Guest Satisfaction in Hotels: 7 Ways to Improve It

It was my friend’s birthday yesterday. To give him a surprise, I ordered a choco lava cake from a newly opened bakery in our vicinity.

Upon receiving the cake, I found that it was a strawberry cheesecake. So, as any of us would have done, I called the bakery and complained about the incorrect order.

The bakery’s owner noted my complaint and ensured to take corrective action about it. After half an hour, I was informed that they were sending two choco lava cakes to compensate for the earlier miss.

Now two things are worth noticing here – 

1. The wrong order ruined my customer experience
2. The apology gift increased my customer satisfaction

See, I was upset about the cake I got earlier, but receiving the new ones made me happy. This incident was a compelling factor in making me a loyal customer of the bakery.

I would even recommend it to my friends. 

The hospitality industry also works on these two verticals – Guest experience and guest satisfaction.

In this blog, we will dig deeper to understand guest satisfaction in hotels.

What is guest satisfaction in hotels?

Guest satisfaction in hotels is the measurement of how happy and satisfied your guests are with your products and services. It depends on three Q’s: Quality, Quantity and Quickness.

Let me explain this to you with the help of a scenario. You booked a stay at a hotel. Upon reaching there, you are allocated a suite room with a view of the magnificent Pacific Ocean. 

The room is well spacious, ventilated, and filled with ample amenities to make your stay a comfortable one. Even the room service and housekeeping are lightning-fast. 

With the above scenario, you can say that you had quite a satisfactory stay. Your experience was good and it was worth the investment. 

Let’s reverse the entire case. What if the room is small and missing essential amenities? How would you feel if the services are as slow as molasses? I am sure you would be disappointed.  

So, you can see that the quality, quantity, and quickness of a hotel’s services do leave an impact on guest satisfaction in the hospitality industry.

How is guest satisfaction measured in hotels?

Measuring guest satisfaction in hotels isn’t rocket science. All you need to look at is your hotel’s reviews and ratings.

You can assess guest satisfaction in two ways:

1. Use GSS (guest satisfaction survey) forms
2. Check online reviews

GSS forms assist in recording guest satisfaction scores at the individual property level. This data is available with the hotels only.

Earlier, it used to be a paper and pen method to record responses. Nowadays, a  link is shared with the guest to provide their feedback and rate their services on different parameters.

You can club all the feedback together and check for your average rating. 

Alternatively, you can check your hotel’s online reviews across all the OTAs. The best way to do this is to use online reputation management software. 

It saves you time and effort. Browsing every OTA individually and making a note of points is a hectic and time-consuming task. 

Instead, you can let the software do this work for you. It would provide you with a hotel’s daily performance report on each OTA.

It will showcase the guest satisfaction of each category separately. It could be room amenities, food quality, the hotel’s ambience and much more. 

Based upon ratings, guest satisfaction score has five levels – 

5 Star - Very Satisfied 
4 Star - Satisfied 
3 Star - Neutral 
2 Star - Dissatisfied 
1 Star - Poorly satisfied

So, you can easily check how satisfied your guests are and start working on improving it.

How to improve hotel guest satisfaction?

Certain factors affect customer satisfaction in the hotel industry; either positively or negatively. You can use 3Qs to ensure that the services offered to guests are top-notch.

Here are some easy ways to improve guest satisfaction in hotels.

a. Give a personal touch to their stay

“The single most important thing is to make customers happy. If you are making customers happy, as a side effect, they will be happy to open up their wallets and pay you.”

Derek Sivers, Founder CD Baby

That’s true. A bit of attention towards guests can do wonders. 

When I say personal touch to their stay, it implies assisting them during the entire stay. All you need to do is greet guests warmly and ask how their stay is going on, or if they are facing any issues. 

This simple gesture will give you early feedback about the guests’ experience. You will be aware of any issues the guests may be facing and have enough time to rectify the problem. 

It will eventually result in a better guest experience, thereby improving guest satisfaction in your hotel.

b. Quickly resolve guest complaints

As I said in my previous blogs, ignoring guest complaints is fatal. It could be either one shared by guests during the stay or in the form of a negative review on any OTA.

But ensure you keep a record of these complaints and provide an on-time resolution to them. For in-house guest complaints, you can instantly take corrective actions.

However, for the complaints, which are in the form of negative reviews, it’s a bit tricky. I would recommend addressing this issue personally. 

Initially you can reply with an apology for the inconvenience caused to them to calm down the situation. Post that, you can connect with guests over the phone or by mail. 

If possible you can provide a complimentary service as a gesture of goodwill. Trust me! This step works like a miracle. 

c. Don’t ignore feedback and suggestions

Whilst you are replying to reviews, you should work on those feedbacks also. Every feedback is a learning lesson. Be it a positive or a negative review.

The positive reviews will give you factors that can give you an edge over your competitors. Meanwhile, the negative ones are potential areas that need prompt attention.

These reviews are actual mirrors of your hotel. Once you start working on the services with the lowest ratings, it will automatically increase your hotel’s guest satisfaction score.

d. Offer rewards to loyal guests

Let me tell you one of the best experiences I had with a loyalty program. A couple of years back, a new cloud kitchen chain started operating in our city. 

One fine day, I saw its promotional ad on Facebook and gave it a try. The food was so great and at such reasonable prices that I recommended it to my entire office.

Guess what happened after a month? I was ordering for almost half the office daily. Soon, I reached the required benchmark to be an elite member. 

I received enormous benefits from that membership. Buy one get one free offer, a gift of hazelnut brownie on every alternate order, free delivery and many other amazing deals. 

Similarly, hotels need to create attractive loyalty programs to attract maximum guests as well as retain existing ones. 

Once you enroll guests in the loyalty program, you can offer them multiple rewards on reaching a milestone. When guests achieve the required criteria, they can receive benefits as free room nights, weekend packages, tickets to an event happening in a hotel, and such likes.  

This will leave a good impression on the guests.

Quick-tip: If you don't want to create a loyalty program, you can opt to give a farewell gift to guests at their check-out. 

e. Stay in touch with guests post-checkout

Even after check-out, guests remain your potential prospects. It’s advisable to stay in touch with them after they leave your premises.

The initial post-stay activity is sharing GSS forms via mail or WhatsApp. Hotels using chatbots can program them to deliver this service.

As I said earlier, you can work on the feedback they share. Apart from this, you can keep your guests engaged by sharing on-going offers, their loyalty membership rewards, upcoming events, and much more.

f. Keep your staff happy

“Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person – not just an employee – are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled. Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, which leads to profitability.”

Anne M. Mulcahy, CEO XEROX Corporation

I do believe in this quote. When I used to work as an intern in Lemon Tree Hotel, I was treated like a family member.

Even for a second, they didn’t let me feel like a temporary employee. In fact, I remember an incident that made me feel lucky to be a part of the hotel staff.

I had my grandparents visiting my workplace. So, I showed them around and took them for lunch in our hotel’s in-house restaurant. 

I had ordered a complete meal for them and expected an employee discount on the bill (Well, I was earning a stipend but not enough). But, when I went to make the payment, I was informed that lunch was on the house. 

It was a great feeling. And the next day, I was working happily with high enthusiasm. Eventually, it resulted in providing guests with extraordinary services.

So, you need to treat your employees in the right way. Listen to them, ask for their suggestions, reward them for their services and they will be cheered up all the time. 

This will impact on services your guests receive. Over the time it will improvise your guest experience, thereby increasing hotel guest satisfaction score.

g. Invest in technology

Technology is a vital tool in improving guest satisfaction. From AI-enabled chatbots to implementing voice-controlled gadgets, hotel tech has advanced at a breakneck pace. 

As predicted by many hoteliers, ROBOTS are the future of hospitality. But that day is still years away.

But talking about the present scenario, you need to invest in hotel technology to improve guest satisfaction. It could be a basic thing such as tablet-based room service. 

It will help guests to request room service over the tablet. It could be ordering food, room cleaning or any amenity they want to use. 

Many hotels have AI-based chatbots installed to assist guests with activities they can enjoy at the hotel. You can opt for other options as well, such as a self-service kiosk, contactless payments, virtual reality tours and others.