Now, I’m planning a trek. So I Google and shortlist a few best and affordable treks happening. Your resort matches my requirements and the pictures just make me awestruck. I check for reviews online before making the booking. But guess what? I didn’t find any.

This would impact my thought process. I’d lose trust and book a property with good reviews instead.

Argh! There goes a booking. And probably many others like me. Sounds disappointing, right?

But we’ve discovered an eye opening fact – online hotel reviews impact your bookings and eventually your revenue. Just a couple of reviews on your TripAdvisor page could have gotten you that booking from me. 

Hotel review management. Seems like an interesting topic to focus on, isn’t it?

I am going to cover all about it in this blog. So, just tuck into your blanket, grab a hot chocolate and read ahead to know more about reviews.

Starting from scratch..

What is a Hotel Review?

A hotel review is a rating system, where guests share their experiences of staying at the hotel on a booking website. 

They are nothing but feedback from guests on what they liked or disliked about your property. Many hoteliers analyse aggregated reviews from various platforms. 

In the hospitality industry, reviews are IMPORTANT.

We can say that the ratio of the number of bookings is proportional to the hotel’s online reviews count.

These reviews also help hotel owners in getting an insight into their business performance. By analyzing the reviews, hoteliers can get a clear picture on which services are being preferred by their guests and which are not.

Similarly, you can gauge the sentiments attached from the reviews as well. Let’s explore more about them.

What are the Types of Hotel Reviews?

Every review is based on guest sentiment. For instance, if any guest had an uncomfortable stay at your hotel, he will write a feedback criticising your hotel. Depending upon the sentiment of a review, they are categorized as below:

1. Positive Reviews

Guests experiencing a great stay at your property often post positive reviews. These could be about food quality, housekeeping services, location of the hotel, ambience, and so on. Every guest has different comfort zones based on which they book a hotel. If you meet their expectations, you will surely collect positive reviews on your hotel’s page.

Here’s a positive hotel review sample: 

Hospitality is the centre point of this review. It means the hotelier knows how to make a guest’s journey amazing. And, if you would have noticed, this particular property hotel focuses on dealing with guest complaints at a fast pace and assist in all ways to impart a better experience. These kinds of highlights in reviews become a catalyst for your bookings.

On the rating scale, 4 stars or more out of 5 counts on a positive side.

2. Negative Reviews

A vacation is not something everyone can plan and afford every day. They book rooms in a hotel with certain expectations. The moment their trip turns sour, you will have a negative review on your way.

Guests unsatisfied by your services and facilities will surely write negative feedback. They’ll be highlighting all the issues they’ve faced. Ignoring such negative hotel reviews is a grave mistake. It would affect your TripAdvisor ranking, leaving a poor impression on potential guests.

Here’s a negative hotel review example:

The above review speaks about various negative aspects of the property. Such negative comments impact guest’s decisions of booking your hotel.

I would suggest to use this feedback as a source of improvement. Hotel review management makes you aware of your property’s strength and weakness. This helps improve your guest satisfaction levels, resulting in more positive reviews and a rise in booking ratio.

A 2 star or less rated feedback counts as a negative review.

3. Neutral Reviews

As the name suggests, neutral reviews are unbiased reviews. They highlight both the aspects of a property, the positive and the negative ones. A neutral review states that some of your services satisfy your guests, however, there is a scope of improvement in certain areas.

The picture shared below is a perfect example of a neutral review:

In this review, the guest had a great experience overall, loved the staff, the property, and the location. But he found the room smaller than expected and was disappointed with the breakfast.

Such types of review are of contradicting nature. However, such guests will surely come back, if the hotel addresses and fixes these issues.

On the rating scale, a 3-star rating denotes neutral side.

One thing that’s established here is – “Reviews are building blocks of your online reputation.” 

But another question arises at this point. Do reviews impact bookings and revenue as well?
Let’s look ahead and find the answer to this question.

Impact of Online Hotel Reviews on Bookings

Have you ever played Snakes and Ladders? 

Every time you throw a die, a number comes up and you’ve to move forward. If you land on a snake’s face, you go down. But if you land on a ladder, you climb up.

These reviews are ‘Snakes and Ladders’ of your online reputation. Every positive review is a ladder to move to the next level. Every negative one is a snake, it will bring you a level down. Once you fall from a higher level, you need to rework for reaching that level again. Each feedback you collect affects your ranking on every reviewing and booking platform. 

Earlier word-of-mouth marketing fulfilled the absence of internet marketing. If a person didn’t like any service, he would tell his circle of friends and they’d pass it on to others.

But now with the internet and social media in the picture, this task has become much easier. Reviews can go viral in a click. The feedback is viewed by millions across the world. 

A recent study by TripAdvisor revealed that –

These analytics are from just a single source of reviews. If we talk on a global level, there would be at least 10-15 known websites for travellers to book a hotel. All these websites have review and rating segments in them. Imagine the impact on your booking at such a broader scale. 

According to a study conducted by Harvard Business School,

A 1-star increase in ratings equals a 5-9% increase in revenue.

Imagine the consequences it could have on your hotel’s booking ratio. However, what we are talking about is a positive impact. If we were to reverse this statement on a decrease of a star, it could lead to a loss of 9% revenue or more.

So with all things being said, let’s get to business. We need to start with the very first step that is collecting reviews. The question is, how to do that? Well, let’s explore it below.

How to Collect Hotel Reviews?

All it takes is just 2 mins to collect a review. However, the life of hoteliers is fast-paced. During check-out, it becomes hectic for any front office personnel to collect feedback amidst all the chaos.

So, here we are giving you some tips and tricks which could help you to encourage guest reviews for your hotel. 

1. During check-out, remind the guest once to give a review for your hotel.
2. Once the guest leaves your premises ensure he receives an email, message, or WhatsApp with a link to a reviewing platform.
3. Be available on multiple platforms such as hotel websites, Facebook, Google and others.
4. Have a reviewing section interlinked with your websites, you can opt for TripAdvisor’s review widget.
5. And the most important factor was, is and will be to provide the BEST guest experience.

Now that you’ve collected enough reviews, it’s time to answer them. Let me show you the correct way to do it.

How to Respond to Hotel Reviews?

You have a new restaurant opened in your neighborhood. One day you plan to visit there for a fine dining experience. The evening is going great; you are about to dig into that plate of tantalizing food. Suddenly you find a hair in it. You’d go berserk after this.

You put a complaint to the manager of the restaurant. Now let me give you two situations here – 

1. He listens to you and ignores it, saying that the hair might be yours, and asks you to leave if you didn’t like the food.
2. He listens to you calmly, apologizes for it, and gives you a replacement for it; maybe a complimentary dinner for an awful experience you had.

Which one you’d prefer? 

The second one, of course! So you see how an inappropriate response can blow things out of proportion. It would affect both ways. As a hotelier, an appropriate response to reviews could help you win over guests. As per statistics shared by customerthermometer.com –

• Resolve a complaint in the customer’s favour and they will do business with you again 70% of the time,
• Up to 95% of customers will give you a second chance if you handle their complaint successfully and promptly.

Replying to review might seem an easier task, but it should be problem-solving. A generic saved response on every review looks unprofessional. It would not create the desired impact on guest reading reviews and replies too. 

We have a full-fledged blog on how to reply to reviews. On top of that, we have free-of-cost review response templates, ready to use anytime you need.

Why is Hotel Review Management Important?

Your reviews and reputation directly affect sales volume. So, it is essential to manage your hotel’s reviews time-to-time. This will help you gain a competitive advantage for your property, and will enhance your hotel’s revenue.

Gradually, more and more guests are sharing experiences on online platforms; about the hotels they’ve stayed in. So, as a hotel who cares about its brand reputation, you need to keep a track on the reviews you get and even respond to them regularly.

Besides, marketing is an essential viewpoint of hotel review management, because reviews act as both positive and negative multipliers.

So, hotel review management is as important as the day goes.

Challenges in Review Collection and Management

Whether it is review management or any other task, challenges are always there. What matters the most is how you’d deal with them. 

Getting reviews is easier said than done. It comes with a set of challenges. I am listing out some challenges here, along with some solutions to overcome them. 

Guests Not Providing Feedback

A lot of times it has been said that guests are not interested in sharing feedback. What I’d suggest you is to keep a shareable link available with your staff always.

The moment guests arrive at reception for check-out, you can share a link via text, email or WhatsApp. This would also help you to be in touch with your guests post checkout, so you can run a quick promotional activity if required.

Fear of Negative and Fake Reviews

Many hoteliers are afraid of receiving negative reviews on any platform. And it’s true for obvious reasons. Negative reviews bring your ranking down, but fake reviews are another thing. These fake reviews are full of dramatic and deceptive. The agenda behind such reviews is leveraging some benefits out of the hotels.

The best you can do is flag them as inappropriate. As far as negative reviews are concerned, it’s best to reply to them (And that too on-time).

The theory is when you attend a guest’s complaint and assure this won’t happen again, they would probably be interested in coming back to you. Also, the negative reviews will make you focus on various scope of improvement in your hotel.

Untrained Staff

As I mentioned previously, the life of a hotelier is fast-paced. It may happen many times that your staff won’t be able to collect everyone’s feedback.

This could be because of various reasons such as group check-out or check-in, ongoing event in the hotel or maybe something else. But what’s important is the corrective steps you should take. Arrange a training session every week for your staff members. Ask for their suggestions on how you could make this process more smooth and easier. Remember –

Rome was not built in a day.

These are some challenges faced by various hoteliers in collecting reviews. As I said before, the hospitality industry is the most dynamic. Every guest is different, so will be every feedback.

However each one will give a learning experience leading to improvised services. The best way to do so is keep collecting, replying and analysing reviews. 

In conclusion

Reviews form an integral part of hotels. They directly relate to the booking proportion. If you ignore your hotel review management, it does not only affect your business performance but also will affect your generated revenue. 

So take a step ahead, try to collect maximum reviews, learn from your mistakes, and become the best property in the market.

The post Here’s Why You Need to Start Focusing on Hotel Reviews appeared first on eZee Absolute.