How a Major Hotel Brand Delivers Premium Guest Service with Orion Push to Talk

Striving for excellent service in hospitality

For this hotel in the southeastern US, staff must be in constant communication to provide excellent customer experiences. The ten-story hotel and conference center is part of a major hotel chain, and staff work around the clock to accommodate guests and conference attendees.

In the past, management used traditional two-way radios to keep the staff in contact. Unfortunately, the radios routinely lost connection, causing frustration and delays in productivity. Inferior radio quality also meant poor audio quality, making messages hard to hear and leading to staff mistakes. Staff would often lose food orders or guests’ requests for fresh towels. The staff then had to spend extra time fixing errors. Not only did this lead to backlogged guest requests, but it also created poor customer experiences.

Replacing legacy land mobile radios with Kyocera and Orion

The hotel began using Kyocera DuraForce PRO devices running the Orion Push to Talk app to connect its 50 staff members. The DuraForce PRO was selected for its built-in rugged durability and large dedicated push-to-talk (PTT) button, extra loud speaker, powerful battery, and accessory support — all in standard phone size.

With Orion, the hotel staff could also communicate off-site, across the hotel property and surrounding city area. For employees working at the hotel and conference center, the hotel kept costs down by using the existing Wi-Fi infrastructure. Other team members who need to be off-site, like drivers, use cellular-enabled devices with the Orion app and stay connected anywhere in the city. Further, the Orion app utilizes GPS via the device to allow managers to locate drivers and other mobile staff quickly.

Saving on operations costs and communicating clearly

By choosing Orion, the hotel management reaped significant financial savings. Upgrading their two-way radios and adding repeaters would have cost at least $500 per employee. On top of that cost, the hotel would have had to obtain an FCC license. The high cost plus the need to equip each team member with a radio meant that management faced a significant capital investment for a technology that they weren’t even sure would work effectively or support the needs of the transportation team. Instead, management was able to offer smartphones running Orion Push to Talk to every staff member at a fraction of the cost of upgrading the radio system.

Immediately after switching to Orion Push to Talk, the staff noted massive improvements in audio quality and effective range. Messages transmitted through Orion come through clearly, which helped eliminate frustration and repeated requests for help. Orion’s excellent audio quality easily surpassed the unreliable radios the team had been using previously.

For the hotel, the benefits of adopting Orion were immediately apparent. The improvements in audio quality and range, as well as the cost savings, proved why Orion was the best solution for their needs.

Read the whole case study

To learn more about how this hotel streamlined their work with Orion, read the complete case study.