Reputation Management: The Basics

Person Leaving Review on Phone Screen

What’s hard to build but easily destroyed? For those in the hospitality business, the answer is a good reputation.

Your reputation has a huge impact on your bottom line, so it stands to reason that hospitality marketers are focused on building and managing a good reputation.

 

4 Ways Great Hotel Reputations are Built

A reputation is built one guest, one staff-guest interaction, and one positive experience at a time. Building a strong reputation includes:

 

Efforts to create great guest experiences

Positive experiences are made up of much more than just a smooth check-in and a friendly staff. Small actions can make a big difference. Whether that’s something as small as having s’mores supplies near the firepit or as large as sending guests a personalized message before their arrival.

 

An attractive, functional website

Your website is almost guaranteed to be your first point of contact with a prospective guest. Make it count. Be sure to put your best foot forward with a fast, attractive website designed to convert.

 

Engaging presence on social media

More and more we see travelers choose their destination based on how it will look on Instagram and other platforms. Invest effort into fun, visual photography, utilize user-generated content, hire an influencer, or even encourage guests to post their own content from their stay to share it with their friends and family!

 

Encouraging guests to write positive reviews

Prospective guests find peer reviews more credible, honest, and believable than guidebook and travel agent reviews. Even the fact that there are so many online reviews about some hotels makes those reviews more believable. Sure, one reviewer might have had a bad experience but what about the 100 glowing reviews?

 

How to Earn Positive Reviews:

woman receiving email on phone

  • Ask: Simply ask guests to honestly review your business and the quality of your services.
  • Feedback button on website: Encourage guests to give an evaluation of your service or product by having a feedback button right on your website. 
  • Incentives: Consider offering coupons/discounts or entering the customer in a contest to win a prize.
  • Email invitation: Provide your customers with a post-checkout reminder to write about their experiences

 

Review monitoring

A good reputation is fragile.  So watch your review sites since people rely on them to choose hotels. Also, keep an eye on social media. Guests may tag you directly or simply mention your property in a post. 

There are a variety of programs you can use to monitor review sites.  Find one that fits your needs.

 

Responding

Maintaining a good reputation means you need to do more than file and forget reviews and comments. 

If you see a negative comment, respond quickly. Keep in mind the tone of your response is crucial. You may feel defensive, but helping the guest resolve the issue and showing that you take their thoughts seriously will do more towards turning the situation around. Start with “Thank you”, then be open, honest, and transparent. 

For positive reviews, a simple thank you that communicates “we were happy to serve you” is appropriate and acknowledges the guest’s effort in writing the review.

 

Find a partner

Does all this seem overwhelming? The good news is that you don’t need to do it alone. We can help you create a reputation management action plan and train your staff to follow it. We also can recommend tracking tools and help craft responses to negative reviews and comments.  

Contact us, we’re here to help!