Called comfort
A phone system is standard in any decent hotel but, as Radisson Edwardian has found with its new network, there's a lot that can be done to enhance both service to guests and staff efficiency. Andrew Davies reports.
Thw traditional image of a hotel phone is of a receiver beside the bed used only for alarm calls, ordering room service and (expensively) calling home. But over the past decade there have been two developments that have turned the image of the hotel phone (and the revenue it generates) on its head: mobile phones and the Internet.
No one who carries a mobile is going to use the hotel phone to call home, and those who carry a laptop need somewhere to plug in so they can get their e-mails. These developments have made many hotel groups re-evaluate the phone systems they have. So what do guests want from their phones in 2002? And can hotels' ageing networks cope?
Radisson Edwardian has recently finished a thorough £3m revamp of its phone systems, involving not only the phones in the rooms, but conference facilities and the back-office operations of the management and staff. What did this involve and what does it mean to the customer?
In 1999 Radisson Edwardian took a long, hard look at its technology as it checked for year-2000 compliance. As it did so, it realised that there was an opportunity to throw out all its ageing systems and look at ways to use technology to enhance business.
"We started primarily with the telephone infrastructure," explains Iype Abraham, head of IT. "The old one had had its day and we wanted a switch [computer-based switchboard] that would deliver us a lot more from a customer service perspective and give us more interaction between our 10 properties."
The list of requirements Abraham had for the customer service part of the new system was straightforward. The priority was to give each room more than one line, so guests could plug in their laptops to access the Internet and, at the same time, make a voice call. "Customer benefits were the fundamental key," he says. "But we needed flexibility, because we couldn't rewire every room, so we had to deliver as many lines as possible to the rooms using the existing infrastructure."
He settled on the Alcatel OmniPCX 4400 system, which for guests means a shiny new phone on the desk in every one of Radisson Edwardian's 2,000 bedrooms, each one with a socket in the side for their laptop.
"Putting more than one line into a hotel room is easy if the wiring is modern and has the capacity," says Tim Butterworth, business development manager for NextiraOne, Alcatel's European distributor. "But older hotels tend to have older cabling and much less of it, so Radisson Edwardian needed a system that could provide a lot of capacity down the normal wires."
Abraham also wanted any new system to link all 10 hotels more efficiently. Radisson Edwardian doesn't have a general manager in each property, but a roving management team responsible for different disciplines travelling between the hotels. "They need to be contacted at whatever hotel they're in," says Butterworth. "They can have a normal mobile phone, but they don't always work in the basement of a hotel. Plus, you're paying for the call every time."
The solution was a system of "DECT" (digitally enhanced cordless telephone) phones - wireless handsets that can be carried from hotel to hotel and retain the same extension number whichever they are in. There are now 600 of them across the group. "Most of those are used for administration," explains Butterworth, "but it just means you can walk out of one hotel and into another and the handset will automatically log you on to that hotel's switchboard."
The technology behind this is very similar to a national mobile phone system. Each hotel has transmitters that form a wireless network. How many transmitters are needed depends on the structure and size of the hotel. The Radisson Edwardian Heathrow, for example, has 459 rooms and 35 conference rooms and has 60 transmitters.
"From an operational perspective, that's made an enormous difference," says Abraham. "Most management have DECT phones, so where before it was difficult to keep in touch with people, now we can just ring them directly. We also give phones to conference organisers or even guests when they check in, if they want one."
Now for the crucial part - the cost. The initial new switch cost about £1.7m, followed by a further £600,000 to £700,000 for additional modifications. It also took more than a year-and-a-half to implement the whole project.
Revenues up
There have been immediate benefits, though. "We've actually found that our phone revenues have gone up now that we've put all this technology in," says Abraham. "We've seen a definite commercial win out of it, but overall it's a technology investment which is part of a whole series of upgrades we've done and are still doing." [See panel.]
Even spread across 10 hotels, this has not been a cheap exercise, so what advice is there for anyone considering a similar endeavour?
"I would say the most important thing is to build from the ground up," says Abraham. "A lot of people invest in software without looking at whether the hardware it's going to run on can cope. Make sure the backbone of core systems is correct before anything goes on top."
Also, make sure there's someone in your organisation who knows technology and how it works - "an area our industry doesn't really focus on", Abraham laments.
A third key aspect is to properly examine how the staff will cope with new technology every day. "It's important to really look at the daily operation of any system," says Butterworth. "How is it going to get used on a daily basis, and how is it going to benefit the customers and the staff who serve them?"
IT investment
Radisson Edwardian is undertaking a huge array of technology investments. It is spending another £3m over the next two or three years on systems it has largely developed in-house.
Among other things, it is working on huge data warehouses, document indexing systems, CCTV networks and online booking linked directly to the property management system. It employs four full-time computer programmers working on its internal developments.
"We have a strong emphasis on technology because we believe in the operational benefits of it," says head of IT Iype Abraham. "And that comes right down from board level."
He adds: "The important thing, of course, is that the customer shouldn't notice. When they check in or out or use the bars and restaurants, it should be smooth and trouble-free."
Radisson Edwardian
140 Bath Road, Hayes, Middlesex UB3 5AW
Tel: 020 8757 7905
Web site: www.radissonedwardian.com
Number of hotels: 10
Turnover: £88.4m
Technology investment: £3m over the next two or three years
NextiraOne
Frimley Business Park, Camberley, Surrey GU16 7SX
Tel: 01276 404200
Web site:www.nextiraone.com
