Photo: Daniel Hirsch
Have a person in the hotel, perhaps the hotel manager or the reception manager, who has a good overview of which guests have been to the hotel and who is responsible for responding to guest reviews. If the business is large, a communicator may be needed who only works with guest response via the hotel's website, guest reviews and social media.
How do you deal with guest reviews online, and how can you benefit from them? Here are tips from seven experienced people in the hotel industry who in the online magazine "Besöksliv" talk about how and why you should work on following up feedback from your guests in the hotel industry.
Answer everything and avoid standard answers
Respond to negative reviews first, preferably immediately. Also reply to positive posts when there is time, at least those that contain more than "fresh hotel". Anyone who likes the hotel should also feel seen. Don't have standard answers, then it will appear that the hotel doesn't care.
Offering compensations openly online can backfire on the hotel, when others reading about the compensation may think: "Ah, if I complain, I can get compensation." However, if the complaints are of such a nature that you would like to contact the guest, you can ask the guest to contact the hotel to further investigate what has happened. Or contact the guest himself if it is possible to find out who wrote. In that situation, it is also possible to talk about possible compensation.
Keep a regular check
If you subscribe to a search service that finds when the hotel has been mentioned on various sites and in social media, you will get a quick and broad overview. However, it is possible to manage without such a service, manual searches on the largest sites will get you far. In addition, it is possible to receive emails from, for example, Tripadvisor when someone has liked the hotel there.
- We monitor what comes in on Tripadvisor and spread it within the organization. It is important that our employees know what is written about us, says Björn Milton.
Have a person in the hotel, perhaps the hotel manager or the reception manager, who has a good overview of which guests have been to the hotel and who is responsible for responding to guest reviews. If the business is large, a communicator may be needed who only works with guest response via the hotel's website, guest reviews and social media.
Don't be afraid of negative reviews
A negative comment does not have to have serious consequences if it is handled in the right way. Complaints can even have positive consequences, not only because they can lead to you being able to develop the hotel.
- When I worked at Nordic Light, we received a comment from a middle-aged British couple. They wrote that the music was too loud, that the light installations in the lobby were terrible and that there were only younger people in the hotel. And of course young, hip people who read it thought, "How nice, no middle-aged British couples, that hotel suits me," says Anders Johansson.
Link to the hotel's website
Encourage guests in various ways to leave reviews, for example through signs in the elevator or by linking to Tripadvisor on your own site. On booking.com, for example, it is not possible to respond to guest reviews. One solution is to respond to criticism from there on your own site.
Don't blame yourself
Be as specific as possible when responding to a guest. Acknowledge whoever is writing, whether it's something positive or negative. Tell us about any changes as a result of the complaint. The biggest mistake is not listening, or questioning the complainer.
- But sometimes I'm relatively tough back. Like when I knew that we had been in contact with a guest while he was at the hotel, and that he was compensated for what he had been through, and yet he wrote us down completely on Tripadvisor. Then I was clear when I wrote that we had had this discussion face to face, and that I felt that we resolved the situation, says Martin Åkesson.
Prevent negative experiences
Capture what the guest thinks about their stay while it is in progress, so that you have the opportunity to immediately correct things that they are not satisfied with. For example, send out a welcome questionnaire and have routines for the staff to ask the guest during the visit how he is doing.
- Often guests write afterwards about things that would actually have been quite easy to correct on the spot, says Chatrine Andersson.
Also let the guest rate their visit, for example in an email survey, when the stay is over.
The tips are compiled after interviews with: Anders Johansson, Hospitality Visions, Björn Milton, co-owner of Hotel Stelor on Gotland, Linda Wikström, operations manager at Hotel Tylösand, Martin Åkesson, hotel director at Courtyard by Marriott in Stockholm, Mona Adawi, operations manager at Grand Hotel Opera in Gothenburg, Veronica Gustafsson, CEO at Best Western Plaza Hotel in Eskilstuna, and Chatrine Andersson, guest relations manager at Clarion Sign in Stockholm.
