I went to an Avaya reception tonight and after a few minutes of listening to an eloquent VP of Avaya, Steve Wynn took the stage to speak to the crowd about how his hotel Wynn Las Vegas will excel in service and in fact have better customer service than any other hotel on the planet. Wynn has quite a stage presence (yet there was no stage) and I came away from the experience humbled. I am very grateful to have listened to him speak for 10 minutes and I have a much deeper appreciation for what Wynn is trying to accomplish with his new hotel.

Amazingly, the service level he speaks of seemed evident in the wait staff and other hotel workers I came in contact with.

One wonders how these new hotels get customers. It seems that the more hotels they build in Vegas, the more people come. A cab driver (the best source for information in any town) told me people aren't leaving the country as much because of the war and subsequently they go to Vegas in droves. That and the weakness of the dollar I added.

The hotel was a bit of a let down in a few ways. The negatives are the parking situation. It took so long to get into the hotel that I got out of the cab and walked 10 minutes. I need the exercise so take this as a negative if you are thin or it is raining out. My cab driver friend (we bonded) informed me it will take a while for the parking attendants to speed up their operation.

Moreover the hotel interior was not so extraordinary. It seemed like many other Vegas hotels and the entrance was not as nice as the Bellagio or Paris. But on a positive note, I understand the show that takes place in front of the hotel is spectacular -- I didn't get a chance to see it for myself.

It turns our that Wynn Las Vegas is a customer of Avaya and Avaya's high end IP phones with color screens are in all the rooms. A few years back I wrote about a company called Net6 and I discussed next generation applications we would see in hotels that allow IP phones to navigate the hotel's amenities. Well Net6 which was purchased by Citrix has worked with Avaya and the Wynn Hotel to build an amazing application that allows guests to browse through the hotel's services and get information about them. I browsed restaurants and checked out the buffet. I saw the hours of operation, how many serving stations the restaurant has and more. These sorts of applications are some of the benefits of going to VoIP that are not immediately obvious.

As Avaya and Wynn pointed out, when shopping for an Avaya solution, Steve never discussed technology but he did discuss the fact that he wanted the best customer service solution available. The collaboration of these companies has yielded the best hotel phone application I have ever seen and this is also the most powerful VoIP phone application I have ever witnessed. Kudos to Citrix and Avaya for putting the solution together and to Steve Wynn for being the first to implement a next-generation VoIP phone system that goes above and beyond the call of service.