Currently, virtually every company in every industry is going through a rapid digital transformation process. The events of the last few years have forced brands to reconsider their priorities and make significant changes to their technology stack. Hospitalitybusinesses are no exception.
For many organizations, the first stage in any digital transformation strategy will be upgrading the communication stack to facilitate teams better achieve their goals. Hospitality companies thrive on communication and collaboration tools designed to unite team members, empower innovation, and boost customer service.
Unified Communications, a market now growing at a CAGR of 18%, aligns the various distributed communication tools in the hospitality space, from apps used to send broadcast messages to guests to tools for in-house discussions, into a synchronized environment.
But how do you build a business case for UC in hospitality?
Step 1: Look for Opportunities to Enhance Guest Experience
Customer experience is the first concern for any company in a world where consumers are becoming more discerning about how they spend their money. In the hospitality industry, where many companies struggle to reach revenue goals following the pandemic, delivering a great customer experience is the only way to stay afloat.
Unified Communications has the potential to strengthen the experience companies can offer their guests and clients in a range of powerful ways. These tools better synchronize teams around shared environments for collaboration and knowledge sharing, so it’s easier to address problems quickly and come up with new ideas to delight guests.
UC solutions can also open the door to new modes of interacting with customers through channels they find more appealing, like SMS, instant messaging, and even video calls. With a UC environment, a consistent stream of knowledge throughout your organisation will ensure everyone is equipped to offer clients the best possible experience. Some UC solutions can integrate with CX-focused tools, like CCaaS (Contact Centre as a Service) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) apps.
Step 2: Find and Fix Issues with Productivity
Companies need to empower their teams to deliver a sensational guest experience and keep profits as high as possible. The hospitality landscape is naturally agile and mobile, with employees scattered across various environments. Your team members are distributed among front-facing staff, back-end employees, maintenance experts and more.
The disconnect between these employees in a traditional communication environment can lead to silos of information, damaging productivity and preventing the company from achieving its goals. With unified communications, it’s possible to eliminate those silos and synergize the workforce.
Teams can access all the information they need to stay productive in an aligned space, whether they’re looking for directories to help them track down vital staff members or information on upcoming business events. Companies can provide their teams with a single pane of glass environment for all the necessary tools. They can also enhance those environments with additional tools, like AI virtual assistants and bots.
Please speak to your employees about the areas where they’re most likely to see themselves losing time and productivity, and find ways your UC system can solve this problem. For instance, how much time would your employees save just by accessing video collaboration and file sharing tools in the same space?
Step 3: Look at Deployment Options
Once you know which features and tools will drive the most benefits for your teams and customers, the next step is to consider how to deploy your UC solution. While unified communications can drive incredible benefits for modern companies, many hospitality brands are shifting more aggressively towards the cloud.
A UCaaS or Unified Communications as a Service environment can give companies much more freedom to scale their communication tools according to their needs in a changing climate. Cloud-based tools are also excellent for keeping mobile, remote, and front-of-staff employees connected in the same space.
Suppose you’re looking for the best way to keep your employees in a single pane of glass environment. In that case, you can even look into the benefits of working with a UCaaS provider offering flexibility to bring in other tools and apps. Many systems are becoming increasingly open and flexible, with access to APIs and integrations to align more distributed tools.
You could even work with a company offering an opportunity to combine your UCaaS environment with your CCaaS landscape. This could be ideal in the hospitality sector, where many tasks revolve around customer service.
Step 4: Consider the Present and Future
When building a business case for UC in hospitality, it’s important to remember that your focus shouldn’t just be on the technology you need now, but on the features you’ll need in the future. The hospitality space is constantly changing in the post-pandemic era. Customers seek new ways to interact with brands through contactless tools and bots.
At the same time, we’re seeing a rise in innovative new tools like XR to help customers explore a spa facility or hotel from the comfort of their homes. Whether you’re investing in UC for an evolving restaurant, hotel, or another kind of hospitality brand, thinking about the solutions you may want to implement in the future is crucial.
Considering your needs both now and in the future will help you to select a UC provider with the flexibility to evolve according to your needs. For most hospitality companies, it’ll be essential to think about trending and disruptive tools like AI, IoT, and even 5G. All of these things will allow you to serve customers more effectively.
Step 5: Pave the Way for Proving ROI
When making a business case for any new technology, one of the most important things you can do is ensure you have a way of proving the value of the investment to stakeholders. Reporting and analytics tools built into your UC environment will be extremely useful from this perspective.
In-depth analytical solutions infused with AI have several benefits for hospitality businesses. The right solutions can make it easier to monitor your landscape and ensure you’re staying compliant with the latest security and privacy regulations. However, they also provide a valuable way to track important performance and customer satisfaction metrics.
Implementing additional intelligent tools for your UC solution can be particularly beneficial here. For instance, AI bots can help you track trends in customer demand to schedule your teams more effectively. You can also use the same technologies to evaluate things like the sentiment in customer conversations and improve customer relationships over time.
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