Introduction:

In today’s highly competitive hospitality industry, hoteliers are constantly seeking
ways to increase revenue. One point that is often overlooked, even though it is a
highly effective strategy, involves prioritising and leveraging guest reviews. Guest
reviews not only provide valuable feedback but can also be a powerful tool to
enhance a hotel’s revenue management strategy and when using GuestFlip you
can optimise your revenue management to bring it to the next level.
In this blog post, we will explore how hotels can harness and maximise the power
of guest reviews to boost revenue.

1. Understanding the Importance of Guest Reviews

Before getting in to the ways to prioritise guest reviews for revenue management,
it’s crucial to recognise why these reviews matter as guest reviews provide insights
into guest experiences, allowing hoteliers to identify strengths and weaknesses.
They serve as a valuable source of data for making informed decisions to enhance
the guest experience and, subsequently, increase revenue.

– Trust and Credibility:
Positive reviews build trust among potential clients. When people see
positive feedback from others who have had a good experience, they are more
likely to trust and choose that service or product.
– Feedback for Improvement:
Negative reviews, when constructive, can provide businesses with insights
into areas that need improvement. This feedback allows businesses to address
issues, enhance their services, and demonstrate a commitment to customer
satisfaction.
– Continuous Improvement:
Regularly monitoring and analysing guest reviews can help businesses
identify trends and patterns, allowing them to continuously improve their offerings
and stay ahead of changing customer preferences.

2. Monitor and Respond to Reviews Promptly

The first step in prioritising guest reviews is to actively monitor them across various
online platforms such as TripAdvisor, Booking.com, and Google Reviews which
are put together in GuestFlip. This monitoring should be a continuous process, and
any review—positive or negative—should be addressed promptly. By responding
to guest reviews, hotels can show their commitment to guest satisfaction. This not
only helps in improving the hotel’s image but also encourages potential guests to
choose your establishment over competitors. Timely responses to negative
reviews can also mitigate potential damage by demonstrating a willingness to
address issues.


– Set Up Notifications:
• Google Alerts: Set up Google Alerts for your business name, product names, and
relevant keywords. This way, you’ll receive emails whenever new content matching
those terms is published.
• Review Platforms: Enable notifications on review platforms like Google My
Business, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and others. Most platforms allow you to receive email
alerts or push notifications for new reviews.
– Develop a Response Protocol:
• Establish Guidelines: Create guidelines for responding to both positive and
negative reviews. Ensure your responses are professional, empathetic, and
address specific concerns.
– Address Concerns:
• Negative Reviews: For negative reviews, address the specific concerns
raised. Apologise for any inconvenience and provide a solution if possible.
Encourage the reviewer to contact you offline for further resolution if needed.
– Tripadvisor, booking.com, google reviews and 50 more sites:

• There are over 50 review sites like Tripadvisor, Booking.com, and Google
Reviews that shape your business’s online reputation. Responding to reviews
shows you value feedback and helps boost your ranking and visibility across these
platforms.

3. Analyse Review Data for Trends

Guest reviews provide a wealth of data that can be analysed to identify trends and
patterns. By categorising reviews based on themes such as cleanliness, service
quality, amenities, and location, hotels can pinpoint areas that need improvement.
This data-driven approach allows for targeted investments to enhance the guest
experience and, in turn, drive higher revenue.
For instance, if several reviews highlight the need for improved breakfast options,
a hotel can revamp its breakfast offerings to cater to guest preferences. By
addressing these specific issues, the hotel can potentially increase its average
daily rate (ADR) and occupancy rates.

– Clean and Preprocess Data:
•Remove any irrelevant or duplicate reviews.
•Standardise text by converting everything to lowercase.
•Remove stop words (common words like “and,” “the,” etc.) to focus on
meaningful content.
•Perform sentiment analysis to categorise reviews as positive, negative, or
neutral.

– Sentiment Analysis:
•Conduct sentiment analysis to understand the overall sentiment of reviews.
•Break down sentiment by product, feature, or service to identify areas for
improvement in all languages.
– Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis:
•Combine quantitative metrics with qualitative insights from the actual review
text for a holistic understanding.
•Pay attention to specific comments and suggestions.

4. Implement Guest Feedback into Revenue Management Strategies

Once trends and areas for improvement have been identified, hotels should
integrate this feedback into their revenue management strategies. For instance, if
reviews consistently mention the need for room upgrades, consider offering
enticing upgrade options during the booking process. These upgrades can be
strategically priced to boost revenue.
Additionally, positive guest reviews can be used as a marketing tool. Highlighting
guest testimonials and positive feedback on the hotel’s website or in marketing
materials can influence potential guests’ decisions to book a room.

– Monitor and Iterate:
•Regularly monitor the effectiveness of changes made based on guest
feedback. Iterate and refine your strategies based on ongoing feedback and
performance metrics.
– Training and Staff Communication:
•Share guest feedback with relevant staff members and departments to ensure
continuous improvement. Provide training programmes based on the
feedback to address specific areas of concern.
– Integrate with Revenue Management Systems:
•Integrate feedback data with revenue management systems to enable
informed pricing and inventory decisions.
•Develop algorithms or models that use guest satisfaction scores as a key
factor in pricing strategies.

5. Encourage Positive Reviews

Encouraging guests to leave positive reviews can be an effective way to boost a hotel’s
online reputation. Consider implementing strategies such as offering incentives for
leaving reviews, sending post-stay emails requesting feedback, or simply providing
exceptional service that encourages guests to share their positive experiences.
Positive reviews not only improve a hotel’s online visibility but also contribute to higher
occupancy rates and ADR. Travellers are more likely to book a hotel with a strong
reputation and a track record of satisfied guests.

– Create a Review-Friendly Environment:
• Make it easy for guests to leave reviews. Include links to review sites in post-stay
emails or on your website and a seamless process increases the likelihood that
satisfied guests will take the time to write a review.
– Promptly Address Complaints:
• If a guest expresses dissatisfaction, address the issue promptly and
professionally showing that you care about resolving problems and improving the guest
experience.
– Utilise Guest Surveys:
• Implement guest satisfaction surveys to gather feedback on various aspects of
their stay. Use the insights to make improvements and showcase positive feedback on
your website or in promotional materials.

Conclusion:
Incorporating guest reviews into your hotel’s revenue management strategy can be a
game-changer in today’s competitive hospitality industry. By actively monitoring,
responding to, analysing, and implementing feedback from guest reviews, hotels can
enhance the guest experience, increase occupancy rates, and maximise revenue.

Remember that guest reviews are a valuable source of information that can help
identify areas for improvement and guide strategic decisions as reviews not only benefit
your bottom line but also ensures that your guests have memorable and satisfying
experiences, creating a win-win scenario for both your guests and your hotel.

The post Boosting Hotel Revenue Management through Guest Reviews appeared first on GuestFlip.

These responses are from 400 hotels around europe and include both positive and negative reviews. Our goal by analysing these responses is to identify common mistakes and extract new insights.

We started our analysis process by defining the goals for any response to an online review. The main goals for responding to reviews are to:

• Convince other guests to book your property by highlighting your strengths or by clarifying things about complaints or negative mentions
• Show appreciation to the guest who review your property, both for negative and positive feedback

By following industry best practices and by focusing on the above goals, we concluded that a high-quality response should be personalized, relevant & well-written. We analyse all these aspects in the following ways.

Level of personalization

We analyse whether or not the response is personalized. This includes how the response is opened (e.g. by greeting the guest), how it is closed (e.g. personal signature) and other personal details it may contain. This aspect of a response is important to show appreciation to guests and for other readers to know that a human being paid attention to the review. The goal is for readers to feel like a genuine and personal “conversation”.

Relevance to the original review

We measure the relevance of the response to the original review. The most important factor when it comes to convincing other guests to book with your property, is to highlight topics from the original review in your response. This means that if a guest has specific complaints or praises, they need to be addressed. In the case of positive reviews, it offers you a chance to highlight your strong points and promote your services to prospective guests. When it comes to negative reviews, it is highly important to address issues that the reviewer mentions so that readers won’t be swayed away.

Quality of the text

We measure the quality of the text in terms of readability and grammatical correctness. Reviews and responses are read by people around the globe, so you need to make sure that your responses are easily understood by anyone.

Common mistakes in responses

Many responses are too difficult to read

Our first interesting finding was that around 30% of responses are fairly difficult to read. These responses include sentences that are too long and not enough punctuation is used. This poses a problem, because responses to reviews are meant to be read by a wide audience. Of the responses that are difficult to read, 33% are considered highly unreadable. This means that they contain very long sentences, with little to no punctuation, and are considered difficult to read by anyone. Your aim should be to eliminate this problem by making sure your team focuses on readability and correct language.

Personalization is still lacking in many hotel responses

Many hotel responses are also lacking in terms of personalization. The most common mistake, that can be found in 25% of responses, is a lack of a personal signature. Guests want to feel heard and understood, and not including a signature or using an impersonal signature such as “Guest Relations” or “Marketing Department” hurts your reputation. Responses with a personal signature, for example ones that include your name and title, are far more effective and show that you personally care about your guests.

Another troubling issue is that 5% of all responses did not greet or did not address the guest in a personal way. Addressing the guest in a personal way by using their real name or screen name, is effective in showing that the response is targeted and in no way a copy-paste response.

Most reviews are not relevant enough

Around 40% of responses contained one or zero mentions to relevant topics from the original review. This means that while guests talk about an average of 10 topics ranging from breakfast to cleanliness, the average number of topics in responses is around 2.5. Of course the goal of a response is not to address each topic and mention, but enough topics should be addressed to make the response relevant.

The reason behind this is that many hotels still favor copy-paste responses that don’t talk about any of the issues that guests are mentioning. This doesn’t help convince new guests to select a property though because key issues are not being addressed and strong points are not being promoted. But it’s not enough that copy-paste responses don’t help achieve your goals, they actually hurt your reputation. Copy-paste & non-personalized responses actually hurt your chances of receiving a booking, as guests perceive these responses as disingenuous.

How top hotels respond to guest reviews

Well-written responses almost 100% of the time

One of the easiest things to nail, is to respond using a professional tone and write in a way that’s easy to read and understand. Many 5-star hotels, especially ones that belong to large chains such as Hilton & Marriott, get this right around 99% of the time. The responses are readable and understandable by a wide audience. They don’t use difficult words excessively and they split the response into parts making it easy to read.

Personalization is the way to go

High-quality hotels tick all the boxes when it comes to personalization in 97% of responses. Each such responses greets and addresses the guest in a personal way and the manager closes the response using their full name and title.

Commit to excellence

A detail that is very common in responses of hotels that get it right is a commitment to excellence. In each and every response, the manager that writes the response, finds a way to articulate their vision of maximizing guest satisfaction and offering great services. This detail is especially common in high-quality hotels, but it doesn’t need to be uncommon in responses of budget hotels. Showing your guests that you care is one of the things that can help you stand out the most. Make your focus on Guest Experience stand out by using such statements in your responses.

Here are some examples to help you understand how these statements can be used.

“Guest satisfaction is what we strive for and it is with pleasure to learn that your stay with us was a truly enjoyable one.”

“We make every effort to maintain both high standards in our product and service and I am delighted to see that our efforts have satisfied you”

Templates for adding a commitment in review responses

Finding the right content balance

Responding to reviews is an important part of Reputation Management and can bring benefits to your business. But at the same time it needs to be a good use of your time, so that means that you will have to find the right balance when it comes to formatting your response. The rough balance is the following:

• Opening section: 25% of the response
• Addressing positive or negative issues: 50% of the response
• Commitment: 5% of the response (typically 1 short to medium size sentence)
• Closing section: 20% of the response

The important takeaway from this is to focus on addressing issues. This is going to be unique content, tailored to the specific review. The opening & closing sections can and probably will be repeated as they typically state similar things. But highlighting positive or negative topics is going to be the part that needs the most effort. It’s also the part that’s the most rewarding, as it can either convince guests to stay at your property or sway them away.

Talk about the most important topics

When the review mentions a plethora of topics, it makes sense that you don’t need to respond to each and every one of them.

When it comes to negative reviews, high-quality hotels prioritize the topics as follows:

1. Serious Allegations & Claims
2. Complaints regarding important issues (e.g. issues with cleanliness or service)
3. Minor complaints and details (such as a short delay in check-in)

For positive reviews, hotels with a successful response strategy act as follows:

1. Address at least 2 or 3 topics that the reviewer is most excited about
2. Highlight the hotel’s unique & competitive strengths that are going to convince other readers to book

What you stand to gain by following the best practices

It’s important to note that making responding to hotel reviews a part of your strategy can increase your occupancy rate and revenues. This TripAdvisor Study shows that improving your responsiveness to reviews can increase your Occupancy Rate by up to 6.8 percentage points. At the same time, maintaining a high response rate (over 50%) increases Net Promoter Score by 1.4 points and improves overall guest satisfaction.

This article is a part of an ongoing process of analysing successful responding strategies and helping hoteliers get more from their reputation management. For more, view our Responding Guide for TripAdvisor that contains specific templates and implementation ideas.

About GuestFlip

With GuestFlip you can view all your reviews in one dashboard and use our automated response builder to create personalized responses in a matter of seconds.

Closely monitor your competition using our competitive intelligence tool and set goals to improve your overall ratings. Rapidly react and engage with your guests in a fraction of the time.

The post Responding to hotel reviews: What we learned analysing 100,000 responses appeared first on GuestFlip.

RevPAR is the revenue per available room. RevPAR allows you to measure your daily performance in terms of occupancy rate and ADR (The average daily rate). It doesn’t take into account actual room rates and types or specific occupancy metrics. Hotel Reputation can be one of the most powerful drivers in increasing RevPAR.

It’s a powerful KPI to assess your hotel’s financial performance and compare it with benchmarks. It shows the effectiveness of your pricing strategy and the value of your room inventory.

How do you calculate RevPAR?

Well it’s simple, you multiply your occupancy rate times your ADR.

So, if your ADR is $100 and your occupancy rate stands at 70% then your RevPAR is

$100 * 70% = $70

Why does your hotel reputation affect RevPAR?

In order to understand how your reputation and guest reviews affect your revenue, you need to think like your guests. Guests are looking for properties that are within their budget. And they typically choose the one which think will be the best value for money. The one with the highest quality. And how do they decide which hotel has higher quality? You guessed right, by looking at your online review scores! And by comparing these review scores with other competitive hotels.

That’s why it’s essential to closely monitor your reviews and improve them. Higher review scores help you achieve a higher occupancy rate and allow you to increase prices while preserving your market share.

How much does your hotel reputation affect RevPAR?

Based on Cornell’s Hospitality Report,  a hotel that improves its reputation by 1%, can see the revenue available per room (RevPAR) increase by up to 1.42%. What does this mean for you? Based on the previous example, if your hotel has 50 rooms, a 1% improvement in reputation can result in:

$71 RevPAR (A $1 increase in RevPAR)

$1.500 in additional revenue every month

How to increase RevPAR through Hotel Reputation Management

The goal of this article is to explore the ways in which hotel reputation management can increase your hotel’s RevPAR. Of course, optimizing RevPAR has more variables than just your hotel’s reputation. But in this article we’re going to focus on how managing your reviews and improving your hotel’s reputation can improve your overall revenue.

Respond to reviews

Most guests read reviews prior to booking a property. When a guest is reading a negative review, your response can be the difference between getting and losing a booking. Make sure you respond to all reviews, especially negative ones. And be on time, it can make a big difference.

Monitor topics & complaints

Each guest has different needs and interests when it comes to accommodation. By closely monitoring all topics mentioned in reviews, ranging from cleanliness to service, you can improve your property’s quality and increase bookings.

Improve review scores & rankings

When you implement a long-term strategy to improve your online reviews, you will achieve higher scores and rankings. Improved rankings and scores will boost your hotel’s visibility on online channels and lead to more bookings.

Ensure guest satisfaction & increase review volume with surveys

Sending out targeted surveys to guests can achieve 2 goals. For one, you can achieve higher guest satisfaction by resolving issues. At the same time, you can also get more reviews on the channels you are interested in. Getting more reviews on TripAdvisor, especially positive ones, will help you get more bookings for your hotel.

Hotel Reputation can be an important driver in increasing your hotel’s RevPAR. Make sure to pay attention to guest reviews, respond quickly and find creative ways to get more reviews.

About GuestFlip

With GuestFlip you can view all your reviews in one dashboard and use our automated response builder to create personalized responses in a matter of seconds.

Closely monitor your competition using our competitive intelligence tool and set goals to improve your overall ratings. Rapidly react and engage with your guests in a fraction of the time.

The post How to increase your RevPAR by improving hotel reputation appeared first on GuestFlip.

#1 Respond to reviews on all channels, not just TripAdvisor

A common mistake that we see with many hotels is that they respond only to TripAdvisor reviews. Don’t get me wrong, responding to TripAdvisor reviews is important. But you should focus on other channels that may be important for your business as well. Google reviews are growing a lot so they should be a part of your hotel review management strategy as well. And of course you shouldn’t forget OTA reviews where a response (or a lack thereof) can directly impact booking decisions.

Ideally, you should upgrade your review management strategy by:

• Monitoring at least 5 of the online channels that bring you the most bookings
• Responding to all negative reviews on all channels
• Picking 2-3 channels where you’ll expend more energy on creating a stellar image for your hotel reviews

#2 Offer personalized responses

Offering personalized responses is a must in today’s review management landscape. Large hotel chains such as Marriott and Hilton offer quite personalized responses for each guest review. The reason for that, is that multiple studies have shown that copy-paste responses create a negative image for your property. So it is obvious that responding to reviews in a unique and personalized way is a must.

Personalized responses should greet the guest with their name or online nickname if available. You should include information based on what the guest has talked about. For example, if your guest comments positively on the pool, your response should contain a message regarding that.

Interested in improving your responding strategy? View our complete responding guide.

#3 Monitor your competition

The goal of hotel review management is to optimize your image in order to stand out from your competition. According to Peter Drucker, “What gets measured gets managed”. And this applies to review management and competitive analysis as well. If you want to beat your competition and climb the rankings then you need to closely monitor their performance.

But just measuring numbers such as total reviews and number of stars on each platform doesn’t give you much edge over your competitors. You need detailed information that helps you identify your strong points compared to your competition.

Aspects that you can monitor:

• Common complaints for your competitor’s properties
• The facilities that most guests praise in their reviews
• Their responding strategy and response rate

Using this information and comparing it with your own will help you identify key things you can do to stand out.

#4 Train your team on how to improve hotel reputation

Growing and maintaining a stellar online reputation for your hotel needs to be a team effort. There are 2 things that you need to get right:

1. Your team in the online world
2. But most importantly, your front-line team

Employee training needs to be one of your first priorities to ensure that your guests have the 5-star experience they deserve. At the same time, your marketing team needs to work tightly together to produce great content, respond to online reviews and promote your hotel to the world. If you are successful at both of these things, you are guaranteed to find success in your online reviews.

#5 Speed up your hotel review management

You need to protect your online image from misinformation and from false accusations. But you need to do so fast, because each second that passes can hurt your business. It’s important to respond to negative feedback on online channels in less than 24 hours. This way you avoid losing potential customers who would have clicked away from your property’s listing based on the reviews they read. It has been shown that 90% of travelers agree that a professional response to a negative review improves their impression of your property. So make sure to respond to any negative feedback swiftly.

Learn how hotels respond to reviews in 70% less time using GuestFlip

#6 Analyse your hotel’s performance over time

Online reputation management is definitely not a short-term play. It can take months to see improvements in online scores and it can be an uphill battle. Focus on the small victories, each 5-star review is a win and each negative review that is prevented is also a win. In order to be effective in this process, you need to track the following on a monthly basis:

• Your ratings on the sources (e.g. TripAdvisor, Booking.com) that bring you bookings
• The number of reviews you are receiving
• Your response rate
• Your online rankings
• Common complaints or praises from guests

By measuring the above, you should have a clear roadmap of the things you can do to conquer online review sources. Improve your services based on the complaints you receive but also highlight your strong points. Identify the reasons behind negative reviews so that you can make sure to prevent similar scenarios in the future. Finally, you should set a goal for your response rate and hold your team accountable for maintaining a high response rate to reviews.

Learn more about building a review management strategy, by reading our “Begginer’s guide to Hotel Review Management”

These tips will hopefully make you more effective at managing your online reviews and improving your hotel reputation. Remember that it’s a process that needs patience and that it’s going to be a team effort. Make sure to do the most to make your hotel stand out from the competition, improve your competitive rankings and get more happy guests through the door.

About GuestFlip

With GuestFlip you can view all your reviews in one dashboard and use our automated response builder to create personalized responses in a matter of seconds.

Closely monitor your competition using our competitive intelligence tool and set goals to improve your overall ratings. Rapidly react and engage with your guests in a fraction of the time.

The post Hotel Review Management: 6 tips to improve your reputation appeared first on GuestFlip.

Your guests are speaking. They are sharing their voice online about their experience in your property. Find the most raving reviews that make you and your team proud, and publish them. Where, you may ask? Well first of all, you could include some of the best reviews from happy guests in your website to convince other travelers to book direct. Reviews and photos from happy customers act as social proof and are trusted by internet users when they are considering booking with you. If you are worried about improving your online reviews and getting better scores, GuestFlip’s hotel review management tool can point you in the right direction.

You could also share positive reviews on your social media such as Facebook & Instagram. Make sure to create a nice visuals, as they perform a lot better. For Instagram try to make photos that aren’t text heavy. You can find a good balance by combining high quality pictures from your hotel with quotes from reviews. An example of that would be sharing a nice image of your pool, accompanied by a quote from a positive review on TripAdvisor.

#2 Use creative photography to spark travelers’ imagination

One of the best ways to tell your hotel’s story is through creative photography that manages to capture the essence of the experience. A photo of a cocktail next to the pool is not just that. It tells a story to the guest. And each picture should promote your hotel’s unique aspects. Your goal should be to excite & inspire new guests. Make them imagine staying and enjoying your hotel. And remember, the best picture is the one that manages to sell more, not the most artistic per se.

#3 Share moments on social media

Stay connected with your online fans by sharing moments on social media. New or even previous guests should feel like they’re missing out by not being there. Are you having a special event? Or is there a VIP guest who’s visiting your property? Make sure to upload captivating images so that any previous or new guest will feel at least slightly jealous for not being there. This creates a FOMO – Fear of Missing Out – which can be a great driver in getting new buyers.

#4 Uncover your unique positioning

In order to tell your hotel’s story efficiently you need to know and promote your strong points. The things that make your property stand out from the rest. Do you have a unique pool, or a location that’s unrivaled? Make sure to include this information in all your social media and OTA listings.
Are you unsure about the things that differentiate you? By using GuestFlip’s hotel review management software you can compare your property with your competition. This way you can see where you stand out and use this information to drive your hotel’s sales.

#5 Keep a consistent brand voice across media

Create your own unique way of speaking to your online family, to your guests. Ideally, you should keep a consistent voice on all your media. This way guests can get to know you. They can relate more. And this will translate to increased loyalty across your properties.

By using all these tips and keeping a consistent brand voice for your hotel across all channels, you will be able to get more from your hotel’s online presence.

About GuestFlip

With GuestFlip you can view all your reviews in one dashboard and use our automated response builder to create personalized responses in a matter of seconds.

Closely monitor your competition using our competitive intelligence tool and set goals to improve your overall ratings. Rapidly react and engage with your guests in a fraction of the time.

If you’d like to do more with less and kickstart your Hotel Reputation Management, book a demo with us.

The post 5 ways to tell your hotel’s story and build your online presence appeared first on GuestFlip.

First and foremost, reviews will affect your hotel’s rankings on OTAs and Metasearch engines. But another important aspect is that guests who view your hotel online are affected by your review scores and by your recent reviews.

The KPIs to look out for

1. Review Score

Multiple studies on e-word-of-mouth for hotels, have proven that the most important factor affecting booking decisions is a hotel’s Review Score. If a guest had to choose between 2 hotels with similar location, amenities & facilities and at the same price that it is way more likely for them to book the one with the highest review score.

But what’s important for you, is that travelers are actually willing to pay more for a hotel with a higher review score so this is a great investment to stand out from your competition and increase your RevPAR. Studies have shown, that on average every 1% improvement in online reputation translates to a 1.4% improvement in RevPAR.

So since your review score, will impact your Occupancy rate and RevPAR, this should be one of the main KPIs to track.

2. Number of reviews

The number of reviews you have can affect a prospective guest’s decision to book a room at your hotel. This happens because if you have more reviews it’s easier for a guest to trust that those reviews are genuine. So, you need to make sure that you have enough reviews so that potential buyers can be sure that the review score they’re seeing is realistic and genuine.

Unfortunately, this is a KPI that matters less once you acquire more than enough reviews. Regardless, it’s important to get many review in the channels you are interested in.

3. Comments & guest opinions in recent reviews

Most travelers trust other people’s opinions when they are reading their online reviews. It is important to maintain mostly positive reviews, ideally ones that highlight your main selling points and keep negative reviews as low as possible. It is important to respond to negative reviews quickly, as it gives you a chance to convince new guests to pay less attention to the negative review while showing that you care about your guest’s experience.

You can read our guide about creating a winning responding strategy to find out more.

4. Rankings

Rankings have a strong effect on your visiblity and total reach online, which essentially means the higher you rank more people will view your property. This KPI is more tricky, as there are only a few things in your direct control to improve your rankings. By improving your review score and review volume you should expect to see higher rankings, but you will need to be patient as it takes time. Ranking in the top 10 hotels of your city or location can prove very useful in ensuring your long-term success.

How do I improve my review score?

Of course there are many things you can do to improve your review score. Your focus should be around improving the experience for guests so they will gladly promote your hotel after their check-out. Buying or getting fake reviews in any sort of way puts your online reputation in very high risk and I would discourage you from doing any such moves.

Ideally, you should focus on real-time (or close to real-time) guest feedback and reputation monitoring in order to identify recurring issues and quickly offer solutions that will improve the experience for guests. Common problems that are easily fixed are the following:

The check-in experience

Guests who arrive at your hotel, may often be tired from long trips or being sleepless while traveling, so one of the most important aspects you need to focus on is the check-in experience because first impressions last.

The breakfast

If your hotel offers breakfast, you should focus to offer enough variety to cover many dietary needs and make sure to have vegan and vegetarian options. Investing in providing high-quality breakfast to guests is a far better choice than getting negative reviews that will cost you more in the long run.

Room lighting & noise

One of the most common issues that we see with guest reviews are related to noise or lighting issues within the room. Make sure to include high-quality and low energy consumption lighting in the rooms, invest in curtains that can make the room pitch black when needed and also focus on insulating from noise so that guests can enjoy quality sleep.

Staff behavior & friendliness

Gone are the days when guests only expect a bed to sleep in. Due to the high level of competition, customer expectations are very high and your staff should be well trained in providing high quality service while being friendly & professional at all times.

How do I get more reviews?

Kindly ask

One of the simplest ways is to kindly ask guests who are leaving to write a review for your property online so that you can maintain a high level of service for all future guests. No need to bribe guests, as that can be abused.

Send out Guest Surveys

You can send out Guest Surveys through e-mail to guests after their checkout and once they submit them, you can redirect them to a review site of your choice to get more reviews.

How do I monitor what guests are saying?

Unless you own a small property (<10 rooms), it becomes harder and harder to monitor all reviews on all the channels. Ideally, you should monitor all reviews and not focus selectively on just TripAdvisor or Booking.com.

Since it’s impractical to read all reviews each week and each month for reporting reasons, it’s clear that a more automated approach is needed. See how GuestFlip can help you automate 90% of your reputation management efforts and how we help you succeed.

Get a free consultation to get started.

How do I rank higher on TripAdvisor?

Ranking higher on TripAdvisor is not a simple process and you are guaranteed to face roadblocks on your way up the ladder. It’s a highly competitive process but you need to focus on the following:

Improve your review scores

Follow the tips included in this guide to get higher review scores because rankings are mostly based on your review score.

Monitor your competition

Monitor the reviews of your competitors in order to identify their strengths and weaknesses. This way, you can get new ideas about improving your service and slowly climbing up the ladder.

Get more reviews

So you have already made many improvements and you are consistently getting better review scores. Now’s the time to up the volume by sending out surveys and urging your guests to share their opinion online. By getting more reviews with higher average scores, you can achieve higher review scores within a few months and start ranking better on TripAdvisor.

About GuestFlip

With GuestFlip you can view all your reviews in one dashboard and use our automated response builder to create personalized responses in a matter of seconds.

Closely monitor your competition using our competitive intelligence tool and set goals to improve your overall ratings.

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It only makes sense, since TripAdvisor is a travel website visited by millions of people every day, that broadcasting your own high-quality responses to guest feedback will help you see an uptick in bookings and rankings. It shows that you care about your guests, which not only drives loyalty, but also shows prospective guests that you deeply care about their opinion and about improving their experience.

Based on industry research, you have a few more reasons to respond to guest reviews:

– Almost 90% of travelers, share the opinion that an appropriate manager response to a negative review improved their opinion of the hotel.

– Hotels which respond to at least 50% of reviews enjoy a higher occupancy rate (6.7 percentage points on average)

– Almost 70% of guests, agree that they will overlook a negative review if there is a professional response explaining the situation

These statistics prove that responding to reviews can make your business more profitable and drive revenue growth for your hotel. But, there’s a catch. Additional studies prove that low-quality responses can actually hurt your business:

Non-personalized (copy-paste) responses actually decrease the chance of someone booking your hotel.

Study by Wotif in 2015

How to post high quality responses & make sure you win

The main goal when you are writing a response is to convince prospective guests that you provide high quality service and that you care about the guest experience. Getting into fights with guests, even when they’re being dishonest, is not a good idea. Always keep in mind that what you are writing will be read publicly by hundreds or even thousands of other people, so you need to keep a professional tone.

You can create a winning responding strategy by following these ideas:

1. Make negative reviews less relevant

The most important step to ensure creating a positive impression for people viewing your property online, is to make bad reviews less relevant. By posting a professional response that shows that you commit to improving based on feedback, it’s highly likely that most guests will discard the negative feedback they read in the original review.

2. Use positive reviews to promote and highlight your services

You can also take advantage of positive feedback from guests in order to highlight the services & facilities that you believe are your strongest. By commenting on the topics your guests enjoyed, you have the chance to promote them to new guests and convince them to choose your hotel amongst the competition.

3. Connect with guests

Through your response you can show guests that you sincerely care about their opinion since you spent time to read and respond to their feedback. By using a friendly and personal tone, you can create a brand voice that your guests can connect with.

4. Improve loyalty

When responding to guests, a lot of the platforms where you get reviews (including TripAdvisor) will notify them of your response. If your response is personalized, they will appreciate it and share your hotel with their friends and family. Or they might even re-visit your property.

You should always avoid some pitfalls in order to make the most out of your responding strategy:

• Don’t include emotional statements, especially anger
• Don’t get into fights and avoid any aggression towards the reviewer
• Avoid responding in an apologetic way. Instead, try to ensure and convince future guests they won’t face the same problems described.
• Avoid painting someone as a liar, because this can come off as deceptive on your side
• No need to over-explain issues described in a review. Prospective guests only care about not facing the same problem when they visit.
• Don’t show signs of defensiveness. Accept the feedback and sincerely use it to improve the quality of your service.
• Never offer vouchers or coupons for a positive or negative review as others might try to abuse this

Important aspects of a winning response strategy

Focus on relevant reviews first

I’m talking about this aspect first because it’s very commonly overlooked. What are relevant reviews? Most OTAs and Metasearch sites like Booking.com, Google and TripAdvisor offer a default sorting method that displays the reviews they consider the most relevant. These are the reviews shown to guests whenever they view your property.

It’s obvious why you should post especially high-quality answers to these reviews, as they are the ones that will be viewed by many more guests. Some websites show different reviews as the most relevant, depending on the country of the guest that is viewing the property.

It is essential to post responses to all reviews that are displayed as most relevant so that guests have a clear view of your input as well. For TripAdvisor, I’d suggest responding to all 6 relevant reviews for the top 3-4 languages that your guests might be logging in from. (Tip: Use the language filter to see what the top 6 reviews are for each language)

Next Step: focus on recent reviews

Guests who are seriously considering booking your property, are very likely to view recent reviews as well to make sure that the quality of your hotel is consistently good. So the next target after you have covered relevant reviews, is to always make sure that recent reviews have professional responses. Do you need to respond to all the recent reviews? Not all, but ideally you should respond to as many as possible and in the worst case at least 40% of all reviews, including all negative reviews.

Large hotel chains maintain very high response rates, upwards of 80%, while sending highly personalized responses that highlight the quality and variety of their services.

Be on time

Negative reviews that stay unresponded cost you money for every minute they stay this way. It is highly important to respond to these reviews as quickly as possible in order to minimize the impact they have on future booking decisions. I suggest setting 1 or ideally 2 times per day where you will focus on responding to the most important reviews first, and if you have enough time left respond to less important reviews as well.

Have clear roles

Guests prefer to receive a response from the General Manager or another role that seems important. But it makes sense that the GM is a busy person and is not always available for responding to reviews. The balance that I have found works well is for the GM to respond to highly important reviews, e.g. negative reviews that contain harsh allegations, and for the hotel’s front desk employees, duty manager or social media manager to respond to more routine reviews.

Prioritize reviews when you don’t have enough time

When you don’t have enough time to respond to all or most of the reviews, then you can follow GuestFlip’s automatic classification which works as follows:

• High importance: Negative Reviews (Low rating, contains mostly complaints)
• Medium Importance: Mixed Reviews (Low-Mid rating, contains complaints and positive feedback)
• Low importance: Long positive reviews that offer specific feedback

High importance reviews need to be responded first, then medium and then low whenever you have the time.

Responding in multiple languages?

Should you respond to reviews in the language they were written in or not? The answer depends on who is going to read the response, because remember: you are mainly writing the response for the prospective guests. You should respond to foreign-language reviews in the same language only if you’re expecting traffic from the specific country. Otherwise, you should use english as a default so that most prospective guests can understand your response.

How to write short, clear and effective responses

Each type of review needs a different type of response. In this section I will split reviews into types based on their content and rating so that you can know how to respond to each type.

Opening

The opening is going to be the same regardless of the type of the review. You should always open with “Dear [name of guest]” when the guest has a clear name online. In case a guest has a username that is hard to read, then you can use “Dear Guest”.

Closing / Signature

You should always close with your name and role to make the response more personal. For example, if you’re the hotel’s Duty Manager you should sign with “Best regards, [name] Duty Manager”

Empty (or extremely short) positive reviews

This is a common case for Google reviews, since travelers can easily post ratings without writing anything. This is one case where you really don’t have a lot of data to work on, but still it’s a good idea to post a quality response even if it ends up being a bit generic.

In this type of review you have to cover 2 things:

• Thank the guest for the kind rating
• Show that you would love to see the guest visiting the property again

Template

“Dear Guest, Many thanks for being our guest and for posting your wonderful rating. We look forward to welcoming you back at [our hotel’s name]! With kind regards, [your signature]”

Free response template by GuestFlip for empty positive reviews

Empty (or extremely short) negative reviews

When the guest leaves an empty 1 out of 5 rating or a very short comment that doesn’t include specific feedback it’s a good idea to post a response that shows your commitment to excellence. This way you show that low ratings concern you and they don’t reflect your brand’s quality.

Remember to:

• Thank the guest for visiting
• Noting their concern
• Ask for a second chance

Template

“Dear Guest, Thank you for choosing to visit [your hotel name]. We are concerned to note the rating you have posted and are sorry to see that you were not satisfied with your experience here. Hope you could give us another opportunity to welcome you back and prove that we can serve you better. With kind regards, [your signature]”

Free response template by GuestFlip for empty negative reviews

Negative reviews with specific feedback

Negative reviews that contain specific complaints regarding your hotel’s services are the most tricky but also the most important reviews to handle.

Remember to:

• Thank the guest for visiting and for sharing their feedback
• Note the main issues (choose up to 2)
• Commit to improving
• Ask for a second chance

Template

“Dear Guest, We would like to thank you for staying at [your hotel name] and for sharing your feedback. We are concerned to hear that you were not quite satisfied with your visit and experience, mainly with the [topic 1], as well as [topic 2]. Your input has been taken into serious consideration to ensure that corrective measures will be taken. Once again thank you for being our guest. Hope you could give us another opportunity in the future to welcome you back and prove that we can serve you better. With kind regards, [your signature]”

Free response template by GuestFlip for negative reviews with specific comments

This template works, because you show honest concern about the issues raised in the review, without over-apologizing about the issues and while showing commitment to improving.

Important note:

If a negative review contains serious allegations, such as unexplained charges or accusations of fraud then you should treat it very seriously. Include contact details such as an email or a phone in the response to allow this guest to contact you and hopefully solve the problem.

Positive reviews with specific feedback

Positive reviews that contain feedback about specific services and facilities are much easier to respond to compared to negative reviews. They also offer you a chance to promote your property and turn the positive review into an extra selling point for your hotel.

Remember to:

• Thank the guest for visiting and for sharing their excellent review
• Highlight the main topics (2-3 max)
• (Optional) Mention whether or not you shared the nice comments with your colleagues
• (Optional) Include a suggestion for next time

Template

“Dear Guest, Thank you very much for choosing to stay at [our hotel name] and for sharing your lovely review. We were glad to learn that you enjoyed your visit here and that [topic 1] and [topic 2] contributed to making your stay delightful. Your comments nice comments about [topic 3] are appreciated and have been communicated to my colleagues. Definitely look forward to welcoming you back! We suggest trying our [extra service] next time you visit our hotel. With best regards, [your signature]”

Free response template by GuestFlip for positive reviews with longer comments

You can use this guide to create a comprehensive strategy for responding to your hotel’s reviews. Remember to respond on all channels where you receive reviews in order to ensure high rankings and to improve your overall occupancy rate over time. 

About GuestFlip

With GuestFlip you can view all your reviews in one dashboard and use our automated response builder to create personalized responses in a matter of seconds.

Closely monitor your competition using our competitive intelligence tool and set goals to improve your overall ratings.

The post Create a winning strategy for responding to hotel reviews on TripAdvisor appeared first on GuestFlip.