Once long ago, hotels, motels and other hospitality businesses occupied a fairly simple space in people’s lives—they were a place for guests to lay their heads away from home. But anyone who’s spent time in the hospitality industry in the last several years knows that the role of technology in hospitality businesses has drastically expanded.
In many cases, they’re becoming hubs of activity unto themselves. Most of this activity relies directly or indirectly on technology, making IT more important to hotel operations and the guest experience than ever before.
So we’re here to share ten of the top communication technology trends in hospitality today. Check them out. Think about which ones make sense for your business. And if you see an opportunity, you can get out in front and begin planning accordingly. After all, in hospitality, every advantage counts.
1. Mobile device as door key It’s fascinating that a function as simple as a door key could undergo so much evolution. But the tool ..

We saw a lot of changes to the call center and customer experience landscape in 2017. Cloud communications and virtual agents were on the forefront of everyone’s minds, and social media was more important than ever. 2018 is shaping up to be the year of strategic thinking: better analytics, more intentional social media conversations and innovative ways to involve artificial intelligence. To help you stay on target for 2018, we’ve identified nine of the most influential trends affecting centers so far.
1. Digital transformation Businesses have always tried to differentiate themselves on price or product quality. Today, however, we’re seeing that customers are more frequently looking for something more: a rewarding experience that leads to a long-lasting relationship with a business. Customer interactions are no longer stand-alone activities, and customers are demanding a more comprehensive and consistent experience.
Digital transformation, the application of advanced technologies that..

Who knew a punctuation mark could be so controversial? Yet, the simple period has sparked much discussion in contact centers. What’s all the buzz about?
As contact centers use SMS and web chat more frequently to connect with customers, agents must take care to craft messages that fit their company’s style and tone. However, new communication channels are often open to misinterpretation. So, even grammar can be an issue.
Case in point: The period, which has been the subject of some debate. Some argue that in text messages and chat sessions, this simple punctuation mark presents a cold, aggressive tone. Using it at the end of casual text messages is perceived as insincere and communicates a sense of finality, as in: “this conversation is over.” For many grammar diehards, however, the period is a staple of propriety and excluding it is simply, well, incorrect.
So how do you set the right standards for the text and chat conversations your contact center reps have with customers? It dep..

Consumers are ramping up their adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT). Sales of smart devices like the Amazon Echo sound system and intelligent thermostats and lamps are on the rise, with Gartner predicting there will be 8.4 billion connected “things” in 2017, up 30% over 2016.
All this points to IoT use becoming a priority for businesses over the next several years. With the ability to collect data about how, where and when consumers use products and services, these technologies are poised to usher in a new era of customer experience. Consider these five examples.
1. More Personalized Service With IoT, businesses will collect more detailed data about how individual customers use their products. Amazon already enables customers to easily re-order products with the push of a button, and both LG and Samsung have introduced smart refrigerators that allow consumers to view their contents via an app.
While this is useful for planning grocery store runs, IoT can personalize the customer..

In last year’s Oscar-nominated movie, “Hidden Figures,” one of the main characters confronts the arrival of a mainframe IBM computer. As a NASA mathematician in the early years of the space program, she astutely realizes the machine could put her out of a job very quickly unless she adapts – and learns how to get more from it.
Today, IT professionals reading headlines about the future of work face similar concerns. Technology – artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation, especially – could potentially reshape entire lines of work. While manufacturing jobs have already been impacted, even white-collar jobs seem to be on the line, including accounting and legal services. But what about IT? How will these technologies reshape the IT team of the future?
For all professionals, the good news is that automation is more likely to impact individual activities, says McKinsey Global Institute. Just 5% of occupations are candidates for full automation. The rest are likely to be onl..

Digital transformation and rapid technology adoption are competitive differentiators for today's businesses, accelerating the pace of growth. By leveraging communications in everything they do, businesses can make decisions faster and improve operational efficiency.
An omni-channel communications approach is key — putting the choice of communicating by voice, SMS, chat or social media squarely in the hands of the user. All of this depends heavily on the performance of the cloud-hosted unified communications (UC) networks that create the foundation for digital transformation. Even the best technology won't be successful if delivered on an unreliable network (see related post, “Secret to Digital Transformation Is Strong Foundation”).
We offer five tips to ready your network for stellar digital transformation performance.
Tip No. 1: Monitor everything Typically, when there's a network problem, finding its source is the most time-consuming part of the IT professional&#039..

We’ve all heard the terms “big data,” “Internet of Things,” and “artificial intelligence” making their way into business over the past few years. But as 2018 approaches, these technologies continue to become even more prominent. What’s more, they’re opening new doors for companies when it comes to customer interactions.
For example, a recent Forrester report predicts the combination of big data, IoT and AI not only will give businesses access to more data, but also allow them to gain better insights through deeper and more mature data analysis. Per the report, while two years ago “only 51 percent of data and analytics decision-makers said that they were able to easily obtain data and analyze it without the help of technology, Forrester expects this figure to rise to around 66 percent in 2017.”
With that, it’s not surprising to learn analysts are expecting more than a 300 percent increase investment in AI this year – all with the goal of helping businesses to retrieve more data, condu..

It’s no secret that today, businesses can’t rely on once-traditional marketing tactics to engage their customers. As people increasingly live through their mobile devices, researching products and services and making purchasing decisions in real time, companies must respond by adapting their approach to fit with these live interactions.
For a business to succeed, its customers “require unique, personalized responses in real time that transcend traditional marketing and span channels and devices,” SAS concludes in a report that examines how companies can adapt to this new world.
Already, many are already diving head first into this real-time experience, presenting customers with personalized offers based on their purchase and browser history. Yet greater up-sell opportunities are still available. Cloud communications plays a key role in unlocking this next level in optimizing real-time interactions.
The micro-moments One strategy is to take advantage of “moments of now,” which go bey..

Consumer technologies are making their way into the workplace, and it has become all-but impossible for executives and IT departments to stop the surge.
While consumerization isn’t without its challenges, there are significant benefits to rolling out and supporting such technologies in the enterprise. For example, if B2B businesses want to find and retain top talent – particularly Millennials – they need to face the challenge head-on and have a plan for integrating the right applications.
Gartner sees consumerization as the key to creating a digital workplace, and a must for competitive organizations. The firm calls it “a business strategy to boost employee agility and engagement through a more consumerized work environment.”
While each workplace is unique, successful ones share certain qualities when it comes to their digital initiatives. For example, employees across all departments are encouraged to voice their opinions around technology needs and stay involved throughout the ado..

Cold calling presents one of the steepest challenges contact centers face. Industry experts put the conversion rate at just 1 percent to 2 percent. That means agents usually make more than 100 calls before they reach someone who’s just willing to talk to them. That equals a lot of time and a lot of rejection.
How can you change this? Think about adding some warmth to the equation.
All too often, mass marketing campaigns – including calls and emails – are true to their name. They lack personalization and are based on a standard script. Their calls often end with a swift click by the recipient or an email deleted before it’s read.
Warm up the tone of your outbound efforts and success rates can increase. Here are some tips to get your outbound call center ready to reach out with a personal touch.
Make the script your own Scripts are a great tool for cold calls, but they only get you so far. It’s painfully obvious when a script is being read. So have agents practice the script and ..

No matter what they need or where they are, consumers increasingly use the “computer in their pocket” to find answers, connect with businesses and generally solve problems. It’s not surprising, then, that mobile has become the operating system of choice: In March, Android surpassed Windows in worldwide internet usage market share, according to CIO magazine.
For businesses, the real significance of this trend is that it changes expectations for customer service. A new customer paradigm is emerging out of consumers’ deepening devotion to mobile devices. Customer service has evolved into customer experience. If businesses want to thrive in this new marketplace, they must embrace this shift and create a new digital journey for their customers.
Recent research from McKinsey reaffirms the rising expectations of digital customers. More than 75 percent of online customers expect help within five minutes and place as much value on online reviews as they do on personal recommendations. As a ..

The most successful brands have adopted a set of human-like personality traits to help them build stronger bonds with customers, convey values, and differentiate from competitors. By infusing their brand personality into marketing and sales, they earn customer loyalty and grow their business.
In the contact center, brand personality often shapes outbound marketing scripts. But what about email? After all, it’s still the primary channel for business communications, and its reign appears far from over. The number of emails sent and received per day is expected to grow at a rate of 4.6 percent to nearly 258 billion in 2020, according to the Radicati Group.
Clearly, email can be a powerful conduit for expressing brand personality, but are you using it to its fullest potential? One often overlooked feature is the email signature. By ensuring your brand personality is infused into contact center email signatures, you can take advantage of volume and create a unique opportunity to engage cu..