Tech Talk

Intelligent communication

Any investment in technology should result in one of the following: revenue growth, reduced costs, reduced risks or improved customer satisfaction. Peter Jayaseelan writes about the intelligent communication solutions that the market has to offer to the travel and hospitality trade.

The sudden burst and growth of advanced technology in the field of communication has made IT companies stronger. At the same time, they have also taken note of the immense scope that their products have in the field of hospitality, because by nature, hospitality is a highly communication- and service-intensive business domain.

With hotels' investment pitch rising each year, what should dictate the top management mindset is better solutions that enable a sound operational environment for a hotel chain. Fortunately, the focus on technology has improved with the onset of budget category hotels and no-frills segment that try to attain a minimal room-to-manpower ratio.

In such a scenario, knowledge about the communication possibilities for a hotel would be key in taking important principal decisions.

Hotel companies, tour operators, the portal segment and even the best in advisory/consultancy have understood the impetus that technology can bring to their operations. Therefore, some crucial areas are seeing heavy investment in relation to the technology upgradation. Communication is one area where the investment has increased substantially.

What's in the market

There are many companies in the market that offer products like multimedia contact centres, voice and video self-service applications, mobility, branch networking features, etc that fit various needs. For example, by using a voice and video self-service application, the travel industry can provide their customers with the ability to manage itineraries, get travel information and help the travel agency to manage loyalty programmes, proactive calls, customer acquisitions, push canned video information, etc to their clients.

A well configured Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) application, particularly in case of the hospitality industry, is going to help professionals to proactively cater to their customer needs and help up-sell to their guests. The phase we are in is forcing this industry to grow by leaps and bounds and urging it to consolidate existing business in a manner that matches international standards. It is because of this reason that hospitality is concentrating hard on the communication aspect.

IT in hotels made a late entry in India. For example, a simple CTI application for the room service desk that gives information about the guest's food preferences, last few orders taken, etc was recently introduced. CTI is a technology that controls and/or co-ordinates business processes and related applications through an exchange of commands and messages between computers and telephone systems.

I believe that any investment in technology should result in one or all of the following - revenue growth, reduced costs and risks, improved customer satisfaction. In the hospitality industry, pro-active identification of the customer and their needs creates customer satisfaction. If the hotel can identify the preferences of a regular guest or if the travel agent suggesting a holiday to a regular client is aware of their vacation history, the level of service that can be provided will be high. It is important that technology investments are made in the area of self service, multimedia contact centres, mobility and networking.

For a +ve change

How can technology bring about a positive change for the Indian hospitality and travel companies? The answer lies in the highly competitive environment we are in where services tend to get commoditised. This drives the prices down. Solutions in the market help these businesses to acquire new customers and retain existing ones, which in turn helps drive their revenues.

Travel and hospitality companies can benefit from the latest communications and technology services. They are befitting for the various products that IT companies have to offer - lodging solutions with CTI can help hotels identify guests' needs, IP phone applications can provide guest information and create cross and up-sell opportunities for the hotel. It is important for these businesses to 'differentiate' themselves, which will enable them to acquire new customers and provide excellent services to existing customers.

The writer is vice president (industry solutions), Avaya GlobalConnect