Why are good hotel reviews so important?
The digital world is full of choices and in order to better navigate it, what’s better than relying on people like you to help you decide? This is where reviews come into play; they’re important for both users and hotels to tell their online story and make the difference over the competition.
For hotels, good reviews are fundamental because they can encourage guests to book, enhance your online reputation and help confirm your value proposition. It’s one thing to state “we’re the best hotel” and it’s another for potential guests to corroborate your statements by reading testimonials from real people. For hoteliers, of course, there’s nothing more gratifying than knowing you did a good job and being able to communicate this to future guests. Let’s look at a few more reasons why they are so important.
It allows interaction with your guests
When someone posts a review on one of the many online review sites, whether that be Google or TripAdvisor, it gives you an opportunity to interact with guests and stay in touch with them after their stay. One of the hardest and most important elements of guest retention is keeping in touch with them, and reviews are a great way to open up the online dialogue while also increasing guest loyalty by showing them that you care.
It helps your SEO
Beyond your own personal satisfaction of knowing and having confirmation from your guests that you did a good job, good feedback will help improve visibility for your hotel online. When people talk about your hotel online it signals the search engines that your structure is important and it is likely to show up above other hotels in the search rankings. In this way, people will find your hotel more easily, which could also lead to more direct bookings. It’s a win win.
It’s great for marketing
Reviews allow you the possibility to market your hotel for free. When people read about your property online and like what they see, they are more likely to book. The guest essentially promotes your hotel to other potential guests with you even having to move a finger beyond of course ensuring that you live up to your reputation.
How to get good hotel reviews from your guests?
In order to get good testimonials, the first and foremost thing to focus on is offering the best service possible. As a hotel you can take advantage of the guest experience software to facilitate an experience that’s unlike other hotels by having online guest services that can take care of common requests at any time of the day, or an online check-in that allows guests to check in even before they arrive.
Now that we know why positive feedback is so important, let’s take a look at some of the five best ways to get good reviews.
Have a plan
Nothing can be executed successfully without having a plan of action in place. Have a plan of how you will respond to reviews (both positive and negative) and make sure to follow it. The more guests see you interact with the feedback, the more trust you will inspire. The time will inevitably come to have to deal with a bad review, so make sure you’re prepared. Read about some tips on how to respond to negative reviews.
Don’t be afraid to ask
It can be hard to ask for what you want, but asking for reviews is one of the easiest strategies to get people to write them. Make sure upon check out you let them know where they can find you online and share their experience. You can also contact them after the fact in the post-trip phase to ask them to fill out a survey about their satisfaction levels and then invite them to post their experience online, and even offer them a discount for doing so.
Post guest testimonials online
Sharing positive experiences that other guests have had is great content for your social media channels, newsletter, and to use to communicate with your guests online. Testimonials can also be used on your website to encourage guests to book. Invite guests to share pictures and experiences on your social media channels, and then reward them when they do it.
Prepare your staff
Your staff are the face of your hotel, so make sure they’re constantly kept in the loop. Remind your staff that when they get positive feedback from guests during their stay, to invite them to share their experience on TripAdvisor or Google. Make sure they’re not pushy about it, but a friendly reminder may be all they need.
Make sure the check-in and check-out process is as smooth as possible because first and last impressions count, and the smoother the process the better the overall experience will be. It’s important to engrain this in the minds of your staff. Learn tips on how to manage your staff in order to provide the best service possible.
Make it easy
There’s nothing more frustrating than wanting to leave a review and having too many steps to get there. Make sure no matter where guests provide feedback, the process is quick and easy and doesn't limit them to multiple choice answers. Then get permission to share their feedback on your different channels.
Of course, you will want them to post also on TripAdvisor and Google, but use your own surveying processes to capture testimonials that will serve to market your hotel on your website and social media and use the aforementioned tips to drive reviews on other sites.
Conclusion
Reputation management is one of the most important parts of a successful hotel business and by having clear steps lined out in order to capture good reviews, you will be more likely to get that feedback that you can later use to market your business and drive direct bookings. This is without a doubt one of the most effective (and free) tactics to promote your business.
You don't have to do it alone, either. There are a host of great hotel tech integrations that help you to gather and manage guest reviews – you can view them in our marketplace.
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