InnSpire Voice, Powered by Volara
The new level of guest engagement
At InnSpire, we believe the most convenient and non-intrusive ways will always win. Research shows that people tend to pick up their phone, or pick up their laptop or other device to do something, depending on where they know this will be easiest and quickest.
We have finally come to a point where voice control is really starting to work, and many people already use an Alexa device, or an Apple HomePod or Google Home in their daily lives. Together with Volara we are proud to bring this interaction into the hotel room. It is a work in progress, and we will start from the basics. There is a lot of connectivity and integration that has been done, and some work we need to work on. Come see how far true voice engagement has finally come!
Why InnSpire and Volara?
Volara works with a partner model and generally does not sell directly to hotels. Therefore, the obvious partner for Northern Europe is InnSpire, with its presence and innovational drive. David Berger, CEO, Volara summarizes it:“We are thrilled to be partnering with such an innovative and pioneering company as InnSpire. They have many times pushed the boundaries for what great guest engagement should look like, and I believe that we together can bring some true innovation and change to this very exciting industry.”
InnSpire is the exclusive reseller and partner for Volara in Northern Europe (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia).
Control your room through InnSpire
InnSpire Voice allows guests to interact and control their TV through voice, as well as other compatible devices and solutions. Guests can example easily and effortlessly launch a channel on the TV, or go straight to the room service menu to order a meal. Guests can turn on and off the TV, control the volume and much more. The list of what is possible is constantly growing.
Language support
InnSpire Voice will support the languages that Amazon supports. It is currently only English, but this list continues to grow. Chinese and Spanish are rumored to be up next, and the Scandinavian languages are supposedly be supported shortly. We will continue to update this list.
How is it set up?
The setup of the Alexa device on the InnSpire and Volara solutions is a simple process which only takes a few minutes per room. InnSpire’s powerful backend handles the interactions and integrations, and hotels can be up and running in very short timeframe.
Easy answers to common questions
Some of the most common questions in hotels take up a lot of time which could be used elsewhere in the guest interaction where that time would provide much more value. With the InnSpire Voice setup, guests can simply ask and get answers to the most common questions, that are setup with questions and replies together with the hotel, such as “Where is the gym located?” or “What time does breakfast open?”, etc.
It’s phone!
For quite some time, hotels have been talking about dropping the traditional telephone. It really isn’t being used very much and when it is used, it is mostly to call the reception or in rare cases another room. But what if the Alexa device was the telephone? This is now possible, and guests can easily reach the reception when they want, or – if settings allow it – call another room.
Secure
The number one concern when it comes to voice interaction is obviously security. Can anyone hear our conversations? Is anything being recorded? When does Alexa listen? According to Volara themselves, the setup here is very clever and very safe. They assure no recordings are actually handled by Volara, but everything goes completely secured and encrypted to Amazon’s servers and technology centers. So all the “intelligence” in terms of understanding voice, happens at Amazon. The device only records when it is triggered to do so, and only for the short instance that the command is being received. And as an added security feature, guests could actually just pull out the power of the device, if they really don’t want to use it, or want it active. Getting it online again is as easy as plugging the power back in.
Bluetooth Speaker
An added benefit for the hotels and their guests is that the Alexa 2 device also has an excellent speaker. Thanks to the easily set up Bluetooth connection, guests can easily stream their own favorite music directly to the speaker, just like at home.