Is your customer experience rating falling because of bad tech?
Have you suffering from poor Hotel WiFi ?
Are your clients complaining that they cant buy drinks in the bar down the corridor?
We often here of wedding guests complaining that it takes ages to buy a drink. They blame the staff but is the problem really to do with technology? Many modern till systems cant operate unless they have a good network connection. When they stop, the waiter will tell a customer that they need to go to a different bar to take payment. Then you get poor reviews and slow bar service.
Do you struggle to take VISA payment in the snug?
VISA machines need to connect via a 3G phone signal or by Wi-Fi to be able to take payments. 3G is fine for using at an auction, or craft market because even with poor signal strength it still gives a benefit.
However 3G signals are not good at penetrating buildings reliably. So when customer service is important, you need a really good and reliable Wi-Fi signal that is secure. That way you can take payment rapidly and close to the table without interrupting the clients enjoyment.
When you have a large number of guests, do they shout about poor internet speed?
People come to hotels for various reasons, relaxation, celebration, business etc. Hotel WiFi has to cope with large numbers of uploads as clients share pictures on social media. This activity soon swamps the internet connection and stops everyone from working. When this is coupled with uncontrolled windows updates or somebody watching an on line movie, you end up getting a poor reputation.
Do you need internet access outside?
Are your customers wanting to sit in the sun and still browse the internet? Traditional equipment cant be mounted outside and so you have to rely on a weak signal come from an internal WiFi system.
Data Growth
Nowadays there are more short videos uploaded to social media than pictures. Every smartphone takes mini moving pictures instead of still pictures.
Business users work far more on line than before. The amount of email traffic has grown exponentially.
As a result the amount of bandwidth needed is also growing exponentially. Without fast internet connection your customers will swamp your connection and cause themselves a poor customer experience.
Is there a solution?
A properly managed network from Andisa is the solution!
Centrally managed Hotel WiFi that puts you in control.
A centrally managed Hotel WiFi system will give you the control and grant WiFi access for limited periods or with limited bandwidth. It will also mean that individual guests get a fair share of the bandwidth but cant “swamp” it.
The web management portal will put you in control. You can view who is using most bandwidth, or block unwanted clients such as neighbours or competitors.
You can have a dedicated staff Wi-Fi that automatically switches on during break times.
Business class routers and switches share bandwidth and stop bottlenecks.
By adding a business class router and network switches you change to a fully managed network . The router will share bandwidth evenly so that each area gets its own allocation, but at quiet times the excess can be accessed automatically by a busier area.
Andisa and hotel management are able to see graphs showing actual bandwidth usage, and then fine tune network resources to cope with demand.
Interestingly, if a movie streaming service is left unchecked then it will grab as much bandwidth as it can in order to send higher and higher definition videos. I recently measured IPlayer running 15Mb/s for a single movie.
If a managed router is setup to spot movie streaming traffic and limit it to say 3Mb/s then the person watching wont see lower quality video and yet more clients can access the internet without being swamped. See our Mikrotik Router page. Mikrotik Routerboard
Waterproof Access Points for outside internet.
We can supply waterproof Access points that can mount anywhere! This mean you can give Hotel WiFi to guests in a wedding marque or at an outside bar!
Security
Internet access in a public location needs managing to prevent guests from accessing network resources that only staff should be able to access. For instance because you probably only have one internet line you will share that between tills, VISA and guest phones / laptops. That means the network is shared and it is potentially possible for a VISA machine to be hacked by someone in the bar!
VLANs are the answer. A properly configured and managed network will have the Staff Wi-Fi, the Guest Wi-Fi and the admin network all separated by a setting called VLAN.
This simply means that devices on one VLAN cant access devices on a different VLAN and the network is secure.
The routers job is to allow all traffic to access the internet but not to transfer between internal VLANs.
Summary
So, poorly configured technology will give rise to poor customer service in the hotel environment. It will allow clients to break the network and cause their own poor experience.
However there are steps you can take to fix the problem and make your own life better in the same step.
Contact Andisa on 01423 290029 to discuss how to have a brilliant Hotel WiFi or read further on our wireless networks page. Wireless Networks
We spent the last few days desperately installing generators for our clients in Scotland - trying to get ready for the XMAS period amongst strikes and power cuts.
If only you provided generators, then power would be as reliable as the network you set up for us. That never goes wrong - if a line fails the system automatically connects to the spare line and our customers keep running! Well done.
You made a real difference to our business, because you stopped us getting a massive surge of calls each time there was a line fault.