Hotel telephone revenue
There was a time when phone revenue accounted for 3 percent of a hotel's total annual revenue and the telephone
department ran at about an 80 percent profit margin. Guests made direct dial phone calls from their rooms and only
a few used cell phones and credit or calling cards. Hotel telecom revenues have been declining, on average, 3-5%
per year for the last several years for a variety of reasons. The number one guest complaint is telephone billing
rates.
Call accounting is essential to a hotel or motel
Call accounting is now more valuable than ever. The call accounting system captures revenue which pays for the
hotels telecom infrastructure. It is the most important piece of your telecom system. It is critical that you invest
in a system that will ensure you do not lose money on your telecom investment. All too often, call accounting software
is purchased based on price rather than performance. The key is to get a system that captures all the telecom revenue
and is flexible enough to keep up with changing guest needs. Here are some ways you can use your call accounting
system to reverse the trend on dwindling telecom revenue:
Your telephone rates vs. cell phone rates
Use "Price Class" billing to provide attractive calling packages to your VIPs, business travelers
and loyalty guests and automatically bill these guests at lower rates based on group affiliation captured at check-in.
TelSoft has pioneered a 2-way interface with the PMS which automatically assigns telephone billing rates from your
guests based on group codes from the PMS. This gives you the flexibility to offer telephone rates that will encourage
your guests back to using your phones instead of their cell phones.
Ways to enhance revenue using your call accounting system
- Use call accounting reports to determine calling patterns that show where your guests come from so that you
can market to that geography or negotiate with long distance providers.
- Enable toll fraud alarms to alert you to evidence of fraud by both guests and staff.
- Review monthly reports for trending such as calling card and ISP connection increases and adjust pricing to
maximize revenue potential.
- Reconcile telephone bills against call accounting reports to ensure carrier bills are correct.
- Stay updated on guest service issues such as the number of trunks needed to prevent busy signals. Call accounting
reports can locate out-of-service trunks, equipment and lines you are paying for but are no longer using.
- Admin reports distributed to staff on a weekly basis will also reduce personal calls that drive up the phone
bill.
- Update tariff rates regularly
- Use the night auditor to reconcile the call accounting system and PMS reports nightly.
- Ensure all extensions in each guestroom are loaded into the call accounting system.
- Price voice calls differently than data calls (Internet access).
Never lose a billable call
Ensure that the call accounting system processes every single call record it receives from the PBX. This is
critical and you must find a system with a good track record of not losing billable calls. A fancy system with
"pretty" reports and graphs is nice but the real reason you are purchasing a system is to bill guest
calls and not lose one call record.
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