New Four Pillars Hotel opts for Alcatel-Lucent’s IP communications solution

Paris.-Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that its Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX Enterprise platform IP telephony solutions have been deployed at the new Cotswold Water Park Four Pillars Hotel in Gloucestershire, UK. The installation, which was carried out by Alcatel-Lucent’s business partner NextiraOne UK, enables the four-star hotel to offer an exceptional standard of guest services and provides staff with improved internal communications.

All 219 bedrooms of the luxury resort are equipped with Alcatel-Lucent digital handsets, providing ease of access to features such as voicemail and wake-up services. Conference rooms are also fitted with Alcatel-Lucent handsets, while hotel managers are equipped with Alcatel-Lucent DECT handsets, ensuring they are always contactable regardless of their location in the hotel.

Cotswold Water Park Four Pillars Hotel is also utilising the new solution to manage and bill calls more effectively and accurately. The Alcatel-Lucent platform not only serves the hotel guests and administration, but also links the hotel to the head office and a centralised reservation contact centre. This allows Four Pillars to benefit from free internal calls between the three centres, resulting in significant cost savings and streamlining the hotel group’s communications.

The hotel opted for the Alcatel-Lucent and NextiraOne UK offering based on the companies’ considerable experience in the hospitality sector, and due to the dynamic and future proof nature of the communications solution.

“Not only does the new Alcatel-Lucent solution enable our staff to provide guests with superior services, it has also helped us improve staff collaboration,” said Rex Clayton, financial director of the Four Pillars Hotel Group. “As an expanding hotel company, we are continuing to grow and improve the services we offer our customers. The Alcatel-Lucent solution provides us with the flexibility to accommodate this growth and can be easily extended to cover new facilities, such as our new food outlet due to open in 2008.”

“The Cotswold Water Park Four Pillars Hotel has been quick to utilise IP telephony to give customers immediate access to staff for all their needs, providing an excellent customer experience,” said Peter Tebbutt, regional support centre director for Alcatel-Lucent’s enterprise activities in the UK and Ireland. “By leveraging its investment in IP telephony, the hotel is able to integrate its network, people, processes and collected knowledge of the staff to enhance its overall guest experience.”

“The hotel and leisure industry recognises the operational and cost-reduction benefits that IP telephony can bring. NextiraOne has strong expertise in delivering both large and small IP installations across Europe, so we were able to extend our expertise to Cotswold Water Park Four Pillars Hotel,” said Steven Skakel, managing director for NextiraOne UK and Ireland. “The group can now look forward to smoother operability and further enhanced customer service.”