As a hotelier, you may have spent years, sometimes even decades, building your hotel’s reputation, only to suddenly realize that a few dissatisfied guests are enough to ruin your online reputation. In fact, the digital review culture presents risks, but also opportunities. In today’s world, hotel reputation management must include overseeing online reviews.
As a modern hotelier, you know that you cannot ignore bad hotel guest reviews, even if they are not true. This is why it’s necessary to present yourself on the internet in a professional manner and to proactively prevent damage to your reputation with online reputation management software.
But how do you minimise the damage caused by negative comments on your website? How do you appease unhappy guests, and turn satisfied customers into real fans of your brand?
We already have a whitepaper on “Complaint Management”, in which you will learn how to respond to criticism appropriately.
Here, again, are the most important insights, summarised in…
4 tips on how to react to poor reviews
- Respond as quickly as possible to every negative review. Do this personally (as Hotel Manager), or, if the budget permits, hire a qualified marketing or social media specialist.
- Address the guest by name, and always remain polite and professional. No matter what, always apologize for the cause of the complaint. Trust us, your hotel reputation depends on it!
Do not forget: An apology is not an admission of guilt. It simply expresses your regret that the guest’s expectations, for whatever reason, have not been met.
- Explain what measures you have taken or plan to take to improve the weak points addressed by the guest.
- Analyse the complaint! Check whether there is a systematic problem that affects all guests or whether it is a one-time incident. How high is the risk of repetition, and how quickly could the cause of the problem be solved?
But what if the bad reviews have gotten out of hand and the average rating on the booking portals is only in the lower third? How do you get your hotel back on the right track?
Get your reviews under control with hotel reputation management software
Do the bookings fail to appear in online channels? Are you being left behind by the competition? What do you do if your reviews have gone down the drain?
Stay on top of things
If most of your reviews are actually negative with good cause, it’s obvious that something is going wrong within the hotel. But it’s never too late to change something! However, you need a clear plan and patience to put this into practice.
First of all – and unfortunately, it is here where mistakes are all too often made – you have to know where on the internet people are talking about you. Lots of hoteliers forget this because of the multitude of websites on which they’ve registered.
–> Customer Alliance enables you to easily manage your online reputation from one place. In our tool, all your hotel’s reviews appear in real time and can be used immediately in your quality management. We even have a Guide to Online Reputation Management.
Analyze
Analyze the reviews and find out where things are not running smoothly. Try to draw tangible points from the criticism and develop strategic measures from them. If necessary, prioritize the different problem areas, and work on the issues one at a time. As Hotel Manager, you should have an overview of all transactions, and you should always check whether your standards are actually implemented. After all, the future of your hotel is at stake.
–>Customer Alliance provides you with numerous analysis functions, statistics, and automatisms for your hotel reputation management. This means you can quickly find out which areas of your hotel are particularly problematic and which areas are well received by guests.
Collect more reviews
How do you weaken the power of negative reviews? By confronting them with lots of positive reviews. To this end, of course, you should initially work on the criticism and improve the quality of your hotel step by step. Afterward, the work you’ve done should be confirmed by good feedback. Since hotel guests are strongly inclined to leave a review on their own initiative after a negative experience, you should always remember to share the positive experiences with other hotel guests.
–>Customer Alliance provides a personalized questionnaire that automatically asks your guests to submit a review for your hotel. On average, a good quarter of the recipients will do this.
Spread the reviews on the internet
A lot of progress has been made once you have improved the quality of your hotel and have had this confirmed by your guests. It is only then that hoteliers often understand how much potential was left unrealized before, and remember that working with guests can actually be enjoyable. Last but not least, you should ensure the ratings are spread on the internet. Of course, you should pay particular attention to those rating platforms on which you are poorly rated and/or have only received a few reviews.
–> Customer Alliance provides effective ways to deliver your guest ratings to external travel and evaluation portals, or to your own website. This ensures you always have full control over your reviews.
Talk to our online reputation management experts
The methods presented here certainly sound easier than they prove in practice. But it is never too late to save your online reputation. The most important thing is to be receptive to the issue of online hotel reputation management, and take advantage of the opportunities offered by the digital hotel industry. Next, you should knuckle down, either on your own or with a strong partner at your side.
Talk to our online reputation management experts, who can develop a strategy tailored to your hotel.
>> Arrange a free consultation today!
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