HOW TO BEAT NEGATIVE HOTEL AND RESTAURANT REVIEWS
With more and more people using the internet to decide where to eat, drink and sleep reviews by other guests are playing an increasingly large role. A negative online reputation can severely limit your hotel or restaurant’s ability to succeed today.
If your hotel has received negative reviews, you need a solid action plan to turn them around.
For this particular example we will concentrate on probably the biggest review site, Trip Advisor. There are many other review sites some who will allow you to post management responses, some who won’t. The key is to offer the best possible experience for all guests at all times and to encourage great reviews.
Here are some of the questions I have been asked recently:
· Can I remove negative reviews?
The answer is no however TripAdvisor lets you start over with a clean slate if there was a change in ownership or a major brand changr, but not if you had had a renovation.
· Can I get in touch with a guest to resolve a problem?
You can only use their website’s management response function to publish a reply. You may try leaving a customer service phone number to encourage offline resolution.
· I think a competitor is writing negative reviews.
I recommend you contact Trip Advisor directly, and explain your reason for concern. They may be able to help.
· Can I ask someone to remove their negative review?
No, Trip Advisor won’t allow this. You’ll need to follow the following steps to improve your reputation.
There are various stages to creating or rebuilding a great online reputation
Stage 1; Find out what people are saying about you.
The quickest and easiest way to do this is by setting up google alerts. You can set these alerts to inform you when you are mentioned and have appeared in google search results.
There are various paid for systems to track your online reputation but Google Alerts are free and easy to set up and knowing what your guests are saying will allow you to take appropriate action.
Stage 2; respond to the reviews.
There are typically 2 types of negative review, those who leave Constructive Criticism and “The Ranters”
Constructive criticism – where a customer may outline a few positive points about their stay and then some negatives. These could be “we had a lovely meal in the restaurant, great service, well priced etc, etc. however when we left the dining room and went to our bedroom the carpet was dirty and the bed very uncomfortable etc, etc. They offer free wifi but the signal is poor and we couldn’t use…. And so on.
The Ranter – When you receive a review which goes something like this “This is by far the worst hotel I have ever stayed in. The customer service was dreadful the staff ignorant and the food dreadful etc, etc. Save your money and go somewhere else!”
Trip advisor allows you to respond to reviews
When you see a bad review it’s so tempting to go on the defensive, get upset and fire a nasty response back. Please don’t do this. It will damage your reputation further than no response at all!
Follow these guidelines for best practice
1. Thank them for their feedback
2. Respond to and highlight any positive comments
3. Apologize for any legitimate bad experience
4. Explain the actual steps you’ll take to prevent that from happening again
5. Allow the guest to contact you offline if further discussion is needed
Avoid:
- Abusive responses, ranting or any type of personal attack
- Questioning the guest’s legitimacy (yes, fake reviews do happen from time to time, but they can be very difficult to prove and it’s better to avoid this accusation)
- Offering a discount or free stay/visit as this can indirectly encourage more bad reviews to receive the offer
- Apologies with no actual details of how you intend to improve or change
“We are sorry to hear about your inconvenience, appreciate your comments and we are happy that you have spoken up so that we can improve. If we don’t hear of our shortcomings we will never know what our valued guests think of us. We will be working diligently to make your experience with us much more enjoyable in the future and look forward to welcoming you back.”
If you had a bad experience at a restaurant or hotel and offered this type of management response would you be satisfied they genuinely wanted to improve? Would you be encouraged to go back? The thing is here there are no specifics!
Stage 3; take action
Marketing will not fix the matter. By simply ignoring what the problems are and trying to attract new guests you are missing out on a huge opportunity. Fix the business first before wasting money on marketing a business that can’t deliver 100%
We have all heard the stats… it cost 6-8 times more to bring in a new customer than to attract an existing customer back. Fix the problems!
“The sink was leaking, wifi was poor, the carpets dirty, the crockery chipped, the staff can’t recommend a wine and so on”. This is not the only customer who has noticed these problems. Fix these problems and inform the customer. Do whatever it takes. Bring in a consultant or designer to assist, a plumber to fix the sink, sort the wifi, clean the carpets if your budget won’t stretch to new, check through all crockery and throw away the rubbish and train or change your staff!
Stage 4: Show how you’ve listened and fixed the problem
So now you have genuinely fixed the problems and acted on the feedback you need to let the guest know you have taken action based on their suggestions.
You should now response on Trip Advisor. Tell the guest exactly what you have done to improve/change with specifics. If these have been full scale changes combine this with other online media you use and consider a press release.
Stage 5: Building the reputation
The Trip Advisor example is defensive mode. You need to create a positive reputation online.
Ask satisfied guests for reviews. Ask them to review your business on sites where you’re struggling the most or the most popular for your business. Start with Trip Advisor.
Social media campaign. You can use facebook and twitter tools for reviews and also suggest comments on your blog.
Register on other review sites. There are plenty out there where you may not be registered
Blogers and journalists. Ask these people to review your business
How is your reputation? What do you actively do to improve? How do you view you online reviews? Are you confident to use them in your marketing material? Do you have the Trip Advisor widget on your website? Your comments are encouraged!
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