EVERYTHING ABOUT GUEST REVIEWS

EVERYTHING ABOUT GUEST REVIEWS

We are living in the age of client experiences. In the post-COVID-19 era, the hotel industry is expecting a price war, hotels will drop the rates to pick up business, this battle will define a property’s future based on the client’s experience, which will also drive the business back to the property. A well-noted experience or Guest Review on social media will pull more clients, which means a maximized revenue to bring back the lost business.

In this post, we will pick and understand the major points around Reviews and its importance.

What is a Guest Review?

Guest Review is the evaluation of the experience of a guest based on received services while staying at a Hotel.  It helps a hotel to understand the quality of service guest has experienced during the visit, also used as a parameter to gauge the standard of services offered by a Hotel vs a competitor.

Why Guest Reviews matter?

Over 50% of Travelers avoid booking properties without reviews.

As said earlier we are living in an age where the guest experience earns the most importance, online reputation is the New Normal, and reviews have become a requirement for the Hotel business to survive. 

Reviews influence travelers.

As per the research released by TripAdvisor and survey by Phocuswright.

• 96% of Travelers consider reading reviews when planning trips and booking Hotels.
• 83% of Travelers use reference reviews to book a hotel
• Over 50% of Travelers avoid booking properties without reviews.

After understanding the importance of reviews, let us now understand the ways to encourage online reviews in a property.

How to encourage online Guest Reviews for a Hotel?

Either Positive or Negative, reviews are very important for any business. Nowadays it serves as an essential tool for online marketing. There are several ways to encourage reviews, below mentioned are some innovative ways any hotel can adopt that to encourage guest reviews.

• Star Guest of the day: In a small, large, or any Hotel, it is next to impossible to make every guest happy and collect reviews from all of them. But the Hotel team can concentrate on one guest in a day and try to attain review.

Example: Create a team responsible for getting the reviews, the members can be from all the departments, the team should identify one guest daily and highlight that guest as Star Guest of the day or you may name it anything, inform every department by sending a notification to all with Guest details like name, room number, etc. Then all the departments have to treat that guest as VIP and create a WOW experience for the guest during the stay. The custodians should meet the guest during the checkout and ask for the reviews, followed by an email to the guest asking review.

• Repeat Guest Custodian: Every hotel witnesses regular and repeat guests, these guests are the people whose review matters a lot to the Hotel, as these guests spend more time traveling than staying at home. Hotels should identify these Guests and assign employees to them as their custodians. The work for the custodian is to have good PR with the guests and in return should be able to encourage reviews for the property. Remember, there are extraordinary values of the repeat guests, you should not leave any pebble unturned to make their stays comfortable.

• While in the property: Hotels should have a process for managers to meet and greet every guest. At least once during the entire stay, any of the managers or executives in the Hotel operations team should meet the guest and exchange business cards, if possible, or give their business card. These business cards should have a hotel review site link printed on them. The manager should encourage the guest to review them. Also, the manager should meet the guest before departure to remind them.

• During Checkout: The Hotel should design bill envelop with Hotel review site link on it, this will remind the guest to review the property after they check-out from the property (though it is illegal, still in exchange for reviews, hotels can think to give add-on services to the guest). This will feed two birds with one scone - remind the guest to review and encourage them to come back to the property.

There are some more Common But Effective Ways to encourage reviews, like,

• Connecting Hotel website with review platform widget like TripAdvisor, every review on your website will be visible on TripAdvisor and vice versa.

• A 'Welcome' message with review site link, once Guest check-in.

• A ‘Thankyou’ email to all the guests after they checkout with the review site link (link should be of your hotel page on that platform).

• Comment cards and then follow up emails.

• Create a hotel Wi-Fi custom home page, which highlights the 'Review Now' tab, which redirects to the review site hotel page.

Some useful tips to get excellent reviews and avoid negative reviews: -

• An excellent review will have a better impact, ensure the guests have something good to talk about. Focus on creating wow experience for every guest staying at the property.

• Try to meet all the guests before checkout and discuss their stay, try to resolve concerns (if highlighted), and change the complaint into a compliment before they checkout.

• If the concerns cannot get resolved immediately, assure them the same will get resolved before their next visit.

• Try compensating.

Important Note: - Never approach guests to review using hotel mobile devices, many reviews from a single device will raise suspicions of the review site. Also, many review sites don’t promote reviews using the same IP addresses repeatedly, so try not to use hotel devices for taking reviews, this may lead to many negative consequences. 

Why is it important to reply to every review?

Let the world know that you care for all the customers, not just the ones who appreciate your services. I have seen the hotel responding to the positive reviews and leaving the negative reviews unanswered. In today’s Hospitality industry, it is very important to listen and answer to every traveler. As per the survey by Phocuswright,

• 65% of the travelers agree they are more likely to book a hotel that respond to the reviews, versus one that does not respond.

• 85% of the travelers agree that a thoughtful response to a critical review will improve their impression of the Hotel.

• Respond to the reviews timely, reviews should get responded within 48 hours.