Mr. Kasprzyk

Wi-Fi

Guest Internet Installation: Common Practices & Complications

By Michael Kasprzyk, CEO, Thinwires, LLC

In a perfect world, everything would happen and work as it's supposed to... forever without fault or complication. In network technology, as with most everything else in reality, that's rarely the case. Unfortunately, during your HSIA (High Speed Internet Access) installation, or later on, there's bound to be a hiccup here or there for one reason or another. Knowing how to deal with these hiccups, or how to avoid them all together as they arise, will make a big difference in your guest's satisfaction and your bottom line. In this article, we'll provide some tips and common practices to help you prevent HSIA complications from complicating your guest experience and ultimately your profits.

Complications come in all shapes and sizes. Your first line of defense in avoiding potential HSIA installation complications and disasters is to hire experience. Since every property is different, each installation presents its own unique circumstances and hurdles. Hiring a vendor that has seen it all, or at least a lot, can make all the difference. It is important to understand that in today's business travel segment, Guest Internet Service is one of the top factors driving satisfaction and repeat business. Therefore, ensuring you have industrial grade equipment and solid plans for service and support will help you cope with complications as they arrive.

Your organization needs to maintain an understanding of the network system being installed in your hotel or resort. One of the most common post-installation problems we see is change in staff - even within a week of completing the installation. Make sure you've got your access point locations and wiring diagram on paper and in your hands before your installation team leaves the building! Maintaining continuity of knowledge regarding your Guest Internet Service is as essential as hiring the right team for the job. If possible, make sure your "Building Expert" is onsite for the installation. That person likely knows the best pathways for cabling, secure locations for mounting equipment around your property and will be able to assist in replacing an access point gone bad two years down the road.

During the installation, make sure you have a good plan for the access points and all cabling required. It is important that you maintain your building in a consistent manner, regardless of the types of systems being installed. When you have low voltage cable being installed for access points, make sure it's labeled and rides a logical path in your building - perhaps the path that the smoke detectors have followed, for example.

Equipment placement is important - but not as important as your ability to service the equipment after installation. If you have an especially busy hotel, it may be best to install hand traps in the ceiling for easy access to your equipment, rather than above the drop ceilings in your bathrooms where you'll have to disturb a guest to perform a replacement or reset.

Keep it simple. Keep it consistent. Your guests show up at your door with varying levels of technical know-how-you never really know what to expect. But, it's your job to be able to accommodate everyone as best you can. From the guest's perspective, the more straightforward and less obtrusive the user experience, the less likely there will be confusion leading to problems when using your Guest Internet Service. Making the setup and log on process as simple as possible is key to avoiding front desk hassle, support calls, and dissatisfaction scores.

One means to avoid confusion and simplify the guest user experience is to provide a single SSID (network identifier name) for Wi-Fi networks. In one crazy instance, we serviced a property using 20+ Wi-Fi radios-all with different SSID's! Somehow, guests were supposed to know which radio is closest to them so that they could obtain the best signal. If the front desk provided guests a map of the hotel with a network layout, this method might almost be intuitive. Having a single SSID across your entire network avoids such confusion.

Another important element in simplifying your Guest Internet Service is to ensure that guests have access to all the necessary components right in their rooms, without having to call the front desk for help. Keep a spare patch cord in the desk drawer or mounted to the desk - whatever works best for you - but make it as easy as possible for a guest of any technology level to get online without hassle.

The best way to avoid trouble is information. Be sure that all of your front desk staff is well informed as to how Guest Internet Service works, as well as the process for troubleshooting and whom to contact in case technical support is required. Having an action plan for when things go awry can save everyone a lot of headache. A written plan at your front desk outlining an escalation process with instruction and contact numbers will help eliminate confusion and allow your staff to more quickly accommodate your guests. Guests that receive quick, competent assistance are often more satisfied than those that receive poor service and assistance, even if their issue is unable to be resolved.

You should also provide information directly to your guests in the form of room cards, table tents or instruction sheets at your front desk and in each room where service is available. These items should provide basic user network configuration information, simple log on instruction and most importantly, whom to call when things go wrong.

A Bad Cocktail Recipe: Guest Computers mixed with your Property Management System and Accounting Systems. It may seem like a harmless enough cost savings; "I'll just get one Internet Connection and split it between the guests and my staff." The fact is that your systems are likely to be Windows computers that have default installations, running very little in the way of antivirus or spyware software. While this isn't the forum to consider the pros and cons of today's computer environments, it bears mentioning that you don't need outside strange computers infecting your networks and business with costly viruses and bandwidth sapping spyware. On top, you can't afford the risk of a guest compromising one of your systems - they can break them or steal from you - either way, you lose big time.

If you must only use one Internet connection, ensure that you have separate firewalls and routers that completely separate your business operation computers from the guests. Insist that your installer show you how they've accomplished this so when you add a computer for the front desk that you make sure it gets hooked up right the first time.

Don't be surprised. Be prepared. At some point, everything breaks. Access points, network controllers, routers... all are subject to eventual catastrophic failure, whether it be wear and tear of heavy daily usage, or acts of nature. As time goes on, older devices are far more prone to fail. While an intelligently designed and implemented network should minimize full network outages as much as possible, failure of these items can even take down your entire network. When trouble arises, being able to get things back on track quickly is paramount to avoiding guest fallout.

While not always practical or possible, depending on your network installation and vendor, having extra pre-configured hardware on hand may allow you to quickly save the day in these events. Even though you have to pay for the extra hardware upfront, it may spare you future paid onsite service calls from your vendor, or the cost of expedited shipping of new replacement hardware in the long run. It is definitely something worth considering if your budget allows.

So, while it's obviously impossible to prevent the bad things from happening all of the time, there are certainly things that you can do to minimize them, or to avoid some all together. With some preparedness and planning, you'll find that you will be better able to keep your guest network running smoothly... keeping your guests happy and providing yourself with some peace of mind. Hopefully, some of these things we've discussed here will help you avoid unnecessary troubles with your Guest Internet Service.

Michael Kasprzyk is CEO of Thinwires, LLC, a privately held company that specializes in guest Internet services for the hospitality world. Since he co-founded Thinwires in early 2003, Michael has successfully grown the business to service several properties of top hotel chains, including members of Leading Hotels of the World. The company currently manages guest Internet services for thousands of rooms in hotels throughout the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. Mr. Kasprzyk can be contacted at 716-883-8719 or mikek@thinwires.com Extended Bio...

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