How important is WiFi to your guests?
Today, every hotel provides a WiFi network for their guests, but do they make sure that their WiFi networks deliver the performance their guests need? A quick search of hotel review websites like Yelp and TripAdvisor show too many hotels with poor reviews for WiFi networks that were slow or had inadequate coverage in guestrooms. Many of these WiFi issues are the result of inaccurate site surveys of the hotel. Every day, hotels and their staff work hard to offer great services with minimal inconvenience, but few hotels realize that by allowing for some small temporary inconveniences during the site survey process they can greatly improve all of their guests’ WiFi experiences. A hotel WiFi network that performs well for all guests depends on a few things -”sufficient bandwidth, sufficient coverage, minimal interference, and ease of use. Each factor is equally as important in making sure that guests have an optimal WiFi connection. However, ensuring that every hotel room meets these standards requires some work.
What is a site survey?
A site survey is an evaluation of a hotel’s structure and infrastructure. It evaluates how WiFi signals will permeate through the building to determine the coverage and strength of the WiFi signals that guests will eventually use. A thorough site survey guarantees that wireless access points, APs, are optimally placed so that wireless signals can reach all areas where a guest may need Internet access. There are different methods of obtaining initial site surveys. One way is to plug a hotel’s basic layout into a program and automatically obtain a map with an estimate of the placement of APs. However, even the best automatic site survey software can’t account for all of the aspects of the actual environment where the AP will operate. While these types of site surveys may be fast and convenient, there is no substitute for an accurate physical site survey performed by a qualified and professional wireless technician or engineer. Additionally, WiFi commonly uses two different frequencies, so if the goal of the hotel is to provide coverage of both 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz, a survey should check for both frequencies.
WiFi guest support is important!
Deep Blue Communications conducts thorough site surveys for all of their hotel WiFi networks, and as a result, builds some of the best hotel WiFi networks. However, unforeseen circumstances can cause minor issues in guest rooms even on an overwhelmingly robust WiFi network. Abnormal signal interference or factors such as unique room architecture can occur in rooms that were not accessible while the site survey and AP installations were conducted. Even though these cases are rare, it is extremely important that the hotels with new WiFi networks do whatever they can to encourage guests to report any issues directly to the WiFi company’s helpdesk staff. This enables technicians to fix the problem immediately, and more importantly, it minimizes the number of guests potentially affected by the same issues in the future. Speaking to a helpdesk can be a minor inconvenience for a guest. However, it is preferable to the alternative – when the issue reoccurs for months, and happens to hundreds of guests who could potentially leave poor reviews at one of the many hotel review sites.
Guest satisfaction is our #1 concern
Deep Blue Communications has one of the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the industry because they build WiFi networks that meet the high expectations of their hospitality clients. They have high standards for WiFi signal saturation during their initial site surveys to minimize any potential signal problems for hotel guests. Deep Blue Communications installs hotel WiFi networks to work from the first day. Many of their clients contact them to replace existing hotel WiFi networks. Contact Deep Blue Communications today if your guests are demanding a WiFi network that meets their expectations.
