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How to Increase Guest Satisfaction with Messaging?

  
Travellers become guests as soon as they click the “book now” button. At this point, travellers open the line of communication between themselves and your hotel. But how do guests want to be communicated with, and what messages do they really want? Recently, we published the findings of a travel industry study, which identified a gap between how customers expect to communicate with hotels, and the experiences that hotels are actually providing. 
 
Clear communication between a hotel and its guests has a major influence on guest satisfaction, which can be measured by the difference between guest expectations and their actual guest experience. In our research, we wanted to identify the guest’s expectations in order to help hotels achieve this reality for their guests.

For the study, we surveyed 920 adults over the age of 18, all of whom travelled and booked an accommodation online within the past 12 months for business, leisure, or both. Here are some of the key findings:

●     The majority (80%) of hotel guests expect that the accommodation provider will initiate communication regarding their booking, and 80% also expect this to be sent via email.

●     73% of guests communicate through online communication channels, combining emails, social media, and text messaging; additionally, two-thirds say they prefer to communicate through written electronic means rather than by phone.

●     Guests who communicate through text messaging services and through social media report statistically significantly higher satisfaction levels over those who do not.

●     A large majority (75%) of guests want to communicate one-to-one with representatives on location and 91% would communicate issues during their on-site experience.

These findings indicate that hotels must begin communicating right at the moment of booking, and keep it up throughout the entire guest journey. By investing in guest messaging solutions, hoteliers can improve the guest experience, leading to higher satisfaction rates, increased guest loyalty, and ultimately, more hotel revenue.

To download the full study or to know how you can improve guest experience, fill up the form below –

This is a guest post by Valerie Castillo, Senior Director of Marketing at TrustYou.
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Three Things Hotels Should Not Ignore

The world of hospitality and travel has entered a new era of growth and transformation. Global business travel spending hit a record-breaking $1.2 trillion in 2015, up by five percent from the previous year. Healthy booking growth is forecasted to continue across the leisure and business fronts in 2017, but the spoils are not guaranteed to travel’s biggest or most-well-known brands. Here I find three most prominent things hotels SHOULD NOT ignore in 2017 –
  • RMS   

  • Social Media  

  • Reviews 

Revenue Management Systems

RMS’s are getting stronger day-by-day. The data sets are increasing every day. As the primary job of RMS is to forecast the future rates and for this they need past and current data. RMS companies get data from different sources and different places and based on that they do forecasting of future rates. At present the cost of data storage is low and processing has increased. As the amount of data is increasing day by day, hence they are getting more clear insights of hotel’s revenue management and forecasting is becoming more accurate  and precise. This is also one of the major reasons why the demand for RMSs has gone up. Almost all the big properties are using a Revenue Management system or rate recommendation tool today.
 

Social Media

Your hotel needs social networks because it’s a unique opportunity to stand out of the crowd of big chains, and achieve a greater number of followers. The number of hotels that are on Facebook and Twitter is growing every day; this is why you must join these platforms to compete with your rivals.

The challenge for hoteliers lies in how to influence their customers to share positive reviews on social networks and convert potential prospects into future guests.
Things have changed over the last ten years – today we are in an era of ‘now’. Consumers have evolved and become smarter – always connected to the Internet, everywhere. With the emergence of modern technologies and social networking, consumer taste and behavior have been changing and they have become very powerful. Consumers are taking decisions and dictating the reputation of an establishment.

With the advent of smartphones and mobile devices, consumers have easy access to platform through which they can make or break a hotel’s reputation through their comments and reviews. Today’s consumers are expert in communication – they are a content generator reaching millions of people through their social profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Blog etc.

Reviews

Now-a-days all potential buyers routinely sort through search results by customer reviews and star ratings before making a final buying decision. Things work in a similar manner in the hospitality industry. A recent research shows that more than 61% of vacationers now trust online reviews.

In another survey, 79% of hotel customers said that a good response to a bad review reassures them whereas, 78% of hotel customers said that a good response to a good review makes them think highly of the hotel.

Following things hotelier should do to manage their hotel reviews:

– Maintain Active Presence on Review Sites: Set your accounts on various review sites, such as Yelp, BBB, City Search, Angie’s List, etc.

– Create a Detailed Listing:  Hotelier should make themselves available over different platform and should select their descriptive categories carefully.

– Go on Social Media: Be on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media channels without being reluctant to encourage people to follow you on Yelp, TripAdvisor, or other review channels.

– Ask for review during Checkout: Be responsive during guest checkout and learn about what your guests feel about your hotel service when their memories are still fresh. If you receive a ‘yes’, encourage them to write about you to help future customers.

– Make the process Easy: Simplify the process of leaving a review or feedback. 

Internet and social media has empowered the consumers with information and changed their purchasing behavior. If earlier they consulted their friends and relatives, today they have millions to consult and take suggestions from.  

More than 90 percent of questions posted to TripAdvisor’s English-speaking forums are replied to by other travelers within 24 hours. Facebook has over 500 million active users, and TripAdvisor receives over 50 million unique visitors every month. 

As we move towards the age of consumer controlled brand conversations, hotels need to integrate customer feedback into their business approach and strategy planning. Ignoring the power of social media would be suicidal for hotels.
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The impact of guest review on Hotel Business – Part I

Being a part of the industry, hotel reviews are something I always take with a pinch of salt. Especially those on the extreme sides.  However, internet is a place for opinions and if many more people join in the chorus to say negatives about a property, then I would rather give it a miss instead of taking a chance. But does that really make it a bad hotel? 
Truth be told, if most people are un-happy with the property, then there must be something wrong with it. Guests are expressing their dissatisfaction as they have had bad experiences. And hotels need to take them seriously. As the first rule of the service industry says customer is the king, and in this age of hyper-internet activity, they rule.


Understand your guests’ emotional journey

While interacting with hoteliers and visitors at ITB Berlin this year, I realized that in coming years personalised content will going to be a priority for hoteliers. With 3 billion internet users and 1.96 billion social media users in the world it is no wonder that key hotel investment trends in 2015 would include the development of one-to-one relationship with guests through reputation management and personalized marketing. As a form of direct communication, customer reviews clearly identify what are the most important things to the customers and what’s not. This also highlights where the hotel is performing well and where there is more room for development. Engaging with your guest in a direct conversation can possibly expose a more personable side of the hotel, build a greater level of trust with the customer and in the course spread a positive brand story. With TripAdvisor now offering direct bookings from their platform, a strong social media presence along with intelligent meta-search marketing can give hotels a real chance of improving, increasing conversion rates.
The Hidden Story within Reviews
A recent survey by Laterooms.com suggests that 90% of travellers would avoid booking hotels labelled as “dirty” in online review sites. Sure, the situation might not be as bad as the guests made it seem, but the hotel cannot prevent the reviewer from expressing his/her opinion. However the beauty of online reputation sites is that most will give the property an option to respond. And it needs to do just that – Respond! More so for negative reviews. No hotel deliberately sets out to create negative emotions for guests, but it happens, and you need to know what those are so you can work out how to reduce their impact on your guests.

As revenue management evolves, it is getting away from simple rate management and is now incorporating customer relations and social media into its strategy. The more satisfied guests you have, the more likely they are to return and spend more money, as well as recommend you to others. Reputation has a positive correlation with the hotel’s overall Average Daily Rate (ADR) and revenue. It’s time now for the revenue management department to work hand in hand with the marketing team, if they are not already doing that.
In my next edition I’ll talk about how positive reviews and reputation management tool can can add more revenue to your hotel.



Francesca Stagi is Sales Manager at eRevMax.  She can be reached at francescas@erevmax.com

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The Curious Case of Guest Reviews

Being a part of the industry, hotel reviews are something I always take with a pinch of salt, especially those making extremely negative remarks in online reputation sites.  However, the internet is a place for opinions and if many more people join in the chorus to say negative remarks about the property, then I would rather give it a miss than taking a chance on a booking. But does that really mean that it is a bad hotel?  

Truth be told, if more people are not happy with the property than are happy, then there must be something wrong with it. Guests express their dissatisfaction when they have bad experience. The first lesson of the service industry is that customer is the king, and in this age of hyper-activity in the internet, they rule.


As simple as coffee makers
I worked in a hotel where a decision was made to pull off all the coffee makers from the rooms.  Management decided that it would save money in the long run because they would be cutting the cost of replacing and stocking this one guest amenity and could focus time and money in other areas.  There was a café in the lobby and so at check-in, guests were given a voucher to use at the café.  You would think the problem was solved. Well, not quite!

Guests began to leave negative reviews not only on travel sites, but also through the hotel’s internal guest feedback form.  It seemed that one amenity affected their entire stay and made them question the worth of the room.  To appease the guests, rate adjustments had to be made; additionally they were provided complimentary coffee from the café.  Our ranking on TripAdvisor went down because our competitors continued to supply coffee-makers in their rooms and so guests felt they were getting more for their money.  Another decision was made by the executive team and coffee makers were placed back in the rooms so that we could recover from the guest backlash.  

Unknowingly (or maybe not) guests have placed themselves at the decision-making table of most hotels!

Stitching it together
As revenue management evolves, it is getting away from simple rate management and is now incorporating customer relations and social media into its strategy. The more satisfied guests you have, the more likely the guest is to return and spend more money, as well as telling others so they will visit and spend money as well. Hence reputation has a positive correlation with the hotel’s overall Average Daily Rate (ADR) and revenue. The time has come for the revenue management department to work hand in hand with the marketing department.

A recent survey by Laterooms.com suggests that 90% of travelers would avoid booking hotels labelled as “dirty” in online review sites. Sure, the situation might not be as bad as the guest made it seem, but the hotel cannot prevent the reviewer from expressing his/her opinion. However the beauty of online reputation sites is that most will give the hotel an option to respond. And the hotel needs to do just that – Respond! More so for negative reviews!

As an hotelier, facing these challenges can be a nightmare, especially when it hits you out of the blue. Therefore, it is essential to take an analytical approach to understand your strengths and weaknesses as per your guests and take a cohesive approach to address these issues. However since guests share feedback on various review and travel sites – all this valuable information lay scattered and unstructured. It is here that online reputation management tools play a big role in consolidating these guest reviews and provide them to hotels in structured reports. Usually, these tools pull guest feedback from various review websites including Qype, Holidaycheck, Yelp, Expedia, Facebook, Twitter etc. 
Data is then compiled together into review reports which include guest details (as it appears on the site) along with their feedback and the rating they provide to the hotel. eRevMax, the company I worked for has its reputation management tool – RateTiger Review, which uses sentiment analysis to understand the guest’s emotion towards various aspects of the property. Keywords relevant to the properties are then identified, and ranked based on their popularity, frequency of mentions, and guests’ sentiments towards that category.

In other words, semantic analysis gives out a snapshot of what’s right and what’s wrong with
the property. For the hotel, it serves as a measurement of guests’ perception against intended brand positioning. For the marketing team this analysis provides a key insight into guests’ preference, which will help them customize their promotions to have a direct resonance with customer sentiment. From the operational perspective, you now know the areas you need to address the most. For instance, if a hotel continuously keeps getting comments that their rooms are outdated and uncomfortable; this is an indication to the management to invest in renovation to ensure guest satisfaction, as well as attract new guests.  Guest review analysis works hand in hand with rate, occupancy, RevPAR and channel performance to provide hotels with the overall picture, and efficiently use Price Quality metrics to make strategic rate decisions.


Managing your feedback
The explosion of social media has made it almost impossible for hotels to ignore online reputation. According to recent studies, one third of consumers will not book a hotel room without first reading reviews first (Laterooms Survey, Nov 2012). Reviews with a rating on 4 – 5 generate more than double the conversion compared to a review with 1.0 – 2.9 rating on Expedia. Hotels that have a higher guest score typically will have better placement on the travel sites.  A better placement on the travel site means more bookings.  More bookings mean a higher room rate, and eventually higher revenue for the hotel.  


Take the example of Slovenia based LifeClass Hotels & Spa, which has experienced a surge in repeat business by developing a post-stay, guest engagement through online guest review websites. Each property assesses the information and responds to guest reviews from social channels like Facebook, Yelp, etc along with those associated with sales channels (like Booking and Expedia) multiple times a day. “We have been actively monitoring guest reviews of our properties as well as those of our competitors. RateTiger Review has helped us to respond pro-actively to negative reviews, and address our product offerings,” observed Alen Milosevic. This has resulted in 30% revenue growth in 2012.

What’s more, an improved ranking has a positive correlation with direct booking. For 4C Hotels in London, pro-active guest engagement has resulted in a 5% increase in direct booking. “Whenever we see a negative posting, we action a proper investigation to find out what went wrong. We don’t make the same mistakes as before, we are able to identify them and address them,” says Asad Zaheruddin, General Manager at the hotel.

A strong visible position on guest review websites indicate that your Price Quality Index is working well, that will enable you to make the right pricing decisions based on RevPAR performance.  This will allow the hotel to flex their rates based on a number of pricing strategies depending on booking levels. However, there are no short cuts. It is an evolving process that has to start today! As we move towards the age of consumer controlled brand conversations, hotels need to integrate customer feedback into their business approach and strategy planning.

Revenue management was always a game of chess and now even more pieces are being added to the board. By staying actively engaged with guests, hotels can ensure a more consistent and loyal base. Are you listening?


Authored by Rose Adegite, ex-Revenue Manager; adapted by Aparna Bhattacharya, PR Lead at eRevMax.