Challenges

This busy and successful 115 room hotel was beginning to struggle with their ‘archaic’ phone system.

All incoming calls went through a single handset creating a serious bottleneck, longer waiting times and ultimately calls were being abandoned. Valuable bookings were being missed and customer service levels were being affected.

According to Jennifer Olsen, Revenue Manager, “We didn’t even know how many calls we were missing. A lost booking would cost us at least £50 per room per night. When we ran campaigns such as Groupon our phones would go mental and our receptionists were frazzled trying to keep up.”

Solution

NEC’s SV9100 Communication was installed along with MyCalls Call Management. Approximately 110 calls are made to the hotel each day by 4pm, with a call traffic spike between 11.30am – 12 noon. Instead of a single handset taking all calls then manually transferring, now all 6 members of reception staff are part of the ‘reservation group’. Jennifer continues, “Auto Attendant now filters the calls and our customer service levels are maintained. The Callback option also ensures customers are given an option to be called back during busy times.”

Results

The installation was a ‘painless’ one with no downtime. Further updates such as extra extensions were administered remotely which made them quick and easy. The impact on the business was almost instant. Jennifer enthuses, “Every call was initially via one member of staff – that’s now 6. As a result of the SV9100 we are now 6 times more efficient! It’s 100% easier.” She continues, “Auto Attendant enables easier staffing management – this saves us at least £15k each year alone!”