
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  Call accounting
  

Although these systems usually have operated independently of one another, there is clearly a focus to unify all three applications. That being said, let’s examine the systems individually and identify their basic functionality and some of the new features that are being offered by the various manufacturers