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Pinnacle Spotlight
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Pinnacle Communications is a leader in providing advanced communication solutions tailored to the hospitality industry. With a deep understanding of the unique communication needs within this sector and a focus on delivering excellence, Pinnacle Communications has become a trusted name for hotels, resorts, and other hospitality organizations seeking to enhance guest experiences and streamline their communication infrastructure.
Pinnacle offers unique expertise in hosted hospitality applications, leading with the ClearlyIP ComXchange Platform for cloud-based requirements.
INDUSTRY CHALLENGES
Hospitality organizations face specific challenges when considering the transition to a hosted phone system, and a cloud-based platform is inherently more complex to design and install than a traditional on-premise system because it relies on remote servers and network infrastructure managed by third-party providers. This complexity arises from the need to ensure seamless connectivity, data security, and quality of service over the internet, involving considerations such as firewall configurations, bandwidth requirements, and potential latency issues.
Additionally, cloud-based systems require thorough planning for scalability, redundancy, and disaster recovery. In contrast, traditional on-premise systems operate within a controlled environment, offering predictability but demanding extensive in-house hardware and software management. This makes the design and installation process comparatively less intricate. The Pinnacle team possesses the experience and expertise necessary to successfully navigate the complex requirements of a hosted cloud-based hotel phone system, ensuring seamless connectivity, security, and scalability paired with ongoing support and maintenance.
As guest expectations evolve, hotels and resorts must ensure they offer reliable, feature-rich, and scalable communication solutions. These challenges include:
- Legacy Infrastructure: Many hotels still rely on outdated and inflexible on-premises phone systems, making it challenging to adapt to modern communication needs.
- Scalability: Seasonal fluctuations and varying guest demands require a communication system that can scale up or down quickly without incurring substantial costs.
- Guest Experience: Ensuring a seamless and personalized guest experience is crucial. Hotels need the ability to offer features like outbound calling, direct room-to-room calling, voicemail, and conferencing capabilities.
- Cost Efficiency: Traditional phone systems come with high maintenance and upgrade costs, affecting the overall budget for the hotel organization.
- Redundancy: A hosted phone system for a hotel can offer improved redundancy by leveraging cloud-based technology and redundancy measures to ensure continuous communication availability, even in the face of unexpected outages or failures.
THE SOLUTION
The ComXchange-hosted solution is a paradigm shift for Hospitality Communication. In partnership with Pinnacle Communications, the platform addresses these challenges and offers a comprehensive set of features and benefits for the hospitality industry:
- Scalability: ComXchange allows hotels to easily scale their communication infrastructure according to demand. Whether it’s a busy holiday season or a quieter period, the system adapts to the changing needs of the hotel.
- Guest Experience: ComXchange provides an array of features that enhance the guest experience, including wake-up calls, guest information via the phone, and easy access to hotel services through a user-friendly interface.
- Reduced Costs: By moving to a hosted solution, hotels can significantly reduce upfront and ongoing maintenance costs. The cloud-based nature of ComXchange means minimal hardware investment, with updates and maintenance handled by ClearlyIP.
- Reliability: ComXchange ensures reliable and uninterrupted communication, which is vital for hospitality establishments where a missed call or poor communication can affect guest satisfaction.
THE RESULTS
Pinnacle has successfully implemented the ComXchange Hosted Solution in hundreds of hospitality establishments. The results have been nothing short of transformative. Offering new, reliable technology with improved guest satisfaction and feature-rich communication options with a scalable infrastructure that can adapt to seasonal demand fluctuations.
Substantial cost savings were achieved through reduced hardware and maintenance expenses and third-party support and monitoring. This resulted in a reliable and resilient communication infrastructure, ensuring seamless guest interactions.
A hosted instance of ComXchange offers improved redundancy by leveraging cloud-based technology and redundancy measures to ensure continuous communication availability, even in the face of unexpected outages or failures.
How This is Achieved:
- Geographic Redundancy: ComXchange-hosted phone systems are often distributed across multiple data centers located in different geographic regions. This geographic redundancy minimizes the risk of a single point of failure, such as a natural disaster, affecting the entire communication system. If one data center experiences an issue, the traffic can automatically be routed to a backup data center, ensuring uninterrupted service.
- High Availability Infrastructure: ComXchange hosted is built on high-availability infrastructure, which includes redundant hardware components, such as a controller onsite at the hotel property, so that in the event of a hardware failure, the system can quickly switch to backup components, maintaining seamless operation.
- Automatic Failover, ComXchange hosted systems implement automatic failover mechanisms. If one server or data center becomes unavailable, the system automatically redirects traffic to an alternate location. This ensures that calls and other communication services continue without interruption.
- Redundant Internet and Connectivity, hosted phone systems often use multiple internet connections from different providers. If one internet connection experiences an outage or slowdown, the system can seamlessly switch to the backup connection, guaranteeing uninterrupted service.
- Load Balancing: this means ComXchange can distribute call and data traffic evenly across multiple servers or data centers. If one server is overloaded or experiences issues, the load balancing feature redirects traffic to other available servers, preventing service degradation.
- Backup Power and UPS Failover are pre-planned both onsite and in the ClearlyIP data centers housing hosted systems equipped with backup power sources and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS). This ensures that even in the event of a power outage, the system continues to perform.
Pinnacle has empowered hotel organizations to overcome industry challenges and provide an enhanced guest experience with its design and implementation of ComXchange-hosted solutions. The platform offers the flexibility, scalability, and features necessary to stay competitive and meet the ever-evolving needs of the hospitality sector. Together, they have set a new standard for hospitality communication solutions, redefining the guest experience in the process.
~ Mike Henningsen, Executive Vice President of Operations at Plamondon Hospitality Partners.
~ Jon Kaufman, Director of Operations, Crescent Hotels & Resorts, Fairfax Marriott.
