Get a good night’s sleep: Custom phone solutions help keep your hotel or motel in business 24/7

A guest is calling the front desk, but you don’t know who it is because your old PBX system doesn’t have Caller ID. Last week, a different guest complained she kept pushing “0” and the phone hung up on her, instead of transferring her to reception. You don’t even want to think about what might happen if there was an emergency and someone couldn’t call 911.

Oh, for the good old days with telephone operators and manual switchboards. Where is Emma Nutt when you need her?

Hold the phone…you don’t want to return to the 1800s when there’s a custom digital solution at hand.

Independent motel and hotel owners/operators deserve the same telephone efficiency and effectiveness that technology affords every other industry. And you may be surprised to learn you don’t need to rip and replace existing phones to modernize your system—so the changes won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

With an innovative approach designed specifically for the hospitality industry, your legacy hotel can take its communication system from the metaphorical equivalent of glamping to a night at the Ritz.

Let’s get started.

Without reservation

Whether a boutique hotel wants to be perceived as a larger enterprise, or a hotel chain is seeking to level up its guest experience, Ooma has the hospitality services solution.

Because Ooma offers a cloud-based communication system, hotels and motels don’t need to dedicate precious staff time and resources on maintenance—or worry about whether a modern-day Emma Nutt is always stationed at the front desk to handle reservations and guest inquiries.

Instead, Ooma is responsible for managing and updating the software that replaces your outdated phone system. Ooma Enterprise offers a host of advanced communications features to give your guests a personalized experience, including:

• Guest-specific wake-up call service, voicemail management, staff level E911¹ notification delivery and call accounting
• Tailored welcome message for VIP guests and loyalty members
• Notification of property amenities and events
• Checkout procedures reminder the day before check-out
• Notice of any anticipated service impacts in the event of a maintenance issue

An added benefit: Guests who receive a quick response and resolution during their reservation or support calls are more likely to become repeat customers. They may even become advocates, sharing positive online reviews that generate more revenue.

Ooma hospitality services mean you’ll have no reservations about being able to deliver next-level customer satisfaction.

Employees enjoying their jobs

A simplified, inclusive guest experience also translates into a more enjoyable, efficient and effective experience for your staff.

Optimizing the employee experience starts with making sure your team members have the right tools to serve guests and deliver their best work. These include:

• Mobile apps to personalize the guest experience
• Advance notice of VIP check-ins
• Automating housekeeping/room status updates
• Personalized call and internet pricing based on guest type or group affiliation
• The ability to post guest phone call, internet and minibar charges
• Authenticating guests on internet billing systems
• Ways to bill back third-party system usage

With Ooma hospitality, organizations can deliver effortless guest experiences, do more with less, and maximize employee productivity and guest loyalty.

Preserving on-site phone systems with SIP trunking

Each hotelier has unique needs, and Ooma will evaluate yours and recommend the best solution for you. Ooma Enterprise phone service checks all the boxes for a small bed and breakfast innkeeper. Larger hotels may want to eliminate their outdated Primary Rate Interface (PRI) lines. This is where Ooma Enterprise’s SIP and IP Trunking solutions come in.

Ooma streamlines communication and performance by replacing analog lines, so you pay only for what you need. As your business continues to grow, we’ll add more lines or trunks—and we’ll do it in minutes, not days.

Our SIP and IP trunking are compatible with most IP-enabled PBX phone systems, so an upgrade or hardware change won’t derail your service. Your guests probably won’t even know when it’s happening.

Replacing worn out copper POTS

Ooma AirDial® is an all-in-one POTS replacement solution, enabling hotels and motels to save money and keep using existing analog communications devices.

The backstory: The FCC tightly regulated the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), also known as analog copper-wire phone lines or plain old telephone service (POTS) lines, through the 1990s. However, effective August 2022, the FCC no longer requires carriers to continue POTS service.

Ooma AirDial delivers the path forward from POTS line dependency—and skyrocketing phone bills. AirDial enables hospitality providers to save money, remain compliant, and preserve critical alarm, safety, building access and fax devices by migrating from copper-based phone lines to an intelligent combined solution that runs on a hassle-free dedicated wireless network.

Ooma AirDial can be used in a wide range of hospitality applications, including:

• Security panels
• Elevator phones and alarms
• Fire alarms
• PBX trunks
• Gate access phones
• Blue light phones
• Door entry intercoms
• Boiler room alarms, and more

All that Jazzware

Many hospitality brands rely on Jazzware to power their business in more than 1,800 hotels and resorts across 62 countries. Through a partnership with Jazzware, Ooma offers full-feature integration with more than 70 property management systems (PMS), and growing.

Whether or not you’re a music aficionado, you’ll love the way Jazzware integrates with some of the most popular PMS for hotels, such as:

• Opera
• Sabre
• Amadeus
• Maestro
• Infor
• Mews
• Cloudbeds
• Fidelio Opera
• Marriott Full Service PMS, Marriott Fosse and Galaxy Lightspeed IP
• OnQ for Hilton
• Choice Advantage
• Visual Matrix
• Fidelio Opera

These programs allow staff to focus on conducting the tasks that make your hotel run like a Swiss watch, such as housekeepers digitally indicating they’ve finished cleaning a room and it’s now ready for a new guest, or staff keying in a personalized welcome message that appears on a guest’s TV screen.

Ooma’s Enterprise Call Center software provides unmatched reporting and analytics, providing real-time insights to help you improve guest services and employee performance and satisfaction.

You can apply these Enterprise Call Center analytics in a number of ways: If you record calls, you can find coaching opportunities, common buying objections, and frequently asked questions. Visual dashboards make it easy to assess trends and home in on the calls that need the most attention.

That’s got to be music to a hotel owner’s or IT manager’s ears.

With Ooma hospitality service solutions, you’re able to modernize at the pace you choose, to create the best guest and employee experiences for your hotel, motel or B&B. Sometimes an existing phone system is just very old, and getting a new one presents a better image to your customers. And sometimes, whether the system is old or just inefficient, poor call quality and call drops can reflect badly on your establishment. Ooma can help remedy both situations very cost effectively.

Although your hotel, motel or B&B may not have some “Ritz-y” amenity—like a concierge who speaks seven languages, or an infinity pool overlooking Lake Lucerne—you can nevertheless treat your guests like royalty with 5-star Ooma phone system.

¹Ooma E911 service operates differently from non-internet 911 service. See www.ooma.com/911 for details.