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Personal welcome, delicious breakfast, great spa, and courteous hotel staff – the hotel stay seems perfect.
At check-out, the guest expresses his thanks with a smile on his face. A few days later the hotelier is surprised to receive a negative review on TripAdvisor. Guests like to complain and they do it often. More and more they use online review portals for this. The statistics portal Statista did a survey on the most common guest complaints in March 2015 and found that the complaints vary from noise and inflexible breakfast times to the uncomfortable smell of the carpet.
So how can hoteliers protect themselves from bad online reviews when guests don't inform the hotel during the stay or if they only leave a filled out feedback form after their departure?
Unfortunately, at this point, the hotel no longer has the chance to convince them of the contrary. In the worst-case scenario, the guest never returns to the hotel and greets them with a negative hotel review from far away.
SuitePad’s “Quick-Feedback” feature offers a remedy: The hotel gets the chance to ask the guest about their level of satisfaction during the stay. As the name suggests, the “Quick-Feedback” is meant to give a quick sign of the guest’s current mood. Instead of answering extensive questions or rating the various hotel services on a scale of 1-10, the guest simply chooses between three smileys (happy, indecisive, and sad), to show how happy they are with their stay so far.
If they wish, they can additionally add a comment in the text box below. If an indecisive or sad smiley is chosen, the front office receives a direct message and can proactively ask the guest about the reasons for their dissatisfaction and act on it immediately.
The feedback feature is not only exciting for 5-star-hotels but can benefit all types of hotels and is very easy to implement into the hotel’s operative processes. Hotel director Kurt Wodiczka from 3-star-hotel Walhalla in Zurich said the following regarding the Quick-Feedback Feature: “A guest was disappointed that we don’t have peppermint tea in our rooms. Through the digital concierge he mentioned his dissatisfaction and we were able to react immediately. For his wake-up call, we brought his favorite newspaper and a cup of hot water with fresh mint to his room. The guest was surprised especially since we are just a 3-star-hotel. He was thrilled that we fulfilled his wish so quickly. But most importantly, with this action, we were able to change a potentially bad review into great feedback.” This is just one of the many day-to-day hotel stories. The Quick-Feedback Feature is a useful extension to the hotel’s often already existing Online Reputation Management process. Prevent bad reviews and profit from further advantages with SuitePad.
- Published on August 18, 2016
