“Feedback” – There is no industry or sector who cannot relate to this term. It is one of the driving medium for all businesses, be it retail or tourism, be it a product or service. From private companies to government organisations, all entities need feedback to know their customers and drive their business. Even students need feedback from their tutors to improve their abilities. Similarly, for the hotel industry too, feedback is more than important – it is the key to driving their business.
The main job of hotels is to provide a comfortable and enjoyable experience to their customers while generating revenue for themselves. Good service will lead to happy customers increasing their loyalty towards the hotel or the brand. However, a bad experience might damage the reputation of the place and lead to diminishing revenues. Hence, customer experience is directly related to the financial success of the hotel. Customer satisfaction is the key to the hospitality industry.
And, how do you know the level of customer experience? Yes, the answer is FEEDBACK – a simple way of asking your visitors about their experience and using their responses to build strategies. For the hotel industry, customers have many mediums to give feedback. Let’s look at some of the main ones:
Main Mediums of Receiving Customer Feedback
Online Reviews:
With increasing internet technology, online mediums are often used to express opinions and views. Especially in the hotel industry, customers provide online reviews and share their experience to help others decide. Many travelers plan their holidays based on these reviews.
Every review is important, be it good or bad. The good ones help in promoting the hotel. However, the bad ones should be addressed by hotels as it gives them a scope of improvement and fixing issues faced by visitors to provide a better experience for other customers. Always learn from negative reviews and work towards making a change to get more positive reviews.
Feedback Surveys
Directly ask customers about their experience through surveys after their visit. Include questions that will help in pointing the specific problems faced by customers rather than a general one question of the overall experience. Taking feedback is not a one-way process. All the responses need to be addressed to improve customer experience and convert visitors into loyal customers.
Listen to the Front Desk
Customers mostly interact with the front desk. All compliments and complaints are received by the staff at the front desk as they are the face of the hotel that interacts the most with the customers. Hence, constantly take feedback from them and ensure their suggestions are heard.
It is not difficult to get feedback as customers are always open to talk about their issues and provide opinions. A happy customer will provide good reviews and spread a good word of mouth leading to more customers and more revenue. In the same way, negative reviews will damage your reputation that will, in turn, see a decrease in customers and revenue. In this way, we can see how feedback is directly related to the finances of a hotel.
There are many other aspects where feedback can be used to gain financial success, especially in multichain hotel groups. There are customized survey apps that help in monitoring and managing customer responses and converting the data into reports that can be analysed at a group level. Here’s a brief look at how monitoring and analysing customer feedback at a group level can help in bringing financial success to hotel chains.
Monitoring Standards across Different Properties of the Group
Majority of hotels that have multiple properties follow the same standards everywhere that build their brand identity. If one property fails to maintain this, the entire group’s reputation is impacted. On the other hand, it is difficult for the managers to physically supervise each location as they might be spread across cities or even countries, based on the size of the hotel group. This is when survey apps can be useful. Each location’s guest feedback can be investigated easily. This data can also be compared to know the performance of every hotel and ensure that the customer satisfaction rate is high.
The above graph is an example of how comparative reports can be analysed for different properties of the hotel. Using this data, the hotel group can draft strategies and set targets for each property to meet their quality standards.
Personalised Marketing Initiative
Personalised marketing is a good technique to get more customers and retain existing customers. It deeply impacts the experience they have with the hotel. For Example, a guest really enjoyed a few elements of one of the properties. A personalised marketing email can be sent convincing them to visit other properties having similar elements that they liked. This keeps the relationship between the group and their customers alive and builds guest loyalty. It is also likely to generate positive reviews. Moreover, to attract new customers, personalised offers can also be given based on their demographics.
Collated Reports and Strategies
A collated report of guest feedbacks from all the properties can easily be accessed. This helps the owners get in touch with managers of the locations that have a bad performance and do some damage control. They can come up with strategies and fix the situations to hold the brand identity. Example, a customer gives negative feedback in one property of a hotel group. The group can then offer that customer a discount offers for a stay in another property of the chain. In this way, the customer feels like the group cares about their feedback and is bound to visit their hotel again.
Hence, guest feedback can be used in many ways by hotels, and if used right, it is guaranteed to bring financial success. All this can easily be managed with the right Survey app. And, GoSurvey can assist you in this area.
GoSurvey expertise in customising survey apps for the hotel industry that help in effectively monitoring, tracking and accessing customer feedback. GoSurvey has catered to many companies in the hotel industry as well as other industries.
