ORION

A little ice breaker: The history of ORION

The ORION solution platform, now in its third release, was truly the first platform where guests can peruse and order hotel products and services like room service, hotel activities and amenities as well as chat interactively with hotel staff. ORION, originally called PERC or Personal E-Room Concierge was first piloted in 2006 on computer systems located in 200 guest rooms at a premier resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. This PERC (now ORION) solution included a robust solution set, including: ordering in-room dining, making dinner reservations, requesting housekeeping services, coordinating transportation, checking flights, browsing for local information such as maps and directions, booking spa appointments, and virtually all other services the hotel provided as well as an interactive chat module. The system was an immediate hit with the guests. 80% of occupied rooms were using the system to digitally explore the hotel using the in room computers. The downfall of the computer solution was the strain in bandwidth consumption the dedicated PCs in each room placed on the guest internet network. With so many devices being used simultaneously the network was slow and unusable during peak usage times. Based on the popularity of the hotel portal the hotel staff indicated a web enabled version of the PERC system would be the perfect complement to the installed PERC systems. The property could service everyone with a web-enabled device without the cost purchasing and maintaining in room computers. So the designers and engineers at GBCblue (now Ascension Software) rolled up their sleeves and got to work creating what is today the leading, most innovative property managed, interactive web and mobile optimized guest portal solution available. No solution ever starts out without a little pain and our experience in this market is your gain so here are some of the valuable lessons we have learned over the years for you to consider if you are thinking about deploying ORION or another like system at your business:

1. Hotel portals solutions are not labor saving tools. Hotel's need order takers and reviewers regardless of the order entry system so don't be fooled by such claims. We realize and respect that as a member of a professionally run organization, it has always been your goal and responsibility to your owners and shareholders to minimize staff levels without compromising the service your guests have come to expect. ORION won't reduce the staff of your room service ordering area or concierge staff; you have effectively already done that. Let's face it, some guests will always want to just pick up the phone and order and someone has to be on the other end to take the order. ORION does increase per ticket order totals 15-20% when a guest uses the ORION system. It also increases order accuracy to nearly 100% and ORION enabled hotels have reported that +50% of guests that use ORION, use it again before they leave the hotel. At this time enhancing the customer experience, device optimization and capturing ROI is our main focus.
2. Think twice about paying $1000+ per room to put in a computer, iPad, etc. into your guest rooms. Guests are traveling with web-enabled devices already and they'd rather use their own system. Whatever you invest in will be antiquated in six months and you'll be on a three year depreciation cycle. Besides the obvious capital expenditure and logistical costs of deploying, cleaning, and supporting yet another piece of glass into a hotel room is very costly. From the outset, the ORION system was designed to work on the guests own web enabled device and we continue to subscribe to that philosophy today. As such, the ORION system intuitively and automatically optimizes itself for Droid™, iPad™, iPhone™, iTouch™ and standard browser usage such as Explorer™, FireFox™ and Safari™ and ORION™ can be offered as stand-alone cached applications both on the iStore™ and Android™ marketplace.
3. Integrate, integrate, integrate. You have already invested a great deal of time and money in proven, mature back-of-house systems (POS, PMS, MMS)s. Most of these systems do not have a front facing interface for guests but do have APIs that can be integrated with. ORION utilizes these existing fulfillment pathways and creates a seamless front facing interface for these systems. Today, ORION is the leading integrator of back-of-house systems with our elegant, guest interface. These integrations include:
   1. POS: MICROS 9700, HSI
   2. MMS: SynergyMMS and HotSOS
   3. PMS: Via our direct interfacing with the gateways from Nomadix, SuperClick Simms Gateway, GuestTek, AT&T and Solution IP we are able to safely and securely communicate and authenticate to virtually every PMS system available today.
4. There is no one size fits all. The ORION team has spent countless hours onsite at various hotels working with the different departments that ORION users interact with. What we have found is that what may work well for one department, receiving an email or SMS text message from a guest, won't work for another department that may not have access to a computer or is in an area of the hotel that does not get cell or wireless, as anyone who has spent any time in the industry knows. For that reason, the ORION system has multiple methods you can choose from to fulfill a guest request. Email, SMS, direct to our convenient and simple to use web-based order taker interface or OTI, direct to SyngergyMMS or HotSOS or directly to your POS system.
5. No one can do it all. We all wish we could but nobody delivers "total" solution. Also, nobody integrates with everything and beware of those that say they do. ORION is built to provide as many guest-fulfillment pathways as possible while incorporating other service-platforms and applications into one seamless wrapper. Have a great idea for a new ORION integration or new ORION service? Let your Ascension rep know, you would be surprised at the number of "what if's" became "why not's" over the years.
6. Get a global solution. Ascension puts the global in "Can you deploy globally?" ORION systems are now in use around the world on virtually every continent (not Antarctica yet!) and now both our menus and payment systems support and display in 9 major currencies.
7. Make sure your solution is PCI Compliant. While this is the last point here, it should always remain top of mind for you. You can be confident that our biggest customers demand PCI Compliance and Ascension Software remains the only full service operator that can deliver it.

We are always happy to spend time with you answering questions you may have about the ORION system and we are genuinely interested in how we can integrate ORION into your business. Call or email us today to get started!