Today, we’re going to give you a getting-started guide to online reputation management. We’ll take you through what it is, why it’s important, and how it can help your hotel. We’re also sharing a few of our favorite resources to get your hotel’s online presence on track.
First of all, what exactly does managing your hotel’s online reputation mean?
It’s pretty simple—essentially, you’re managing your online brand in relation to social media interactions and reviews, both positive and negative. Then, you’re looking at how this impacts your property, and how the brand is portrayed.
For example, how do you deal with negative reviews? Are you responding to tweets? What kind of tone (casual, friendly, professional?) does your hotel set for itself on social media? For hotels, managing their online presence and reputation is vital. This is because consumer behaviour and booking patterns have changed online.
Potential guests decide whether to book based on reviews and any interactions or experiences they’ve had with the hotel. This often overshadows over factors, even ones like price, facilities or location. For example, 93% of the people find reviews important when determining which hotel to stay at.
There are many different platforms that guests can use today, and they are accessible 24/7. These sites range from your own site to sites like TripAdvisor, Booking.com, Facebook, Twitter and even Youtube!
Hotels today create profiles on these platforms. The keys is to have an up to date and interactive presence online, to be vocal with your brand and connected with your potential guests and followers.
If hoteliers don’t have the resources to manage these social spaces, their reputation can start to decline. If there is no one to monitor these sites or respond to guests’ posts or reviews, this can show a lack of interest in trying to resolve the situation.
These days, a guest who tweets a complaint to your hotel’s Twitter profile expects a response, whether they’re talking about the quality of food in your restaurant or poor service they received. Even a quick apology will do – guests want to feel listened to and valued, and they expect someone to be reading and responding to them online.
Let’s take a look at the statistics related to the review and booking process:
93% of the people find reviews important when determining which Hotel they want to stay at. 53% of the people surveyed would not book a hotel without reading a guest opinion about it. That’s pretty serious.
Hotel guests are making more informed decision before booking. They’re reviewing the hotel’s reputation on all platforms, and benchmarking hotels against each other. Hotels guests trust these reviews for their ultimate booking decision. For your hotel to ignore these or not communicate with users is to ignore one of the most influential factors of your brand.
As online reputation management becomes more important, it is becoming vital for hoteliers to build an honest and professional online reputation – consider including it in the marketing plan for the property. Since your online reputation is so readily visible to potential guests at all times, from reviews on Booking.com to Facebook posts to Twitter, hoteliers need to monitor these channels as often as possible.
Keep in mind that having a smaller number of reviews makes addressing negative ones even more important. Would you rather stay at a hotel with 500 reviews and 20 negative ones, or 20 reviews and 2 negative ones?
Think about flicking through the reviews on Tripadvisor for a hotel you’re considering staying at, and a negative review for a hotel with only a small number of reviews catches your eye. You skim it and you frown, weighing that negative review heavily against the positive ones you’ve just read. But then, you notice that a representative of the hotel has replied to the review, apologizing and trying to make amends. How far would that go towards erasing the effect of the negative review?
Reputation Management affects many parts of hotels operations. Guests have many touch points, from sales to F&B, receptions and operations. This is an opportunity for personnel to interact with guests, and to encourage guests to leave positive reviews or share their experiences online.
If you promote this in the hotel on a team level instead of leaving it to one dedicated and assigned person, the culture of your hotel can change to one aware of and taking advantage of your online reputation. Get everyone involved and aware of the importance of your online perception, so staff can help encourage guests to write positively about their experiences.
Poor reviews should be shared with staff so actions can be taken to resolve complaints, and positive reviews should be highlighted to recognize and reward the staff members responsible. Check out this resource on how to make your reputation a team effort.
Reputation Management is a practice that has many different segments. To ensure hotels have a clear focus, Daniel Craig, the Founder of Reknown, has listed his 10 Essential Steps of Managing Your Hotel’s Online Reputation. If you’re looking for a great guide, this is a good place to get started.
For specific departments, here’s a few tips on helping to build your reputation:
Marketing: engage daily with guests on social media platforms and other sites. You should monitor any feedback or post that is listed, analyse guest satisfaction, and reply promptly to combat any negative damage.
Sales: Use reviews to benchmark against your competitors during your sales pitch to secure new contracts. Also, conducted research has proven that a positive online reputation has the influence to push higher price tiers for online sales and create a knock on effect to corporate negotiated rates and group bookings rates.
Hotel Guest are using reviews and social experiences at the point of purchase to influence their booking decision. If there are no reviews on your own website, guests are forced to leave your site to search for reviews – and they may not return to book. They could come in contact with OTA’s like Booking.com or Expedia and book there, giving you a booking with a higher commission percentage paid.
To combat this bounce rate, add reviews to your website. This promote a strong brand image, shows that you have confidence in your hotel and what people are saying about you, and keeps reviews right next to the point of purchase you want guests near—your site.
Generating more positive reviews will give your property more visibility and a more advantageous position against your competitors’. For example, Tripadvisor’s Popularity Index is based on quality, quantity and recency of reviews, and the Popularity Index determines your page ranking on their site. If you’re at the top, your hotel appears to be a popular choice and trustworthy with regards to your competitor set.
More reviews will also benefit your property in a more tangible way, beyond their influence on booking rates. They contain an array of information that hotels can analyse to understand guest satisfaction better and implement any service changes that need to be made.
Take these reviews as an opportunity. Use them both to grow your bookings and help improve your hotel.
After all the hustle and bustle of branding and marking your hotel, it is the guest who does the final shaping and verification of your brand by sharing their honest comments and experiences.
From an online marketing point of view, genuine, positive guest reviews are the best way to sell your property and convince a guest to book a room in your hotel.
From a guest prospective:
Reputation management should be included in your marketing mix, but it should also work hand in hand with revenue management.
In the past, pricing structures and decisions were based on factors like supply and demand, local events, negotiated rates, weddings/groups, and competitor rates.
Corin Burr, director of Bamboo Revenue in London, says:
“Online reputation management is becoming hugely important to hotels because reviews have a direct correlation with demand, the holy grail of revenue management.”
Serge Chamelian, Managing Director of H-Hotelier, has stated:
“Managing online reputation – specifically improving guest satisfaction by increasing operational effectiveness and efficiency – pays off financially. Hotels want to make sure that the investment in time and effort will benefit their sales i.e. RevPar. Hence, by improving a hotel’s reputation and communicating the results to employees, both RevPar and employee satisfaction increase.”
Recent research from the prestigious Cornell School of Hotel Administration has verified that guest satisfaction has a direct impact on the financial performance of hotels.
This quote from the study sums it up:
“A 1-point increase in a hotel’s 100-point ReviewPro Global Review Index™ (GRI) leads up to a 0.89% increase in price (ADR), a 0.54% increase in occupancy, and a 1.42% increase in Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR). The study verifies that the impact is across all distribution channels: online and off”.
Reputable research has proven that a positive online reputation has the influence to push higher price tier for online sales. This in turn has a knock on effect to corporate negotiated rates and group bookings rates.
Kelly McGuire, leader of Hospitality and Travel Global Practice at the SAS Institute, would agree:
“In recent research, we found that the sentiment of online reviews reduces the impact of price on purchase decision, meaning that good reviews will influence a traveller to spend more, and bad reviews will discourage bookings, even if the hotel room is discounted.”
“Given what I’ve been seeing in some of my research, it will be essential for revenue managers to understand their “satisfaction position” on online channels as they make pricing decisions,” says McGuire of SAS.
Convinced of the importance of having a strong, adaptable strategy for managing your reputation online? Here’s a few resources, along with those linked throughout the article, to get you going.
Jeff Higley, Editorial Director of Hotel News Now, had a “Managing Your Reputation Session.” In this, the members complied a quick 21 Tips to Manage Your Hotel’s Reputation Online. To find out more how to implement the advice we’ve given you today and generate a positive presence online and more revenue, check out the guide here.
If you would like any more information or would like to implement revenue management software in your property, here are a few of the market leaders you can take a look at: ReviewPro, Revinate and RateGain are a couple strong industry names to start with.
Let’s recap: it is critical for hoteliers today to be actively involved in reputation management.
Reputation management affects the property as a whole, and needs to be managed by every department working together. It should go hand in hand with revenue management. It should also guide hoteliers to use reviews to influence their decision-making process and effect change where necessary.
There’s your primer on reputation management: what it is, why it’s vital and a few great resources to get you started in building your hotel’s online presence.
What’s your experience with building your brand online?
Article written by Karen Connaughton
Get Your Guests to Work for You: Leverage User Generated Content
