Alex Tan, vice-president sales & operations Asia-Pacific of TrustYou, stresses why customer feedback is important to a hotel, and offers ideas on how to motivate guests to give them
When a hotel gets reviews, it increases the visibility of that hotel and increases the chance of more bookings. For that reason, it is important that hotels encourage their guests to write reviews.
Our research shows that guests are 3.6 times more likely to write a review when a hotel reaches out to seek feedback.
Some of the ways in which you can encourage guests to review are to ask for their feedback on-site, use a customised guest survey, or perhaps offer them a perk to give a review.
To ask for feedback while a guest is on your property, we recommend using a guest messaging tool. Let guests know that you provide a messaging feature for them to come to you if they need to ask questions, get directions, request toiletries or for any other enquiries you may have. At this point, it will be easy for you to check in with the guest to see if they are enjoying their experience at the hotel. If you keep the lines of communication open, feedback will follow.
When your guests check out of the hotel, a friendly reminder of how much you value their feedback and letting them know that it helps you to improve your service, will serve as a handy reminder to them to review the hotel. A post-stay survey, for example, also allows them to express their honest opinion about their stay.
A customisable guest survey is a great way to ask for feedback, because it puts you in the control seat. You can ask the questions that you really want answers to, such as how the guest is responding to a new hotel feature or service. You can also ask open ended questions, offering a scale response, of say 1-10, to determine how they feel about a certain aspect of your service.
A survey is a clear, direct way of asking for feedback and it typically gets a response. Collecting such reviews positively influences hotel rankings and ultimately increases revenue.
If budget permits, offering a perk helps prompt guests to submit a review. A spa pass, a free dinner or cocktail would often spur the guest into action. This is a great way to steer guests into learning more about your services as it adds to an excellent stay and experience.
Another way to choose a perk is to assess past reviews to see what guests appreciate the most about your hotel, and then offer those features or services as perks for future guests to obtain their feedback.
Asking for honest feedback indicates to the guest that you really care about their opinion.
TrustYou is a guest feedback platform used worldwide by suppliers in the tourism and hospitality sector for reputation management purposes.
