The best hotel phone systems offer advanced voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) features and include team collaboration tools to enhance communications between staff and guests. While many hotels use landline phone systems, VoIP systems work seamlessly with third-party, industry-specific applications and supply a variety of hardware devices that support front-desk and back-office communications.
After an in-depth evaluation, GoTo Connect topped the list of hotel phone systems worth considering, in addition to other providers.
- GoTo Connect: Best overall hotel phone system
- RingCentral: Best for unifying staff and guest communications
- 8×8: Best for front-desk support
- Phone.com: Best for seasonal booking
- Nextiva: Best for customer engagement
- Ooma: Best for hospitality management
- Zoom Phone: Best for global hotel chains
To deliver the best answer in technology advice, Fit Small Business (FSB) upholds the standards of a rigorous editorial policy that focuses on providing answers to popular questions and concerns. We primarily do this by ensuring our content is clear, accurate, and objective and highlighting unique expertise that is authoritative and accessible to our audience.
FSB uses a six-part evaluation process to assess providers based on their pricing, features, and ease of use. Each provider is also evaluated based on customer service and user reviews to determine their value for small business owners. To know more about how I assessed the providers in this guide, visit the methodology section at the bottom of this article.
Best Hotel Phone Systems at a Glance
Hotel Phone Systems | Monthly Starting Price (per user) | Key Features | My Score out of 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
 | $29 |
| 4.94 |
 | $30 |
| 4.87 |
 | $25 |
| 4.73 |
 | $14.99 |
| 4.64 |
 | $25 |
| 4.53 |
 | $19.95 |
| 4.38 |
 | $10 |
| 4.26 |
GoTo Connect: Best Overall Hotel Phone System
What I Liked
- Unlimited business phone numbers and extensions
- Smart call routing and analytics for automated guest management
- International calling to over 50 countries and 1,000 toll-free minutes
Where It Falls Behind
- Contact center solutions only available in the most expensive subscription plan
- No international phone numbers
- Access to CRM integrations isn’t available on the entry-level plan
GoTo Connect Monthly Pricing Pricing reflects monthly billing. Annual discounts are available.
- Phone System: $29 per user for unlimited auto-attendant greetings, ring groups, dial plans, and emergency calling (E911)
- Connect CX: $37 per user for a shared inbox, call analytics and reporting dashboards, customer experience tools
- Contact Center: $86 per user for intelligent call routing, agent softphones, custom surveys, and chat assistant
My Expert Opinion
GoTo Connect is the best hotel phone system overall because of its accessible VoIP features, unified communication tools, and intuitive call management system. With its unlimited phone extensions, international calling, and toll-free minutes, you can field incoming reservations and manage calls directly from guest rooms with your choice of business phone number.
As a mobile-friendly provider, GoTo Connect supports staff mobility with its smartphone app and call from any device features. These tools include advanced call handling, like conference calling, call forwarding, call park, and call queues. Its team messaging and videoconferencing tools are readily available, allowing employees to share updates and attend virtual meetings wherever they are.
In addition to the mobile calling features, you can add VoIP desktop phones from providers like Cisco, Poly, and Yealink to your plan. At the same time, while GoTo Connect offers a vast array of business tools, CRM integrations are not available on the base plan. The industry-specific integrations are also limited, so consider a provider like RingCentral if you need advanced integrations or hospitality software.
- Paging: Facilitate communication between hotel staff by creating paging profiles for your devices. Customize your paging profiles with specific zones to coordinate staff teams, like maintenance or front desk receptionists.
- Call recording: Document live phone conversations and use them to evaluate agent performance. The audio recordings can also be used to develop training programs for new employees.
- Customizable dial plans: Use the visual dial plan editor to create call flows, including automated greetings, voice mailboxes, and guest extensions. This phone system also allows you to set up self-service support and front-desk assistance for guests.
Configure guest extensions and voicemail boxes with the call flow editor. (Source: GoTo Connect)
RingCentral: Best for Unifying Staff & Guest Communications
What I Liked
- Unified communication tools like team messaging and conference calls
- Access to desk phone rentals, paging, and intercom devices
- Integration with hospitality CRMs and over 330 third-party applications
Where It Falls Behind
- More expensive entry-level pricing compared with competitors
- Unlimited storage only offered in the highest-tier subscription package
- Video meeting participants capped at 200 without a meeting add-on
RingCentral Monthly Pricing Save up to 33% by paying annually. Volume discounts for more than 50 users are available.
- Core: $30 per user for multilevel IVR, shared lines, basic call queues, and team messaging with file sharing
- Advanced: $35 per user for advanced call monitoring, automatic and on-demand call recording, up to 8-digit extensions, and hot desking
- Ultra: $45 per user for unlimited storage for files, messaging, and recordings and artificial intelligent (AI) assistant for SMS and messaging
My Expert Opinion
RingCentral is one of the top hotel phone systems because of its unified communication tools that support guest and staff communication. Its robust call management system has automatic call distribution (ACD), multilevel interactive voice response (IVR), call queues, and phone extensions. Additionally, its instant messaging supports one-on-one and group messaging, including external contacts in the discussion channels.
If you need to conduct training for hotel employees, you can create a video call for up to 200 meeting participants. On top of the unified communications features, this provider offers paging and intercom devices and desk and conference phones for sale and rent. It supports popular brands, including Poly, Mitel, Unify, Yealink, Cisco, and Avaya, letting you supply hardware devices to your front desk and back office.
Additionally, RingCentral stands out for its 330-plus prebuilt integrations. Aside from essential productivity and customer relationship management (CRM) apps, it connects with hospitality software, such as TigerTMS. With this integration, you’ll have an overview of hotel operations, including room status, occupancy levels, and even wake-up call deliveries.
Unfortunately, RingCentral’s subscription plans are more expensive than other hotel phone system providers. If you want a more affordable business phone system with unified communication tools, Zoom Phone is the best option, as its plans start at $10 per user.
- Receptionist console: Let receptionists check the presence status of 100 users in your phone system at one glance. They’ll quickly transfer calls to available guest service representatives, park calls for other team members’ retrieval, and add participants to conference rooms.
- Audioconferencing: Organize phone meetings with team members and discuss important updates in hotel activities. RingCentral accommodates up to 1,000 participants with its unlimited audioconferencing sessions.
- Caller ID: Identify incoming callers and customize how your number shows up on a recipient’s caller ID. This feature can make linking guest rooms to extension numbers easier and efficiently handle reservations.
Customize your caller ID by assigning names to guest rooms and the front desk.
(Source: RingCentral)
8×8: Best for Front-desk Support
What I Liked
- Frontdesk app to assist receptionists with call-handling
- Integrations with property management and CRM software
- Business center features like video meetings, conference calling, and internet fax
Where It Falls Behind
- No toll-free minutes
- Add-on fees in most AI features
- Sales consultation required to price and purchase in mix-and-match plans
My Expert Opinion
8×8 is one of the best hotel phone systems because it provides multiple tools for front-desk support and mobile call management. Specifically, the 8×8 Frontdesk app has an intuitive interface, which features key tools like chat, calls, dial, contacts, and customer notes. Even non-tech-savvy employees will easily navigate the platform, given its simplicity.
In addition to front-desk assistance through an app, 8×8 offers an intelligent customer assistant to book reservations and handle requests. For hotel business centers, 8×8 includes essential tools for guests like unlimited internet fax, videoconferencing, and international calling to up to 48 countries. You will also have access to 8×8’s business integrations, such as CRMs with hospitality services like Salesforce and HubSpot.
At the same time, 8×8 offers mix-and-match plans that require a call with a sales representative to receive a quote for your business. Additionally, most of the best features for hotels are only available on the contact center plans, which start at $85 per month. This makes 8×8 one of the more expensive providers on this list.
If you are looking for a more cost-effective hotel telephone system, consider Ooma or Phone.com, which each offer scalable plans beneficial for smaller hotels, inns, and bed and breakfasts.
- Team messaging: The 8×8 Work app can facilitate communication between staff members with the group or one-on-one chat, depending on your business phone plan.
- Internet fax: 8×8 offers unlimited virtual fax access from a computer or mobile application that is great for the hotel front desk or business center. You can also choose to receive email notifications after sending the fax.
- Call notes: Use the agent workspace to add guest notes, such as wake-up calls or do-not-disturb messages, which can help improve your customer service.
Write call notes in the agent dashboard after each customer interaction. (Source: 8×8)
Phone.com: Best for Seasonal Booking
What I Liked
- Discounts for purchasing multiple business phone numbers
- Ability to customize your phone system with the Phone.com apps or compatible VoIP desk phones
- Local rates for international phone numbers in select countries
Where It Falls Behind
- Video meeting participant capacity limited to 100
- Shared phone lines only included with an additional monthly fee
- Limited integrations with third-party applications and hotel management tools
Phone.com Monthly Pricing Save 15% by paying annually. Volume discounts for more than four users are available.
- Basic: $14.99 per user for one phone number per account, 500 pooled minutes, call forwarding, call screening, and videoconferencing for up to 10 participants
- Plus: $21.99 per user for one phone number per user, unlimited minutes, text messaging, and videoconferencing for up to 25 participants
- Pro: $31.99 per user for call recording, call analytics, third-party integrations, and videoconferencing for up to 100 participants
My Expert Opinion
For hotels that experience seasonal fluctuations in booking inquiries and requests, Phone.com is the best phone system as it offers the flexibility of choosing metered and unlimited calling plans. This allows you to mix and match users as needed. During peak booking months, you can opt for an unlimited calling plan to manage communication costs effectively. When the booking demand decreases, scale back to a metered calling plan.
To accommodate the influx of inquiries during peak seasons, consider adding phone numbers to provide more lines of communication. Phone.com offers massive discounts for buying multiple numbers. If you get over 100 phone numbers, you’ll only pay $1.99 per number (monthly), down from the standard rate of $4.99.
Additionally, Phone.com offers a wide range of preprovisioned VoIP phones, making for an excellent hotel front desk phone system. However, one downside of this platform is its limited native third-party integrations, as it only has partnerships with AllProWebTools, Chrometa, Comm100, Zoho, and Zapier.
If you’re looking for a provider that integrates with hotel management applications, consider Ooma or RingCentral, which work seamlessly with hospitality software.
- Voice tagging: Receive information about an incoming caller before answering the call, such as their reason for calling. This ensures you can directly respond to guests’ inquiries and improve first-call resolution.
- Click-to-call: Call any phone number on a website just by clicking on the number, eliminating the hassle of manually dialing. Once you click, you’ll get a call on your softphone and hear an announcement to wait while the system dials and connects you to the other party.
- Text to greeting: Play custom greetings when callers reach your phone line. Phone.com also allows users to use its text-to-speech tool, upload audio files, or record menu options, messages, and announcements.
Create custom greetings using the text-to-speech feature. (Source: Phone.com)
Nextiva: Best for Customer Engagement
What I Liked
- Quality dashboards and call reporting across plans
- Social media and review site management for guest support
- Team chat and videoconferencing tools for efficient communication and collaboration
Where It Falls Behind
- No international phone numbers
- Limited VoIP features on the base plan
- 20-plus third-party integrations only
Nextiva Monthly Pricing Save up to 20% a month by choosing annual billing.
- Digital: $25 per user for quality dashboards, reporting, group email inbox, social media, and review management
- Core: $36 per user for simple IVR, business messaging, unlimited voice and video meetings
- Engage: $50 per user for a toll-free number with 2,000 minutes, web chatbot, MS Teams integration, and call center solutions
- Power Suite: $75 per user for 10,000 toll-free minutes, intelligent routing, and supervisor dashboard
My Expert Opinion
Next on my list of the best hotel phone systems is Nextiva, which excels in customer engagement and support. Unlike the other providers, Nextiva offers a combination of call center solutions, collaborative tools, and reputation management features that allow you to monitor every part of a guest’s experience at your hotel.
For example, Nextiva uses natural language processing technology to understand customer concerns. These artificial intelligence features enable self-service options and allow users to make requests, such as booking hotel reservations, processing payments, and getting answers to frequently asked questions. By handling these inquiries efficiently, you can accommodate more clients and offer faster, better service.
Once guests depart the hotel, you can use the Nextiva platform to gather feedback on their stay through social media, ecommerce, and review sites. With the unified general inbox, you can directly respond to guests regarding their experience or share announcements about upcoming events or promotions.
Although Nextiva is a great small business VoIP service, it lacks international phone numbers. To establish a global presence, consider other hotel phone system providers, like RingCentral, Zoom Phone, or Phone.com. These providers have global phone numbers, covering multiple countries and territories.
- Voicemail transcription: Nextiva uses AI to transcribe voicemails and send them to your email inbox, making messages easily readable on your computer or smartphone.
- Call notify: Set up Nextiva to send you an email notification when a critical or time-sensitive call comes through your system. The alerts contain key information, including the caller’s phone number and the call timestamp.
- Sentiment analysis: Monitor guest feedback by analyzing online reviews and social media engagement. Nextiva offers quality dashboards with sentiment breakdowns for popular review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor.
Analyze reviews and social media data using Nextiva’s quality dashboards. (Source: Nextiva)
Ooma: Best for Hospitality Management
What I Liked
- Ooma branded VoIP phones with individual phone extensions for guests
- Hospitality features such as wake-up calls, maid room status, and check-in/check-out
- Integrations with over 30 property management apps, like Opera and RoomKey
Where It Falls Behind
- Lack of calling access on the desktop app on the entry-level plan
- Integrations only available on the higher tier plans
- Videoconferencing limited to 100 participants
Ooma Monthly Pricing 30-day money-back guarantee for Ooma plans.
- Essentials: $19.95 per user for one toll-free number, 500 toll-free minutes, virtual receptionist, and call forwarding
- Pro: $24.95 per user for access to the desktop app, call recording, and enhanced call blocking
- Pro Plus: $29.95 per user for call queueing, hot desking, and third-party integrations
My Expert Opinion
Ooma is one of the best hospitality phone systems because it includes several industry-specific features that make it easier to manage a hotel. For example, an intercom and overhead paging system allow the hotel management team to broadcast messages. This is highly useful when you need to call the attention of a guest waiting in the lobby area or an employee who must respond immediately to requests or alerts.
Additionally, Ooma offers a mobile application that makes managing hotel communication and guest access easy. Simply open the app to view the status of guests and customize calling features like scheduling wake-up calls or updating room status. Ooma also integrates with several popular property management apps among hotel chains, such as Marriott Full Service and OnQ for Hilton.
Ooma also stands out among the providers on this list because it offers its own brand of VoIP phones, which cater to different call volumes and business needs. To create a hotel phone system, you can select a subscription plan, purchase phones for your front desk and guest rooms, and assign an extension number for each phone.
While Ooma is a great phone system for hotel management, features like integrations, call analytics, and team messaging are unavailable on the entry-level plan. I recommend GoTo Connect or RingCentral to access more features across plans, such as property management integrations and unified communication tools.
- Seven-digit dialing: Be more efficient in customer outreach by reducing the number of digits dialed for outbound calls. Ooma lets users call those within their area code with only seven digits instead of 10.
- Videoconferencing: Meet with hotel employees virtually, announce updates, or organize training with international speakers using the video calling feature. Ooma allows a maximum of 100 video meeting participants in one session.
- Extension monitoring: Allow receptionists to quickly view the status of users’ extensions and manage inbound calls based on that information. For example, you can transfer calls to available agents or launch a three-way call to assist guests.
View the status of guest extensions in the Ooma mobile application. (Source: Ooma)
Zoom Phone: Best for Global Hotel Chains
What I Liked
- Ability to send and receive calls from multiple devices or apps
- Emergency response center with alerts to an internal safety team
- Unlimited domestic and international calling plans
Where It Falls Behind
- No annual billing and volume user discounts
- No unlimited text messaging
- Add-on fee for call queue analytics
Zoom Phone Monthly Pricing
- US & Canada Metered: $10 per user for a local number, metered outbound calling, domestic SMS and MMS, and unlimited auto-attendants
- US & Canada Unlimited: $15 per user for a local number, unlimited calling within the US and Canada, domestic SMS and MMS, and optional add-on of unlimited calling to 19 countries
- Pro Global Select Contact sales to purchase the Pro Global Select plan. : $20 per user for a direct dial number, unlimited domestic calling in one of the 40-plus countries, and optional unlimited international calling add-on
My Expert Opinion
Among the providers listed here, Zoom Phone is the best hotel phone system for chains with overseas properties. It offers cost-effective regional and international calling plans, such as the Pro Global Select Plan, which only costs $20 per user. It allows unlimited domestic calling across 40-plus countries, including the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia.
If you have a hotel in the mentioned locations, your staff can freely communicate with local customers without worrying about costly charges. Aside from regional calling, Zoom Phone has an add-on that offers unlimited international calling to 19 countries, such as Italy, Ireland, Spain, and Sweden. If you cater to world travelers, you’ll save more on communication costs with this offer compared with choosing metered global calls.
While the Zoom Phone plans offer various features for managing international calls, in-depth call queue analytics are only accessible with the Zoom Phone Power Pack, which comes with an additional monthly fee of $25. If you need high-quality call analytics in your phone plan, consider alternatives like GoTo Connect or RingCentral, which provide real-time reporting across plans.
- Call barge and takeover: Let managers take control of live phone calls when guests require additional assistance. Barge enables supervisors to join an active call and directly speak with the customer service representative and the guest. At the same time, takeover allows you to remove the agent and talk privately to the guest.
- Hot desking: Promote flexibility among hotel employees by letting them log into any phone in your system and access their unique profile settings. Users only need their extension number and PIN to sign in to any desk phone in your hotel.
- Call hold: If you need to place a guest on hold, Zoom enables you to customize your hold music for a more enjoyable experience. Additionally, various queuing and routing options are available for more efficient call handling.
Use the call handling panel to monitor incoming and outgoing calls. (Source: Zoom)
How to Choose the Best Hotel Phone System
Choosing the right phone system for your hotel requires understanding the type of service you want to use and its essential features. While some hotels use landline or cloud PBX phone systems, I recommend VoIP platforms like the ones mentioned above primarily because of their scalable subscription plans and advanced call management features.
For example, most VoIP providers offer unlimited domestic calling, auto-attendants, call queues, and visual voicemail, which allow staff members to connect with customers efficiently and with lower costs. VoIP phone systems also provide softphone apps for desktop and mobile phones to facilitate communication among hotel employees.
However, you also have the option to get desk phones for the front desk staff and conference phones for back-end operations employees, like the sales and marketing teams. If your hotel has a dining establishment, spa, or other amenities, it will also be necessary to set up call flows that allow guests to make appointments and receive updates within a self-service phone system.
Explore the tabs below to learn more about essential features to consider when choosing a hotel phone system:
How I Evaluated the Best Hotel Phone Systems
To assess the best hotel phone solutions, I considered their subscription costs, call management capabilities, usability, and customer assistance. This evaluation also includes my expert opinion on its value for money and popularity. Explore my criteria below.
20% of Overall Score
To determine affordability, I considered the cost of the base-level and second-tier subscription plans and compared it with the prevailing fees in the market. Additional points were awarded to providers with discounts for annual billing and bulk purchases.
25% of Overall Score
I assessed whether or not the subscription plans included unlimited calling within the US and Canada, audioconferencing and videoconferencing, and a high-quality uptime SLA. Since businesses need a reliable communications platform for on-the-go employees, I also included mobile apps as an essential feature.
20% of Overall Score
I also checked for niche features, like international calling, virtual numbers, and the IVR system. Higher points were given to providers with robust business integrations.
10% of Overall Score
I evaluated ease of use by determining the expertise required to set up and operate the phone system. I also assessed if the providers have an intuitive interface, like a drag-and-drop call flow editor, by collecting user reviews from third-party websites.
10% of Overall Score
After assessing the variety of customer communication channels, I gave more points to providers with email, phone, and live chat support that doesn’t require an additional support package. I also considered the hours these channels are active and operational, with more points for providers offering 24/7 support across plans.
15% of Overall Score
This score includes evaluating the provider’s standout features, value for money, and ease of use. I also checked user ratings in third-party review sites to gauge these criteria among small business owners.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
A hotel phone system is any communication platform widely used in the hospitality industry. This system includes features such as interactive voice response (IVR), automatic call distribution (ACD), and unified communication tools, facilitating ease of communication between staff, as well as guests and the front desk.
When deciding between PBX and VoIP phone systems, it is important to consider your business needs. Many hotels prefer PBX systems because they can easily assign private lines and internal extensions to guests. However, I recommend VoIP phone systems because they provide more cost-effective and scalable plans. VoIP systems are also simpler to set up and do not require additional hardware or devices for implementation.
Many VoIP solutions are used in the hospitality industry, but RingCentral is among the most popular providers. It features robust call management capabilities, team collaboration tools, and third-party integrations. Additionally, RingCentral offers a feature-rich softphone app and lets businesses buy and rent hardware devices to create a custom hotel phone system.
Bottom Line
An excellent hotel phone solution lets you manage booking and reservation queries more efficiently and provide top-notch customer service. It facilitates smooth communication among team members, making it easier to discuss matters virtually.
Among the best hotel phone software solutions I reviewed, GoTo Connect is the best overall, as it combines unified communication and customer experience tools. GoTo Connect also offers customizable softphone features and a mobile application that makes it easy to book guests, schedule reservations, and handle inquiries. To learn more, contact a sales representative to see if it suits your hospitality needs.