IVR Underused in Hospitality Industry Today, Consultant Says

By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Accordingto Uttam Pegu on the IVRS World, the Interactive Voice Response System is “a tool which can serve hospitality industry in many ways.”

IVR, Pegu says, “can be deployed in hospitality industry right from hotel bookings to room service, from providing voicemail service to bill payment.”

Some excerpts from his advice:

Hotel bookings can be completely automated. For example, if the caller is an foreign national, she can be greeted in her native language. And she would be able to browse through various room types and prices in her own language. She would be even able to make payments and get confirmation codes on voice for any room booking.

“Yes, IVR will be able to offer information on must-visit places of the area,” he says, adding “never forget, it can alert the booking clerk of the booking immediately on SMS and he can view the report and transaction.”

IVR can make outgoing calls for birthday wishes and anniversary wishes automatically from the hotel, Pegu says: “If the IVR is somehow integrated with location based system (LBS) and finds out that a guest is in the same city where the hotel is, IVR can make an outgoing call and play an welcome message” to the city.

“So, IVR can book rooms, get payments, confirm booking to customer, store records and identity with credit card numbers, advertise hotel facilities, inform availability of rooms to caller, automatically identify nationality and speak in the same language. Why were you missing this piece of intelligent equipment and still in hospitality industry?”

This summer TMC (News - Alert) reportedthat InContact released an ebook outlining five of the best practices for IVR.

And of course IVR can automate many services in a hotel. “Consider,” Pegu says. “You lift the phone and hear a list of services offered by the hotel. On top of the menu is a complimentary bottle of wine (I would find that hotel and stay there.).”

Interact, Inc., provider of Voice XML and voice applications, offers an application that is able to process hundreds of thousands of voice channels on a single platform. The SPOT VoiceXML service eliminates memory penalties and effectively increases site efficiency and processing times.

(source: http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/voicexml/articles/127255-ivr-underused-hospitality-industry-today-consultant-says.htm)