guest review – Get the Best Hotel Channel Manager Tips from RateTiger

July 7, 2017January 21, 2020

How to Increase Guest Satisfaction with Messaging?

Travellers become guests as soon as they click the “book now” button. At this point, travellers open the line of communication between themselves and your hotel. But how do guests want to be communicated with, and what messages do they really want? Recently, we published the findings of a travel industry study, which identified a gap between how customers expect to communicate with hotels, and the experiences that hotels are actually providing.

Clear communication between a hotel and its guests has a major influence on guest satisfaction, which can be measured by the difference between guest expectations and their actual guest experience. In our research, we wanted to identify the guest’s expectations in order to help hotels achieve this reality for their guests.

For the study, we surveyed 920 adults over the age of 18, all of whom travelled and booked an accommodation online within the past 12 months for business, leisure, or both. Here are some of the key findings:

● The majority (80%) of hotel guests expect that the accommodation provider will initiate communication regarding their booking, and 80% also expect this to be sent via email.

● 73% of guests communicate through online communication channels, combining emails, social media, and text messaging; additionally, two-thirds say they prefer to communicate through written electronic means rather than by phone.

● Guests who communicate through text messaging services and through social media report statistically significantly higher satisfaction levels over those who do not.

● A large majority (75%) of guests want to communicate one-to-one with representatives on location and 91% would communicate issues during their on-site experience.

These findings indicate that hotels must begin communicating right at the moment of booking, and keep it up throughout the entire guest journey. By investing in guest messaging solutions, hoteliers can improve the guest experience, leading to higher satisfaction rates, increased guest loyalty, and ultimately, more hotel revenue.

To download the full study or to know how you can improve guest experience, fill up the form below –

This is a guest post by Valerie Castillo, Senior Director of Marketing at TrustYou.

March 30, 2017January 21, 2020

Three Things Hotels Should Not Ignore

The world of hospitality and travel has entered a new era of growth and transformation. Global business travel spending hit a record-breaking $1.2 trillion in 2015, up by five percent from the previous year. Healthy booking growth is forecasted to continue across the leisure and business fronts in 2017, but the spoils are not guaranteed to travel’s biggest or most-well-known brands. Here I find three most prominent things hotels SHOULD NOT ignore in 2017 –

RMS

Social Media

Reviews

Revenue Management Systems

RMS’s are getting stronger day-by-day. The data sets are increasing every day. As the primary job of RMS is to forecast the future rates and for this they need past and current data. RMS companies get data from different sources and different places and based on that they do forecasting of future rates. At present the cost of data storage is low and processing has increased. As the amount of data is increasing day by day, hence they are getting more clear insights of hotel’s revenue management and forecasting is becoming more accurate and precise. This is also one of the major reasons why the demand for RMSs has gone up. Almost all the big properties are using a Revenue Management system or rate recommendation tool today.

Social Media

Your hotel needs social networks because it’s a unique opportunity to stand out of the crowd of big chains, and achieve a greater number of followers. The number of hotels that are on Facebook and Twitter is growing every day; this is why you must join these platforms to compete with your rivals.

The challenge for hoteliers lies in how to influence their customers to share positive reviews on social networks and convert potential prospects into future guests.

Things have changed over the last ten years – today we are in an era of ‘now’. Consumers have evolved and become smarter – always connected to the Internet, everywhere. With the emergence of modern technologies and social networking, consumer taste and behavior have been changing and they have become very powerful. Consumers are taking decisions and dictating the reputation of an establishment.

With the advent of smartphones and mobile devices, consumers have easy access to platform through which they can make or break a hotel’s reputation through their comments and reviews. Today’s consumers are expert in communication – they are a content generator reaching millions of people through their social profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Blog etc.

Reviews

Now-a-days all potential buyers routinely sort through search results by customer reviews and star ratings before making a final buying decision. Things work in a similar manner in the hospitality industry. A recent research shows that more than 61% of vacationers now trust online reviews.

In another survey, 79% of hotel customers said that a good response to a bad review reassures them whereas, 78% of hotel customers said that a good response to a good review makes them think highly of the hotel.

Following things hotelier should do to manage their hotel reviews:

– Maintain Active Presence on Review Sites: Set your accounts on various review sites, such as Yelp, BBB, City Search, Angie’s List, etc.

– Create a Detailed Listing: Hotelier should make themselves available over different platform and should select their descriptive categories carefully.

– Go on Social Media: Be on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media channels without being reluctant to encourage people to follow you on Yelp, TripAdvisor, or other review channels.

– Ask for review during Checkout: Be responsive during guest checkout and learn about what your guests feel about your hotel service when their memories are still fresh. If you receive a ‘yes’, encourage them to write about you to help future customers.

– Make the process Easy: Simplify the process of leaving a review or feedback.

Internet and social media has empowered the consumers with information and changed their purchasing behavior. If earlier they consulted their friends and relatives, today they have millions to consult and take suggestions from.

More than 90 percent of questions posted to TripAdvisor’s English-speaking forums are replied to by other travelers within 24 hours. Facebook has over 500 million active users, and TripAdvisor receives over 50 million unique visitors every month.

As we move towards the age of consumer controlled brand conversations, hotels need to integrate customer feedback into their business approach and strategy planning. Ignoring the power of social media would be suicidal for hotels.

July 22, 2016January 21, 2020

Quick guide to avoid receiving negative reviews from your guests

77% of travellers usually or always read reviews before booking a hotel. 80% of travellers read 6-12 reviews before booking the hotel. Those are significant numbers presented by TripAdvisor’sresearch. If you think it over, you will come to one conclusion. As you probably have a lot of competitors, each mistake can cause the loss of potential business. Why? Because your guests care about their experience, not your business. Thus at this moment, negative reviews are your worst enemy.

I think that the well-known rule saying that 9 positive reviews and 1 negative sell more than 10 positive ones doesn’t apply in hospitality anymore. Instead, the single negative review can cause you trouble that will degrade your position not only in booking engines but in mind of your potential guests, too.

Note: Just to remind you, when you receive a negative review on Booking, you need at least 3 positive ones to restore your previous rating. Take 2, 3, 10 negative ones and multiply them by 3. As I said, trouble.

These days, booking engines requests guest to rate the hotel they visited 2 or so days after they check out. Wait a second. Isn’t it little too late? In Hospitality 2.0, guests should be able to affect their stay while they are still accommodated. The feedback should come in real-time. This way, each guest can contribute to quality of her stay. Small problems (missing toilet paper, noisy room, etc.) should be easily taken care of instead of seeing their “passionate” description on review sites later on. Will it affect your rating? It certainly will.

You will not make it without first class customer service

Before we start, you should keep one thing in mind. You will not be able to please your guests unless you are ready to commit in high level customer service. What am I talking about? Certainly not about amenities you have at your disposal. There are other factors that matter more: willingness, decency, joy, helpfulness and humility. If you can swallow your pride and provide your guests with these, they will enjoy the “soul“ of the hotel instead of equipment only. You cannot be perfect anytime, no one is. However, your attitude to solve the problem in case it arise will definitely make a difference.

Give a chance to complain during the stay

The difference between positive and negative review is not just in a way of handling a complaint. Even more crucial is if you have an opportunity to handle it or not. Many times the guest faces some minor problem in the room (Wi-Fi or TV doesn’t work), she doesn’t want to call the front desk and permanently forget about it when they are around (I think this is the case of more people than solely mine). You might think everything is okay, however, once this guest is back at home, she turns on Booking, TripAdvisor and all other possible media and doesn’t hesitate to write about it. W-R-O-N-G! When something like this happens, you failed in the lesson “Know your guests 101“.

What you should do is to make it easy for your guests to complain during their stay in the way you can identify them. If you know who the guest is, you can get in touch and solve the problem immediately. In other words, you can turn unsatisfied guest to satisfied one until she leaves. The way you will do it (discount, extra free service, apology) is a matter of your policy, and only sky is the limit here. But medium that will allow the guests to let you know is what matters here.

There are several options to find out that there is a problem:

1. Complaint box

Quite old school thing that can work especially well for people who are not that engaged in the technology. Let them share their feelings about your hotel via piece of paper and pencil. Don’t forget to include the space for the room number and also ask for it with call to action on the feedback form.

2. Complaint kiosk

You might saw a huge machine with the keyboard asking yourself “What does this thing do?”. In many cases it can be used to gather information about the hotel and the area, as long as it can allow guests to post some comment in. Put this machine to the frequently visited place in your hotel so it will not be overlooked (front desk, restaurant). It will increase your chances to collect some thoughts and suggestions. However, the price of these machines might not be favorable.

3. Mobile application

Many hotel mobile applications provide the guest with the feedback feature. Moreover, adding maintenance as your live chat option might be a vital step, too. It ensures guest can ask for help anytime something is going wrong. As guests can let you know immediately by picking up their smartphone or tablet, you can solve the problem quickly. As you usually exactly know who complained, you are able to provide nice gesture to say you are sorry. If the price is a matter for you, there are several providers on the market that can make it affordable for you.

Remember that your goal is to listen to your guests, react to their complaints and once they want to tell the world, they will praise you instead of plastering you all over the Internet.

How would you ensure your guests leave satisfied? Share you thoughts and experience in comments below.

This is a guest post by Lukáš Kakalejčík, Marketing Specialist at RoomAssistant and PhD. candidate at Technical university of Košice, Faculty of Economics. He focuses on digital marketing, analysis and business development.

April 18, 2014January 21, 2020

Top Hospitality Industry Trends for 2014

Hospitality industry is constantly evolving and always trying to stay one step ahead. In an industry where change is the ultimate word, keeping up to date on the latest trends in hospitality technology – is a daunting task for hotel owners and operators. Everything from in-room entertainment to guest service management to effective use of social media is becoming a challenging task. The hospitality industry saw a lot of exciting things happening in 2013 and some that would continue to impact business are highlighted below –

Mobile: The Game Changer

Mobile phone has radically changed the world – 62% of the world’s population is using mobile phones. Hospitality is no exception to this revolution, in some cases leading the way. It is the new face of computing as devices such as tablets and smartphones have revolutionized the way we interact with technology. The rise of mobile users have impacted business strategy and changed guest behavior largely. There has been a myth that mobile phone has the minimal impact on hospitality industry but as the smartphones and tablets become critical tools, the myth has been thoroughly laid to rest. Now nearly 45% travellers travel with two or more devices and 7% of bookings are done through mobile phone which is continuously increasing.

2014: The Year of Meta-search

With the grand entry of TripAdvisor and Google in the metasearch space the whole hotel distribution scenario has drastically changed. Modern travellers believe in competitive shopping. According a survey by eMarketer– a guest visits minimum six sites before he makes any booking decision. One of our recent infographics on meta-search shows that Kayak processed over 1577 million queries in 2013 and TripAdvisor receives 260 million monthly unique visits to its website. The dominance of meta-search engines will grow rapidly in 2014 as these sites are becoming mainstream in hotel distribution space.

Free Wi-Fi

Research studies show that 85% travellers believe Wi-Fi in hotels should be free. Nowadays the only thing that guests would prefer over a complimentary breakfast or free parking is Wi-Fi. Modern travelers are hyper-connected and do not have patience for poor internet connection in hotels. Your hotel should facilitate free Wi-Fi so that business travellers can check their emails and take online conference calls, while leisure travelers can use the internet to communicate with friends and family or enjoy music. Poor internet connection is one of the most common complains and something that you should save your hotel from. So if your hotel provides free Wi-Fi service to guests, make sure that the speed of the internet is not irritating them.

Word Of Mouth

As we increasingly live our lives online, we’re finding that not only are there major downsides to all that social media over-sharing—but we may have little control over the way we appear on the internet. According to a new eMarketer report, the Worldwide Social Network Users in 2013 was 1.73 billion i.e. one in four people were connected through social media. And by 2017, total global social network audience will be 2.55 billion. TripAdvisor is the largest source of hotel reviews having 150 million reviews and opinions covering 3.7 million accommodation providers. Considering there are millions of reviews written each day across a plethora of different platforms, the internet has the power to influence one’s decision making process. So managing reputation be it through social media or replying to the guests directly through reputation management tool will become increasingly important.

Guest Service

Guest service is an inseparable part of the hospitality business. However changing consumer tastes has led to higher expectations and hotels need to live up to these. Travellers today do not want to feel like they are in a corporate setting when they are staying at your hotel – they would rather prefer an environment where they can interact with people and receive personal attention. Eye for detail is an important aspect that hotels need to focus on and ‘wowing’ guests with impeccable service is something that every hotel is striving for. You need to identify what you can do to make your guests’ stay unforgettable to win over their loyalty.

Behavioural Change of GenY

The travel industry is riding a wave of change. An unpredictable economy and fast-paced technological advancements have caused 21st century travellers to shift their behaviour dramatically. These travellers prefer to interact with hotel staff through technology rather than picking up the phone. About 40% of guests at a hotel select iPad as their communication device to connect to a hotel and plan check-in time. So what do guests want? Well, it could be a long list starting with – free Wi-Fi, automated check-in / check-out and multi-use lobbies that encourage guests to socialize among various other things. This new segment of traveler is no longer looking for white-linen service, hotel boy to carry their luggage up to their room rather to check-in online to bypass the front desk.

Home Away From Home

When travellers enter a hotel, they look for a home-like ambience. Hotel companies need to be able to offer high quality guest service alongside seamless communication and comfort to every guest. To achieve this, a hotel needs to have its back-office set in a way such that everything moves to clock-wise precision. And this starts from the time the guest researches your hotel to making the reservation, the actual stay and post stay feedback. Everything needs to be managed efficiently for a well-rounded experience for the guest.

February 17, 2014January 21, 2020

The Indian Traveller 2014

The third largest economy in the world India is becoming on the major player in travel space. Despite a slower economy and foreign exchange volatility, over 15 million Indian travellers are planning foreign trip shows an infographic, recently released by eRevMax. The Middle East and Far East have certainly been leaders so far but interestingly, India is catching up. The infographic reports that 33 percent of travel-related searches within India are now made online, with mobile being the preferred choice. The solutions provider suggests regional online travel agents should focus on connecting the hotesl of Middle East and APAC region to gain more revenue.

To access the full infographic, click Infographic: The Indian Traveller 2014

May 14, 2013January 21, 2020

LifeClass Hotels doubles direct booking with RateTiger

Slovenia-based LifeClass Hotels has successfully utilized the Billboard Effect to increase direct bookings by over 100% with the help of RateTiger, the integrated channel manager, pricing data and guest review monitoring tool.

“RateTiger has certainly made it easy for us to set rates and update all the sales channels very quickly.” said Alen Milosevic, Revenue Manager, LifeClass Hotels & Spa. The 4/5 Star hotel group of six properties has been able to introduce a substantial expansion of its product offerings from one room rate plan for four room types to 16 rate plans for 6 to 7 room types. With the help of RateTiger review the property has been able to monitor guest review on various social channels like TripAdvisor, Facebook yelp etc. this has resulted in 30% revenue growth in 2012.

To read the full story, click here.

August 9, 2012January 21, 2020

Social Media Monitoring: Why Guest Review Matters?

The world is now online. Your guests are talking to each other, sharing their experiences. Information has never been so easy to create or access.

You too need to wake up – Monitor, Respond and Engage with your guests!

Good hotel reviews bring increased ADR and direct bookings. Consider this –

33% bookers change their hotel based on reviews
1 point ranking is a difference of 9% ADR
Increased engagement with reviews brings 5% more direct bookings

Now is the time for you to check out the video below and start managing reviews smartly to improve your hotel ranking.

Manage your online reputation with RTReview, your simple and efficient guest review management tool.

July 7, 2011January 28, 2020

Optimising Revenue Through Social Media – By Sascha Hausmann, CEO, eRevMax

Social media is no longer just a hub of sharing activity between people, it has now become a platform for businesses to promote and sell their products. From Facebook, TripAdvisor, Twitter over to the “oldie” eBay these channels demand a new way of interacting with guests while also securing additional revenue and bookings.

The social media revolution has provided new ways of consumer communication, sharing information and being close to a community. While the industry still thought consumer reviews exploded quickly, the likes of Facebook, twitter and Groupon have taught us what pace customers can take when adopting new phenomena once provided with the right toolset.

Despite the burden being forced upon the travel industry, it has also delivered new opportunities for businesses to get involved in such interaction and yet again provide targeted audiences with adequate product.

Facebook (over 500 million active users), MySpace (44 million active US users) and Twitter (21 million active users) have significantly influenced the way people interact, what they trust, how they share their experiences and the advice they offer/receive to/from their ‘friends’. These consumer portals are now becoming powerful marketing and business tools that the hospitality industry needs to address in the upcoming years to avoid losing out on potential revenue avenues or aggressive branding opportunities. Although the latter only has an indirect impact on revenue, it can help to direct more traffic to the hotels own websites that in return provides for more profitable income.

TripAdvisor (34 million monthly visitors) originally caught hoteliers by surprise. It felt that almost within weeks hotels had to deal with negative “press” although the actual movement has been going on for years and was nothing new. In the meantime online guest review websites have taken off with nearly every OTA incorporating some form of guest feedback that’s visible to new customers. Today hoteliers have no choice – either interact positively with guest reviews or see the business suffer. Hotels that effectively manage their guest reviews, both good and bad, encourage more reviews, which as a result sees the rating of their properties rise. As more guest review websites incorporate booking options the impact that your position can have on your revenue is immense.

Read on further: http://www.eyefortravel.com/news/europe/optimising-revenue-through-social-media