Most hotels spend hundreds and in some cases thousands of euros every month on ensuring that they promote their website either with google AdWords campaigns, SEO optimisation, and general online marketing techniques. This is good practice, but Google has been saying over the last few years that REVIEWS to them matter and have been making it key that Hotels focus in this area.
So how can online guests surveys increase RevPar?
Reviews Matter
Google invites anyone who cares to post a review of any business that they have used. Who cares most? People who have had a bad experience. We estimate that a dissatisfied guest is up to twenty times more likely to post a review.
Studies too numerous to mention, as well as massive amounts of anecdotal evidence, show the effect reviews have on guest behavior. Great reviews drive RevPar, bad reviews drive guests away.
Combine those two factors alone and it rapidly becomes apparent how important it is for all businesses to engage where reviews are concerned.
Google – the major player
This has been (and continues) a major subject for debate. Google has not made life easy for any of us: constantly moving the goal posts. But what is now called Google My Business is well on its way to becoming the dominant force in reviews, for a host of reasons, here are just some which stand out…
- Verification: since Google introduced mandatory registration all Google reviews are attached to a verified account (YouTube, Google+, Gmail etc.).
- Coverage: Google provides a ‘one stop shop’ for reviews – of any business or service. Guests will soon tire of looking up different specialist sites depending on what kind of reviews they need.
- Ease: once registered, writing subsequent reviews is simple.
Google is the gatekeeper: their reviews will always be shown before any others
The new Google layout: providing much more information about each individual business, by default this drives other review sites down below the fold (or onto page two – the graveyard)
So if Google is focusing on Reviews, are they enhancing the visibility of those hotels in their searches who have great reviews, which leads to a higher level of reservations and increase in RevPar?……..You Bet!
1). More reviews = better Search Engine Rankings
Hotels using online surveys have significantly more reviews, and the search engines eat this up. Search engine algorithms are fine tuned to pick up nuances in score and number of reviews. In search world dominated by OTAs, this can make the difference in whether a hotel appears for its own brand.
2). More reviews = increased confidence with travelers
The volume of reviews influences the level of trust a traveler has in the feedback. The difference between a hotel that has 300 reviews and a hotel that has 3,000 reviews is noticeable unless scores are the highest of the high.
3). Higher rankings (Enough said!)
Anything that pushes up rankings is pure gold for hotels in this day and age when 95% of travelers use reviews to make a booking decision. Hotelient surveys easily integrate with your website and can be pushed out to third-party travel sites to help drive higher rankings exactly where you need them.
4). Surveys = guiding the conversation
On review sites, the traveler controls the conversation; in a survey scenario, the hotel guides the conversation. Choosing which questions to ask and how they are asked can influence the way travelers recall their experiences and how they respond. Actionable feedback is still the goal, but framing a survey so that it taps into a traveler’s positive experiences at the very beginning makes sense. Once completed, the guest will view a short video either in response to a positive review or a negative one.
Now many hoteliers express resistance regarding post-stay guest surveys; they say it risks the hotel becoming a nuisance. Hotelient suggests that hotels reconsider surveys as a guest service rather than a request—and they really can be, when presented the right way.
Hotelient has touted the benefits of surveys, knowing there’s a reward to hotels reaching out proactively for guest feedback. Just the act of sending a survey lets guests know you care, and when surveys are sent within 48 hours of departure which can also be done automatically saving your team time, guests are still fresh on the experience, making them better able and, perhaps, more willing to give feedback.
But what about Tripadvisor, is there any correlation between reviews and their ranking on their site?
In the table that follows, hotels that rank across the spectrum, calculated the number of reviews each has and then divided that by the number of rooms. This gives a figure that enables you to fairly compare any hotel with another.
Ranking Reviews per room per year
Top 10 – 7.4
Top 25 – 4.3
Top 50 – 2.2
75 – 1.4
100 – 1.1
250 – 0.7
500 – 0.5
750 – 0.3
The key question is: can we draw any conclusions from these numbers?
Yes. The more reviews you can get the better your ranking on Tripadvisor & Google will be.
For every hotel? Yes. in one of two ways:
- You can invest in better facilities and staff training and invite reviews, or…
- You can invest a fraction of that amount in a professional review management system and invite reviews
Hotelient Reputation Surveys will:
- Get you more positive reviews to TripAdvisor, Google & Facebook (at least 25% more – based on results for our clients)
- Enable you to manage at least 75% of the negative reviews you are currently receiving before they are ever posted to TripAdvisor, Google & Facebook
- Without any radical restructuring in-hotel, you begin to get more positive reviews per year per room, and your ranking begins to climb which leads to increase in RevPar
Hotelient is also offering the following Summer offer:-
If you contract our reputation package before the 31st October 2015, we will design, configure and host for your hotel a fully customizable App ready for Iphone and Android Smartphones completely FREE and with no hidden charges or obligations.
If you would like to find out more call +44 (0)203 287 1276 or email info@hotelient.net
