I am still unsure whether it was out of anger or if she agreed with my thoughts (I guess it was the earlier one). And you know the rest.

All I am saying is, that every statement has a certain emotional value to it. As humans, we tend to do a sentiment analysis of everything we read.

Even in the hospitality industry, every review portrays certain sentiments, and it defines hotels as good or bad. During reputation management, this sentiment analysis plays a pivotal role. 

I can sense multiple questions popping up in your head. So, let me take care of them. Here’s an informative blog on the sentiment analysis for hotel reviews.

What is sentiment analysis?

Sentiment analysis (opinion mining) is a process of classifying the polarity of a statement. Depending on the text or phrases pertaining to specific emotions, there are positive, negative or neutral statements. 

Every review that guests post on any platform is considered for sentiment analysis. It assists in deriving the positives and negatives of any hotel.

Unlike NPS (Net Promoter Score) which uses ratings to assess any review, the sentiment analysis focuses on their content. 

With the assistance of machine-learning and deep-learning, the system is updated for various terminologies and phrases to classify the statements. To process feedback, the four main factors taken into consideration are:

1. Precision 
2. Recall 
3. F1 Score 
4. Accuracy

The initial three aspects use a certain algorithm to evaluate the hotel review dataset for sentiment analysis. Meanwhile, accuracy helps in gauging whether the analysed data is correct or not.

What are the benefits of doing sentiment analysis for hotel reviews?

Well, every industry is now adopting sentiment analysis to assess its reputation in the online market. The hospitality industry is following the same path with hotel reviews sentiment analysis.

Let’s find out about the benefits your hotel can derive from them.

a. Gauging hotels reputation in the market

One of the primary benefits of using sentiment analysis is knowing your hotel’s reputation. Most of the reputation management software uses a combination of NLP, NPS, and machine-learning to evaluate a hotel’s reputation.

The reviews from all the booking platforms you are listed on are collaborated to form a dataset. This data is then further narrowed down into three different sections using sentiment analysis as positive, negative, and neutral. 

Once the data is sorted out, certain metrics are used to calculate the reputation score of the hotel. It is then compared to the scores of compset to determine your hotel’s value among your customers.

b. Understanding a hotel’s flaws

Every statement which falls into the negative category has a phrase associated with services that guests dislike. Let’s consider an example of a negative review:

The hotel staff was quite rude to me when I complained about the unclean room being.

If we analyse this review, we can clearly understand that the guest is not happy with two things –

• Staff’s behaviour
• Dirty room

So, the hotel can take corrective actions to ensure that other guests don’t face the same problem. Eventually, every review in which guests have maligned services of the property is a learning lesson.

c. Analysing competitors

You cannot get financial records of your compset for analysis. However, with the sentiment analysis of hotel reviews, you can assess their reputation in the market.

Many reputation management software has a feature of competitor analysis. Once you update your compset in the system, it fetches feedback from all the sources and gives you a hotel review analysis report. 

This report consists of the praised and criticised aspects of all your competitors. You can utilise this report during SWOT analysis to understand the opportunities. 

d. Reviewing all data in a single go

You need to have a large amount of hotel review dataset for sentiment analysis. As I said earlier, you can utilise feedback from multiple reviewing platforms. 

It saves your time as well as effort, to look out on every review individually. Moreover, bulk analysis of feedback highlights your most critical and appraising factors.

How does the sentiment analysis for hotel reviews work?

Well, there are many techniques for sentiment analysis of hotel reviews. Yet, NLP (Natural Language Processing) remains the most used in all the reputation management software. 

To describe briefly, NLP analyse the text or phrase used to define the quality of services mentioned by the guests in reviews. Based on the nature of the word, the feedback receives its classification. 

The NLP based systems have keywords programmed in them to process the reviews. 

Let’s consider the below example for better understanding:

“The hotel room was clean and well maintained.”

As we can read, this review highlights the good aspect of the room. Now terms such as clean room, fabulous location, nice ambiance, and similar define a positive review. Considering such terminologies, this falls into the positive category.

“The food served in the hotel was terrible.”

Looking at the statement above, we can gauge it as negative feedback. Why? Because it’s criticising the quality of the hotel’s food.  

Terms that show the poor aspects of hotels relate to negative feedback. It could be an unclean room, unpleasant ambiance, rude staff, and such likes.

With the use of machine learning, this database keeps on upgrading from time to time.

What are the challenges faced during the sentiment analysis for hotel reviews?

As they say – Every cloud has a silver lining.

Sentiment analysis definitely is one the best method to classify any review. However, it has its own set of limitations. 

Here are some of the common challenges faced by the hotels:

a. Multilingual reviews are problematic

Sentiment analysis has English as the primary language for reviews. In fact, the words programmed in the systems running on NLP are in English only. 

It creates a barrier while analysing reviews that are in any other language. Although, with Google translation now being available on platforms, they are easier to read. Yet, Google translate is not 100% accurate. 

If there is a slight change in meaning, it will cause multiple errors in the sentiment analysis.

b. Tone of reviews

NLP is a part of technology. It can’t understand the exact emotions behind the statement. Sometimes, the review has some sarcasm used to complain about the hotel. 

However, the sentiment analysis considered the adjectives and adverbs to classify the review. Here’s a review with sarcasm for your reference:

"The hotel room was so neat and clean that it made me wonder why I forgot my broom at home."

As a person, I would read and understand the sarcasm behind it. But the software would pick up two main words from the review  – hotel room and clean.

Based on these two words, it would process the review and mark it as positive. I know, it sounds a bit stupid. But, it’s a technology and needs a rework in these areas.

c. Incapable of analysing complex statements

We have yet another drawback in the sentiment analysis of reviews. See, the system understands simple statement such as:

1. We had a mesmerising experience.
2. The hotel staff was helpful.
3. The rooms were unclean.
4. The food at the restaurant was terrible. 

However, when it comes to analysing a complex statement, NLP lets us down. Let’s consider an example for better understanding:

"Even though there was a bit of noise due to the road's construction, we had a pretty good experience."

When you and I would read this statement, we know it’s a positive review. However, the sentiment analysis considers two different factors:

1. Noise due to the road’s construction
2. Pretty good experience

With both positive and negative points in a statement, it would classify it as a neutral review. This definitely can cause lots of errors. However with time, this issue will be resolved.

The post Here’s All You Need to Know About Sentiment Analysis for Hotel Reviews appeared first on eZee Absolute.

Because he wanted to have early check-in and rooms were unavailable. The reason sounds a bit absurd. But in the end, the hotel had a bad review.

Two words that give hoteliers a nightmare: Negative reviews.

Almost every hotel struggles with reviews in 3 ways –

1. Collecting enough of them.
2. Managing negative ones.
3. Dealing with fake reviews

You can manage these feedback using an Online Reputation Management (ORM) software. But, avoiding bad ones and dealing with fake reviews is entirely a different thing.

In this blog, I’ll tell you all about negative hotel reviews and how to avoid them.

What guarantees negative hotel reviews?

Keeping guests happy is indeed a tough task. Hoteliers work day and night to accomplish this. But sometimes, guests are unhappy with the hotel’s services. 

Such guests are sure to give you bad feedback. Here are some top reasons for negative hotel reviews.

1. Incorrectly mapped location

Assume that you are on a trip and have booked a hotel in a remote area. You are following the directions on Google maps and arrive at the destination. But, there is no sign of any property.

It would surely bother you. You call up the hotel, ask for the correct location and reach there.Ultimately, you leave a bad impression of your property.

Hence, an erroneous location on Google or your website is a big NO. If guests are unable to reach your premises safely and conveniently, you are sure to have negative hotel reviews.

2. Unpleasant ambiance

There’s a saying – “The first impression is the last impression”. 

The first thing that guests notice is your hotel’s ambiance. An unclean lobby with an unpleasant smell is sure to drive your guests away. It results in a bad brand image and hampers your guests’ experience.

While entering or even leaving the hotel premises, guests have to cross the common areas of the hotel. If those are left unclean with debris and dust lying around, it would surely leave a bad impression on your guests.

3. Room complaints

An unkempt room is the last thing any guest would tolerate. It is not only limited to cleanliness but also includes various other factors. Some of them are:

Uncleaned rooms

Dirty linen, dust on the shelves, badly maintained washroom and such likes are traits of an unclean room. 

If guests find their room in this state, they are sure to lose their cool. They will probably take the pictures and upload them on TripAdvisor or any other OTA.

This brings you a bad review and eventually affects your booking ratio.

Faulty room equipment

Electrical gadgets tend to break down after a while or at least need regular maintenance. It may happen that some equipment might not work during a guest’s stay.

This could be due to faulty mechanisms, short circuits or any other reason. But using malfunctioning equipment is hazardous for guests as well as your hotel’s staff.

Unavailability of the booked room

Hotels don’t acknowledge overbooked guests. Mostly because overbookings happen due to technical or human error.

In such cases, the guests are provided with alternative options to stay. However, the damage is already done.

The guests are quite annoyed in such situations because they have to compromise on another option. 

And, this results in you getting negative hotel reviews.

4. Low-quality food

Most of the hotels have an in-house restaurant for guests to order their food from. Obviously, those guests would expect the food to be of good quality. 

But, what if it doesn’t meet their expectations?

No one likes to pay high-end prices for meals that cannot be consumed. 

For the hotels where the food is outsourced, it is important to keep a check on your vendors’ food quality. If it’s not up to the mark, you are sure to get negative feedback from the guests.

5. Delays in the room services

Bad food is one thing and delayed services are another. In-room dining falls into the latter category. Be it morning tea or dinner, room services are always there to assist guests.

What’s hated is the delay in the services. This could be either due to a shortage of hotel staff or a busy day at the restaurant.

Most people ignore this fact, but guests do leave bad comments for hotel services.

6. Unprofessional staff behavior

Hospitality is all about respecting guests. That’s the first thing hotel management students are made to practice, before they join any property as a professional.

How would you feel if someone treats you rudely? Bad, right? 

Similarly, rude and unprofessional behavior will let your guests down. Such a situation happening during their stay is a red alert for you. 

Must read: How to handle guest complaints?

7. Showcasing unavailable facilities

While updating your listing on any online booking platform, you select all the amenities and proceed ahead.

Mentioning facilities that are not available in your hotel will surely disappoint your guests. 

Suppose, you book a hotel showing ‘gym and spa available’. But, when you reach the premises, you find that such facilities don’t exist. It would be quite a frustrating situation. 

Updating such facilities will adversely impact your bookings as well as bring you negative hotel reviews.

8. Guests posting false reviews

Many guests post false reviews to earn some benefits from the hotel. You need to be aware of such reviews. 

The problem is you cannot delete such reviews from the website. But you do have an option of reporting the same.

You can also reply to this review, citing the angle of what happened in reality. This would help the readers to understand the situation.

How hotels can avoid negative reviews?

I’m sure after reading all those reasons mentioned above, you would be looking forward to finding a solution. So, it’s time to address the elephant in the room.

1. Follow SOPs

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are a must for every hotel. They standardize your hotel’s process to meet the set benchmark.

SOPs are a clear set of instructions to be followed by the hotel staff for completing any task. 

These SOPs apply to all the processes in the hotel. It could be cleaning a doorknob, greeting guests, preparing any recipe or something else.

Using the results in minimal guest complaints helps you avoid bad hotel reviews.

2. Do the SWOT analysis

Every hotel should do its SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threats) analysis. You can use your reviews for this task.

The positive ones will showcase your strengths and negative ones, your weaknesses. 

Learning about your competitors will make you aware of your threats. Apart from that, monitor and analyze what they are being praised for.  

For opportunities, focus on targeting new market areas. And highlight your property with more media and blog coverage.

3. Don’t over promise and under deliver

Imagine, you visit a hotel promising many luxuries and comforts in their ad. But on reaching there you find all of that was just a hoax.

Well that would hurt a bit, right? 

Just show your guests only those services which are available at your hotel. There’s no point in sugar coating and presenting them.

This results in creating your hotel’s negative reputation.

4. Ask for feedback during the stay

You must have heard – “Precaution is better than cure.”

Same goes with reviews too. It’s not necessary to ask guests for feedback at the end of the stay. Simply ask, “Are you enjoying your stay sir/madam?” whenever you see them.

They will let you know if they are facing any issues during their stay. This will help you in avoiding negative reviews to an extent. 

If you rely on the feedback after check out, you might miss the problem they have faced during their stay. Eventually, the outcome would be negative hotel reviews.

5. Record and rectify

Many hotels maintain a task sheet, to record any guest issues and resolve them on time. These task sheets have moved online owing to technology. 

But the main motive remains the same – “Record and rectify”

Let me tell you something from my experience. I used to work as a trainee in a well-known hotel. We used to note down anything a guest would say and share it with the concerned department.

For instance, a guest has asked to clean his room. So, we used to jot it down and contact housekeeping personnel to get the task done. Once it is complete we would strike that off from the list and mention the TAT (Turnaround time).

This helped in minimizing guest complaints and improved the TAT score too.

6. Reply to negative hotel reviews

“Don’t let any review go unanswered” – Always stick to this motto.

Guests are very observant. Before booking a room, they check every aspect of the hotel. Unreplied reviews are one such component.

Dealing with positive reviews is easier. A simple ‘Thank You’ would do good enough. The real challenge lies with replying to a negative review.

It’s advised to analyze the case before responding to such reviews. Once you come to a suitable conclusion, reply politely. 

If you use words that would make it sound like it’s the guest’s fault, that would be your worst mistake. Although if the review is false, you can choose to flag and ignore it.

7. Learn from your hotel’s bad reviews

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. – Henry Ford”

Every bad review is like a lesson. Each one is unique and makes you better. You need to check for your hotel’s most criticized aspects and start working on them.

Once you work on these feedback, you’ll see improvement in the guest experience. It is not possible to work on every feedback.

For example, there’s a review from a guest complaining that the room was small. So, will you break the wall and create extra space for them. Of Course not!

But if there’s feedback which is in regards to your service quality, don’t hesitate to address that. 

The sooner you start acting on bad reviews, the better will be your future feedback.

Conclusion

Bad reviews give goosebumps to any businessman. When it comes to hotels, it affects their online reputation.

It’s hard to have a completely satisfied guest. We are humans and we tend to make mistakes. However, these errors lead to negative reviews for your hotel.

But what matters is that we learn from them. Once you start analyzing your reviews, it’ll let you know about the scope of improvement. 

Eventually, one day you’ll have very few negative reviews for your hotel.

The post Want to Avoid Negative Hotel Reviews? [DON’T DO THESE] appeared first on eZee Absolute.

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.