How to Generate More Guest Reviews
How to Increase the Number of Reviews Customers Write About Your Hotel
This is crucial as the number of online reviews a hotel collects does impact its revenue. Customers today simply won’t trust a hotel with only a few reviews. If prospective customers are exposed to a higher number of testimonials, a stronger sense of reliability and credibility is created about the hotel. Thus, this increases the chance that customers will book with that hotel instead of moving on to research other properties.
Getting customers to talk to you online is the most important seal of approval a hotel can get, but getting them to actually write reviews is another issue. Here are some things that can help.
Ask for reviews
Customers can be approached in a variety of ways such as in-room flyers, a guest book in reception, during check-out processes, in follow-up emails, and in social media channels. If you make it easy for people to have their say during or after their stay, you will be pleasantly surprised by how many people will respond.
Our benchmark stats show that 66% of people open a ‘post stay’ email and that 23% click through to leave a comment. Having reviews added to your website on a regular basis will also help grow your website’s SEO.
Remarkable experience
It is of utmost importance that a hotel creates an experience worth talking about (the WOW effect).
Exceed expectations
Positive reviews come from customers who are pleasantly surprised by what they received; thus avoid setting unreal expectations in advertising and marketing communications.
Right team in place
Recruiting the right people and encouraging them to work to exceptional standardsplaces an emphasis on the interaction employees have with customers.
Through online reviews, hotels improve customer satisfaction and increase revenue growth by:
- Knowing everything that is being said online
- Identifying areas of improvement based upon point scores and customer feedback
- Increasing revenue through more direct bookings
As the volume of reviews continues to increase, this user-generated-content gradually becomes more important in customers’ booking decisions. Review scores have a strong effect on both conversion rates and pricing; indeed, customers are willing to pay more for a hotel with a higher review score. Thus, hoteliers need to place emphasis on online reviews as they have the opportunity to increase revenue. When review scores start improving, hoteliers will witness an increase in conversion rates and a chance to optimise prices.
Original article by Serge Chamelian, managing director of h-hotelier
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