‘Review’ and ‘Reputation’- These two words are a matter of concern for every hotelier. Collecting feedback is a tough task. Whenever any guest is checking out, you or someone from your team asks them, “How was your stay Sir/Mam? Can you please leave a review for us?”
Now, this review on the internet can make or break your hotel’s online reputation.
You might be wondering, “Really?”
Generally, hoteliers assume that the guests look at positive reviews only. But, it’s just a misconception.
Apart from positive reviews, people also check on how the hotel has addressed the guests’ issues. Your online reputation directly influences guests’ decision of booking a room in your hotel.
I would recommend you to invest 10 mins into this blog. It will give you a detailed insight into hotel reputation management.
Table of contents
What is the online reputation for hotels?
Your reputation is what others think of you; your character is what you truly are. Reputations can be manipulated; a character can only be developed and maintained.
Bohdi Sanders
Online reputation is the way in which your hotel is perceived among guests across the web. If people consider your hotel in a positive way, you have a good reputation or vice versa.
The ratings and reviews across your web listings and your way of interacting with them are used for analysis. Based on this your hotel’s reputation scorecard is prepared.
That being said, you need to understand the parameters on which it is calculated.
How is a hotel’s online reputation measured?
There are two ways of measuring your hotel’s online reputation –
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- Natural Language Processing (NLP)
NPS is quite an easy way of knowing any hotel’s reputation score. It takes into consideration the ratings of a review for analysis.
If the rating is 4/5 or 9/10 and above, it is considered a promoter.
Whereas, a rating of 3/5 or 6 to 8/10 is considered as a passive review.
Detractors, in this case, are reviews with ratings of 2/5 or 6/10 and below.
Promoter denotes that particular feedback can improve your hotel’s online reputation with good ratings. While a detractor review tarnishes your image.
NLP is an artificial intelligence (AI) based way of calculating the reputation score. Here, instead of ratings guest sentiments are used to create the report.
For instance, words with a negative impact such as pathetic, bad, worst, horrible and so on denote unfavourable feedback. Whereas, words with a positive sentiment such as amazing, great, good, decent and others are signs of a favourable review.
Many hotel reputation management systems use both ways for providing accurate reputation scores.
What are the effects of hotel reputation management on bookings?
You must be aware that the reviews are co-related with your booking flow. Similarly, your hotel’s reputation score is directly proportional to your online revenue generation.
It is responsible for your property’s ranking on various OTAs. If you have a good reputation score, it improves your position in search results and visibility on the online booking platforms. Whilst a poor score results in a lower ranking and zero exposure among the customers.
It’s quite obvious that the guests are inclined towards booking property from the top 10 to 15 search results.
If your hotel is not on this list, it is due to the low review count and their poor management. This eventually leads to the creation of a negative brand image.
As per research results published by researchgate.com
The majority of respondents (79.4%) are concerned with providing a positive image about hotels, and they are very disappointed if the hotel has a negative image (70.6%), besides, they recommend their friends to visit/deal with their hotels.
This shows that if you have a bad image online, it can lead to a loss of 70% of guest bookings. If you calculate it even for one day, this volume seems quite high. Now imagine this on an annual basis. It sounds scary, right?
So now you know, that hotel reputation management, if done poorly directly affects your business on a larger scale.
What is the importance of reviews in hotel reputation management?
If you are in a competitive industry, great online reviews are not just nice to have, they are a requirement!
Tom Kenemore
Online reputation without reviews is like a hotel without a room. You can’t have a performance report based just on a couple of reviews.
Collecting more reviews can give you a better insight of your property. The user-generated content (UGC) will help you to provide points for the scope of improvement.
Moreover, this UGC is a trust creating factors for your potential customers. It gives them a check. First of all, it helps them understand any hotel’s relationship with its guests. Secondly, it acts as a window for them, to see what’s actually inside the hotel.
A research conducted by TripAdvisor had quite shocking results –
83% of respondents indicated that the reviews help them pick the right hotel.
80% read at least 6 – 12 reviews prior to booking.
53% won’t commit to a booking until they read reviews.
Be it positive or negative, ensure that you collect the maximum number of reviews and ratings for your hotel.
The positive ones will boost your rank and create a good impression on your audience. Whereas, the negative feedbacks are also important, so that you can work on the criticized aspects of your hotel.
How can you master in hotel reputation management?
Now that you have an idea about online reputation, it’s time to think about how you could improvise it. Here, I’ve listed some easy ways you can implement for better results.
1. Reply to reviews
One of the prime tasks in hotel reputation management is replying to the reviews. It shows your concern for the guest experience. Especially the negative ones.
The way you respond to your hotel reviews creates an impact on your brand image, across various hotel booking sites.
As far as the reviews are positive, replying to them is quite an easy task. But, you need to be very careful while handling the negative ones.
A straightforward or blunt reply can create a negative impact on your guests. Try getting in touch with guests directly, to solve the issue on a priority basis. And keep the response for this review on the neutral side.
You can refer to these templates for replying to guest feedbacks.
2. Work on improving negative points
Now that you’ve your property’s performance report, it’s time to start working on the negative feedback. Focus on improving the criticized issues of your hotel.
Align issues as per high to low priority. Give attention to the ones which have ruined guests’ experience the most. Once you’ve resolved that error, move on to the next.
Eventually,you’ll find a rise in positive reviews and a huge drop in negative ones. This would automatically improve your hotel’s online reputation.
3. Beware of the fake comments
It’s not necessary that all the negative reviews you receive are genuine. Sometimes, the guests may post a false review about your hotel. You need to keep a check on such reviews.
It can be out of any personal grudge or maybe a trick to enjoy some free benefits from the hotel. Try to address such comments.
Let your guests know the truth about that particular situation. If possible reply with relevant proof. Also, you can flag them out as inappropriate reviews. So any potential customers reading it will be aware of this fact.
4. Impart good experience
Being from the hospitality industry, I can understand that keeping guests happy is not an easy task. Hoteliers work hard, day in and out.
However, you can ensure that their experience is not hampered by any internal factors. None of the guests will like such a thing to happen.
Often, things may go haywire due to unexpected events. Try to make up for them. Guests like it, when hotels take one extra step to ensure that their stay is flawless.
This will give you an edge over your competitors, and you’ll be in good books amongst your guests.
It’ll directly impact the feedback shared by guests. A good experience by them will bring you more positive reviews and good ratings. And it will eventually boost your reputation score.
In conclusion
Hotel reputation management is the need of the hour for the hospitality industry. You need to be in the limelight amongst guests as a hotel with a good reputation across the web.
This will not only improve your rankings on OTAs but will also act as a catalyst in increasing your online booking ratio.
So, are you ready to focus on hotel reputation management?
