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Managing Guest Satisfaction Surveys: Best Practices

Effective Management Response Strategies for Reviews & Surveys

GUIDE


Index

Introduction 3

Why Respond to Guest Feedback 5

What to Consider When Defining a Policy 8

Recommended Approach & Objectives 17

About Us 24


Introduction


Responding to guest feedback is one of the most

challenging and time-consuming tasks that hoteliers face.

And it’s not getting any easier. In addition to direct

feedback via surveys, more feedback than ever is being

shared publicly on review sites and social media channels,

in multiple languages.

How you respond to guest feedback can have a

significant impact on guest perceptions, behavior and the

overall success of your hotel. If feedback is poorly

managed, guests may not return to your hotel and could

share their disappointment with others which will in turn

affect your property or brand’s reputation.

Before tackling responding to feedback, it’s important to

have a clear management response strategy in place.

Hotels and hotel brands should set goals and priorities,

communicate these to teams, allocate resources and

develop the relevant skills across the organization.

In this guide, we’ll look at what to consider when defining

a policy and suggest possible approaches based on our

experience, studies and best practice. Whether you are

defining the strategy for a global hotel chain or an

independent property, the framework outlined in this

guide will help you to find the most effective solution for

your brand.

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Introduction


Why Respond to Guest Feedback


Whether it’s an online review, a guest survey or a

comment at checkout, a guest’s experience is impacted

by how a hotel reacts. By responding to guest feedback

you have the opportunity to:

• Thank guests

• Show that you are listening and you care

• Change perceptions

• Explain and reassure

• Clear up misinformation

• Reinforce the positive

• Be accountable

• Say how you’re following up

When feedback is well managed and responded to in a

timely and correct manner, guests will feel more positive

about your hotel.

But your hotel’s response to feedback can influence not

only the satisfaction of the guest leaving the comments,

but also the perception of your brand in the eyes of

potential future guests.

Effectively managing direct feedback from surveys or

face-to-face exchanges helps to reduce negative reviews

and encourages guests to talk positively about their

experience online or to friends and relatives.

The main reason for responding to online reviews is that

it helps to sell the hotel. Public responses are not only for

the benefit of the guest who left the original review but

also for the potential bookers who are searching online.

You wouldn’t ignore the phone if you knew a guest was

calling to complain. The OTAs are a channel, just like

email and phone. In the consumer’s mind there is little

difference.

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Responding to Guest Feedback Matters

Managing Guest Satisfaction Surveys: Best Practices7

Higher Ratings & More Booking Inquiries

According to research from TripAdvisor, hotels have even more reasons to respond to online reviews:

• Properties that don’t respond to reviews have an average rating of 3.81.

• Properties that respond to at least 40% of reviews have average rating of 4.05.

• Properties that respond to at least 50% of reviews increase likelihood of a booking inquiry by 24%.

Source: Tripadvisor.com/PressCenter

https://tripadvisor.mediaroom.com/2014-09-03-Responding-to-reviews-online-drives-booking-enquiries-study-reveals


What to Consider When Defining a

Policy


A management response strategy will differ depending on the

size of the hotel / hotel brand and the resources available as well

as the nature of the guest feedback.

When defining your brand’s policy, it is important to first clarify

your objectives. What does your hotel want to achieve from

responding to guest feedback?

Once the overall objectives are clear, there are several

components that hotel management should consider :

• Online Reviews vs Surveys

• Speed vs Quantity

• Negative vs Positive Comments

• Corporate vs Hotel Level Response

• Multiple Languages

• Competitor Behavior

• Setting expectations through responding

Guidelines for Responding to Guest Feedback

Whether it’s an online review, a guest survey or a comment at checkout, your response to guest feedback is critical.

In this webinar, we’ll show you how to respond to guest feedback in a way that leaves travelers feeling positive about your hotel, improves reputation, and drives higher room demand.

Watch Webinar

9

Defining a Management Response Policy

https://www.reviewpro.com/webinar-guidelines-for-responding-to-guest-feedback-thanks/


Online Reviews vs Surveys

10

Public or private?

The key difference is that reviews are public (both the guest comment and your response) whereas surveys are private (both

the guest feedback and your reply). In many cases responding to reviews should take priority over responding to surveys.

Reviews: Responding to online reviews is an opportunity to not only resolve situations with guests who have already checked

out, but gives hotels the chance to attract future guests. A good response can act as a marketing tool to convince travelers to

choose your hotel so it’s important to choose your words carefully to create a positive impression. Avoid standard answers

wherever possible since travelers can easily spot when the same management response is being copied and pasted again

and again.

Surveys: Survey feedback is responded to in a different manner. Since the response is private, using response templates can

be particularly helpful to increase efficiency and save time. Even though hotels cannot respond to post-stay surveys until

after the guest has checked out, responding quickly to negative survey comments is critical as it allows the hotel to try and

find a solution before the guest decides to write a negative review online. Responding to in-stay surveys is more like

responding to a phone call. As the guest is still on property, follow-up may need to be more personal such as phoning the

guest in their room. The advantage is that the hotel has the opportunity to resolve the issue before the guest checks out.

ReviewPro’s Case Management solutions enable hotels to efficiently manage service recovery to increase guest satisfaction

and reduce negative reviews.


Speed vs Quantity

Hotels are frequently responding by the total amount of

responses rather than the time taken to respond. An

objective of responding to 100% of reviews quickly results

in a no win situation. Staff will never see the top of the

mountain and risk burning out.

The inefficiency of responding to all reviews has been

proved (one study by Cornell is summarized on the next

page). If managers set objectives to respond to 100% of

reviews, then sometimes responses are only published

two or three months after the actual review has been

written.

This is often counter productive as resources are spent on

responding to old reviews and the likelihood of these

being read is low due to the age of the review.

It’s time to lift hotel staff out of the drudgery of

responding to all reviews and all guest survey feedback. It

is likely to be more impactful to focus on responding as

quickly as possible to the most relevant comments, rather

than trying to respond to all feedback over a long period

of time. For in-stay surveys, it is even more obvious that a

rapid response time is critical.

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“ Most travelers don’t look beyond the ten most recent reviews. The faster you respond, the better your chances of converting them.”

Daniel E. CraigFounder


The Cornell Study

Most travelers don’t look beyond the ten most recent reviews. The faster you respond, the better your chances of converting them.”

• The image above taken from the Cornell Study shows how the Dubai market has been responding to a higher percentage of reviews, yet the average score for reviews is lower.

• The study states that “We anticipate the impact of managerial responses not to be strictly linear, that is, responding to some reviews may be beneficial, but perhaps that impact decreases as hotels start to respond to all reviews”.

Source – Cornell University – Hotel Performance Impact of Socially Engaging with Consumers

• The graph on the left shows the impact of responding to reviews on TripAdvisor on revenue.

• The study states that “The practical limit for the proportion of review responses seems to be about 40 percent. After this point, incremental increases in review responses become detrimental, and revenue declines”.

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Negative vs Positive Comments

Generally speaking, when considering management

response objectives, hotels should focus on any negative

feedback first.

Responding to negative reviews tend to take priority over

neutral or positive reviews as they often call for an

apology or clarification. Whether or not you are able to

contact the reviewer directly, posting a response to

negative feedback shows readers that you regret the

situation and have made efforts to resolve it.

When your hotel receives negative feedback via surveys,

you should take action to limit any damage it may cause

to your hotel’s reputation. As already mentioned, resolving

issues identified through in-stay surveys should be top

priority. For post-stay surveys, one way of fixing objectives

is based on the Net Promoter Score®. For example, an

objective could be to reply to all “detractors” within 48

hours.

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Negative Reviews

• Aim to respond quickly.

• Offer a sincere apology.

• Address the key issues.

• Provide an explanation.

• Say how you are following up.

• Be professional.

• Personalize the response.

Positive Reviews

• Thank them – they’re your advocates.

• Share the excitement: “We are thrilled …”

• Keep responses varied by commenting on specifics.

• Say you look forward to welcoming them back.

• No need to respond to all positive reviews!


Corporate vs Hotel Level Response

Hotel Response

Whether a hotel level response is possible ultimately

depends on the volume of reviews. There are many

benefits of a hotel level response for both the hotelier and

guest.

Not only is a hotel response from a General Manager

more direct and genuine, hotel management knows the

property better and can therefore respond faster giving a

more precise response.

Corporate Response

Corporate responses make sense in certain scenarios and

it depends on the situation as well as the size of group.

It is important that corporate is involved and supports the

hotels where necessary. A key function that corporate is

often responsible for is the creation of a strategic

response policy including objectives, guidelines and best

practices.

Some brands find a “hybrid” solution effective whereby

responses are managed by the individual hotels but in

high season or when staff are unable to respond on time,

the response is escalated to corporate to manage, for

example through the group custom service center.

The corporate team can also provide valuable support in

terms of language coverage.

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Responding in Multiple Languages

It is important to respond in the language that the

feedback was written in to ensure a personalized

response.

The ideal way to manage this is with multi-lingual team

members. With ReviewPro’s Auto Case Management,

cases can be created automatically and alerts sent to the

relevant staff member based on the language of the guest

comment. If a language is not covered at the hotel level, it

could make sense to escalate the response to corporate.

Response templates translated into multiple languages

can help to some extent (ReviewPro offers this option for

both ORM and GSS). It is important to make sure that the

team knows how to adapt them where necessary. We

recommend not relying on machine translation services

for responses. If you can’t respond professionally in the

same language, it may be better not to respond at all.

15


What Are Your Competitors Doing?

The last crucial part of your management response

strategy is to look at your competitive set and how they

are responding to guest feedback.

Are your competitors replying to a higher percentage of

reviews on important channels than you are? How

quickly do they respond? How does your average

response time compare?

16

Source: ReviewPro


Recommended Approach & Objectives


Response Policy for Reviews

There is no “one policy fits all” that will fit every hotel or

chain, however the following approach can be used as a

base for defining your review response strategy. It can

then be tailored to fit your organization and overall brand

strategy.

• Don’t feel obliged to respond to all reviews! Prioritize

reviews that call for an apology or clarification, are

damaging to reputation or highlight positive aspects

you wish to draw attention to.

• Think “speed before quantity”. Focus on responding as

quickly as possible to the most relevant reviews, rather

than trying to respond to all reviews over a long period

of time.

• Concentrate on the most influential sites and channels -

those that are the most important for your target

audience or generate the highest revenue for your

hotel.

• Although it makes sense for corporate to define

response strategy, dedicate resources to be able to

respond on a hotel level whenever possible. Using a

hybrid approach can work well to manage escalations

or overflow during peak season.

• Try to respond in the language of the review. This is

typically an area where corporate can provide support.

• Remember that reviews are public so if you choose to

use response templates, make sure the message is

adapted so that it does not look like a “robotic” answer.

Responses should provide helpful and meaningful

information.

• Provide staff with training and clear guidelines for

responding to reviews. Your review response policy

should also include how to deal with false reviews,

fictitious claims or a review threat. For more details, see

our guide on managing brand attacks.

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https://www.reviewpro.com/protect-hotel-online-reputation-thanks/


Example of Objectives for Reviews

Remember not all sites offer the option to respond to

reviews. Objectives should be based on “respondable”

reviews rather than total review volume.

Here is an example of appropriate objectives for

responding to reviews:

• 100% of negative reviews in key languages

• 25% of neutral reviews with comments

• 25% of positive reviews with comments

• Within 72 hours

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Source: ReviewPro


Tracking Performance for Reviews

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Another key part of your management response

strategy should be around tracking and managing

your performance. In the ReviewPro Management

Response center, you can monitor the following:

- Volume of respondable reviews

- Response ratio

- Average response time

- By review source

- By positive/neutral/negative

- Relative to the competition

It is also useful to create a “view” (as shown in the

screen shot) of negative reviews that have not

been responded to. This helps the person

responsible for replying to reviews to prioritize

responses.Source: ReviewPro


Response Policy for Surveys

When defining a survey response strategy, it is important

to keep in mind that unlike reviews, survey responses are

not public. We recommend the following approach:

• Once again, don’t feel compelled to respond to all

surveys. Give priority to those surveys where a response

is required such as because the guest had a negative

experience. This can be based on NPS® “detractors” or

a low overall satisfaction score (the figure will depend

on the scale used).

• Reply as quickly as possible to the surveys with the

most relevant feedback. By removing the pressure of

reaching a 100% response rate, your responses will be

quicker and more likely to have a bigger impact.

• Many times, your guests may provide feedback in

surveys and wait for your response prior to sharing their

experience online. A timely and effective response to

surveys can therefore still have a positive impact on

your Online Reputation.

• When it comes to in-stay surveys, speed is definitely of

the essence and a telephone call is often the fastest

and most effective way of following up with the guest.

• As for reviews, survey response strategy can be defined

at corporate level but respond on a hotel level

whenever possible, using a hybrid approach when

applicable.

• Again, try to respond in the language of the review,

asking corporate for support when necessary.

• As responses are not public, using templates can be

extremely useful and increase efficiency.

• Use it as an opportunity to encourage customer loyalty.

Identify highly satisfied guests or promoters and using a

template, send them a thank you email with a welcome

back discount on future bookings.

• Provide staff with training and clear guidelines for

responding to survey feedback.

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Example of Objectives for Surveys

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Appropriate objectives for responding to post-stay

surveys could be:

• 100% of negative responses in key languages

• 100% of promoters (using a “welcome back”

template with 10% discount on next booking)

• Within 72 hours

For in-stay surveys the focus should be speed so that

issues can be resolved quickly. For example:

• 100% of responses saying they have an issue

• Within 2 hours


Tracking Performance for Surveys

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In the ReviewPro Management Response center,

you can monitor the following:

- Volume of surveys to respond to

- Response ratio

- Average response time

- By positive/neutral/negative

- By NPS® (Promoters/Passives/Detractors)

It is also possible to track whether guests found

the response from the hotel useful or not.

Source: ReviewPro


About ReviewPro


About Us

ReviewPro is the leading provider of Guest Intelligence solutions

to independent hotel brands worldwide.

The company’s suite of cloud-based solutions includes Online

Reputation Management (ORM), Guest Satisfaction Surveys (GSS)

and Auto Case Management which enable clients to obtain a

deeper understanding of reputation performance as well as

operational/service strengths and weaknesses. Leveraging Guest

Intelligence effectively allows clients to increase guest

satisfaction, rankings on review sites/OTAs and revenue.

The company offers the industry-standard Global Review

IndexTM (GRI), an online reputation score, which is used by

thousands of hotels worldwide as a benchmark for reputation

management efforts, based on review data collected from more

than 175 online travel agencies (OTAs) and review sites in more

than 45 languages. More than 30,000 hotel brands worldwide

are currently using ReviewPro’s solutions.

Request a Free ReviewPro Demo now

Learn More

The leading source of Guest Intelligencebest practices and insights for the hospitality industry

Visit our Resource Hub

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https://www.reviewpro.com/products/global-review-index/

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