Why hotels can’t afford to ignore voice as a service (VaaS)
Your hotel call center isn’t performing the way you want it to.
Sometimes the call quality isn’t great, and your agents miss out on potential bookings because of dropped or abandoned calls. Your current system doesn’t integrate with your CRM or PMS. So, your call center team struggles to offer the relevant upsells and personalized communication that today’s travelers expect. To top it off, you’re spending a decent chunk of your limited budget to constantly upgrade and maintain your expensive on-premises telephone system.
There’s a better way.
The voice channel drives up to 80% of your property revenue, which is why many hoteliers are moving to subscription-based voice as a service (VaaS) models. Taking this step will save money and optimize call center performance.
Read on to learn exactly what VaaS is, and why it’s so beneficial for hotel call center operations.
What is voice as a service?
Voice as a service falls under the umbrella of Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS). It’s modern, cloud-based technology that integrates software, infrastructure, and telephony into one harmonious solution. VaaS is provided by a 3rd party vendor. They will proactively monitor and manage the entire system 24/7.
Because VaaS operates in the cloud, your hotel enjoys reduced costs, and seamless connectivity to your guests — for both inbound and outbound calls — through one centralized platform. And with VaaS, your agents have the flexibility to work from anywhere, which is important considering the increased number of hybrid and remote-working situations.
How does voice as a service work?
A VaaS provider uses the internet and an IP network to route inbound and outbound calls. Since all functionalities exist in the cloud, desk phones, mobile devices, and soft phones can connect to the internet using WiFi or ethernet cables. Voice quality through VaaS digital channels is much higher than it is over traditional phone lines. And all equipment and infrastructure — any necessary switches, servers, and storage — all exist off-site in a highly secure data center with built-in redundancy and failover capabilities.
What are the benefits of voice as a service for hotels?
Reduce operational costs
Switching to VaaS can reduce operational costs compared to traditional phone line service. This is largely because you no longer need to purchase and maintain the necessary physical infrastructure and expensive on-site equipment. VaaS providers also offer proactive monitoring, which enables swift resolution to various call-related issues.
Greater reliability
Cloud-based voice as a service is often more reliable than traditional phone service. VaaS isn’t dependent on a single physical location, so if one location goes down, your service can be rerouted to another location. This prevents downtime, so that guests can always reach you, reducing potential lost business.
Speaking of lost business, the average call abandonment rate is around 6%. Poor voice quality can be a leading contributor to this rate. With VaaS, voice signals are digitally transmitted, helping to ensure voice quality is crystal-clear.
Better data capture
Hotels using traditional phone systems struggle to capture data from customer-agent conversations. They often resort to random, manual call-sampling methods which produce incomplete and unrepresentative data. These methods fail to provide hoteliers with the meaningful insights they need to drive significant customer service improvements.
Voice as a service solves these problems with the ability to capture, record, and transcribe conversations between guests and agents. VaaS can integrate with other hotel systems, such as your CRM, to create personalized interactions and increase reservation sales by up to 50%.
Increase performance visibility
VaaS consolidates your call center tools and services within one centralized platform, providing easy access to detailed performance analytics and reporting. Customizable dashboards let you track the metrics that matter most depending on seasonality and business goals. And with comprehensive analytics, hoteliers can identify trends in guest behavior, which helps you better understand customer needs and improve services.
According to research from McKinsey, strong voice-data analytics can increase customer satisfaction by 10% or more.
Improve coaching
VaaS promotes effective agent coaching. This technology simplifies call scoring, auditing, tracking, and tagging. And, it allows managers to quickly identify KPIs, such as an agent’s talk and wrap-up ratio or outbound call conversion rate. Managers can analyze an individual agent’s performance in real-time. Agents can also identify areas of weakness, so that they can improve and perform successfully.
Seamless scalability
Voice as a Service delivers cloud-based technology to easily introduce new team members and scale your call center. Hoteliers won’t need to expand or upgrade their IT infrastructure. The subscription-based pricing model of VaaS is also scalable and cost-effective because you only pay for the services you use at any given time.
Experience the added value of VaaS
If you’re struggling with your legacy on-premise phone system, you could be missing out on valuable revenue opportunities. Not to mention the CapEx hit you take every time your current system requires maintenance or updating.
With VaaS in the cloud, you save money and boost reliability. Plus, your agents can work and obtain solid coaching from anywhere. If you’re ready to explore the added value VaaS can bring to your hotel, contact us to learn more about our solution, Reservation Sales.
About Revinate
Revinate empowers hoteliers to directly connect with their guests.
Our Guest Data Platform and communication solutions unlock revenue for hoteliers and put them in control of the full guest experience — initial research, booking, check-in, throughout the stay, and even after check out — all via the communication channels that guests prefer, whether it's voice, text, email, or web.
More than 12,000 hotels globally bank on Revinate to drive direct revenue and deliver delightful guest experiences.
Ask us how we do it. Visit our website to get a demo.
Sanjana Chappalli
VP of Brand Marketing and Communications
Revinate, Inc.
