Hotel Mierzęcin Wellness & Wine Resort

Smooth Migration to VoIP with the innovaphone Solution

The Hotel Mierzęcin Wellness & Wine Resort is an elegant recreational complex located in the Lubuskie Voivodeship province, between Poznań and Szczecin. The hotel boasts a manor house, the third largest vineyard in Poland, a winery, a stud farm and the Grape Spa, and offers its guests many opportunities to spend unforgettable moments in this charming and unique atmosphere. The Hotel Mierzęcin Wellness & Wine Resort has opted for the innovaphone PBX solution to modernize its outdated communication system. Thanks to the new innovaphone communication infrastructure, the various sites across the entire group have been inter-connected and equipped according to their individual requirements.

The Initial Situation

The initial situation at the hotel in Mierzęcin was a classic example: the hotel had an outdated system with a traditional switchboard and a high number of analog connections and traditional copper cables, which had to be replaced by a modern communication system with telephones connected via LAN. The existing analog infrastructure would have required considerable investment to enable IP technology. Furthermore, it would not have been possible to implement the Unified Communications solution at a later date.

After a comprehensive analysis of various solutions available on the market, the hotel decided on the system made by innovaphone, the German specialist for modern IP Telephony and Unified Communications solution for collaboration and communication.

Łukasz Kurnikowski, the Head of Sales and Marketing explains why they chose innovaphone’s solution: “We are also using the innovaphone system at other group sites. The system is the only solution on the market that allows us to smoothly migrate to a new solution without having to replace the entire system at once, thus enabling us to spread the investment over several stages.”

The innovaphone solution connects the branches across the entire group with their diverse infrastructure to a single network in an economical and flexible manner. Łukasz Kurnikowski adds, “The system makes it possible for us to communicate internally between the different organizations in the group without incurring costs.”

Smooth Migration to Voice over IP and iQM (innovaphone Queue Monitor)

The progressive transition to the new infrastructure and its installation in a so-called smooth migration process is beneficial at each stage of the implementation and allows the employees to gradually get used to the new technology and discover new features. The process can thus be phased in tune with the company’s economic and financial situation.

This is exactly what was needed at the hotel in Mierzęcin. Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, only the first phase of the migration has been completed to date, and further installation work has been temporarily postponed.

The new communication system at the hotel in Mierzęcin is based on two VoIP gateways, an innovaphone IP3011 and IP1130, in order to facilitate the migration of connections from the ISDN infrastructure to IP. The IP3011 master gateway is the main telephone system, connected to the provider via an ISDN PRI interface. The IP1130 VoIP gateway has been installed in a separate room and was connected to the old telephone system. The hotel opted for the universal innovaphone IP112 IP telephones for telephony and unified communications applications in the office and in the guest rooms. The large color screen, the 16 dynamic function keys and 32 partner keys ensure that advanced features and applications can be operated freely. These telephones are equipped with a USB port for headphones as well as a Gigabit Ethernet port.

In order to increase the efficiency of the telephone services and administration of the booking service, the hotel employees use the innovaphone Queue Monitor (iQM). The iQM collects all required information in real time in the innovaphone PBX, presents the information transparently and makes it easier to assess whether the available resources can handle the incoming calls while giving information about possible queue overloads. Łukasz Kurnikowski said, “This software enables us to see and react to the number of incoming calls being made to the reservation team in real time. It is also possible to return customer calls if they have given up waiting, so that every potential customer can be served appropriately”.

Further System Expansion - Plans for the Future

The concept for remote branch offices, the flexibility, the possibility of step-by-step migration and the high scalability of the overall system convinced the customer to opt for the innovaphone VoIP solution and to expand it further. When asked about the future plans, Łukasz Kurnikowski replied: “In addition to replacing the old telephone system with the new solution, we are planning several new projects, including an upgrade to the V13 release, preparing the system for our field staff, and gradually transitioning all users to the new telecommunications system.”