Fuel Hotel Marketing Podcast: Episode 60 – Easily Improve Your Guest Satisfaction by Communicating The Right Way
This week, we have a special guest star, Valerie Castillo from TrustYou on the show to talk to us about an amazing study that they recently published. The study highlights the importance of communicating properly with your guest and how that can have a positive impact on guest satisfaction and online reputation.
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Show Notes:
Who is TrustYou?
- You might think about TrustYou as an online reputation management solution- and that would be true. But, a better way to think about TrustYou is as a guest feedback platform – an end-to-end solution for guest feedback. We believe that guest feedback influences every stage of the guest journey, and we are looking to help hotels discover ways to utilize guest feedback to market and improve their hotel.
About the Study
- We’ve released 2 research studies this year. The first related to the beginning of the guest journey where they are searching for hotels and making a booking decision. The study that we will discuss today relates to the stage right after that – the onsite experience. And more specifically, we were looking to see how hotel communication methods were influencing that experience, and to evaluate what guest’s preferences were when it comes to communication.
- Why did we do this study? After years of helping hotels with their online reviews, we found time and time again that hotels were struggling to discover how they could improve their guest’s stay as it was happening. They would assume everything was fine based on the feedback they were receiving from their concierge or onsite staff, but then the reviews they were getting were often scathing. So we sought to find a solution that would help hotels better discover, and remediate, issues that the guest had onsite, so that they could receive better reviews after the fact.
Results
- The majority of guests (80%) expect hotels to initiate contact and reach out via email. 73% of guests have communicated with a hotel via online channels (email, text message, and/or social media)
- Both text messaging and social media show statistically significantly higher satisfaction ratings than when they are both respectively not used
- On-site hoteliers are the preferred point of contact, and guests are extremely likely (91%) to report service issues during their stay
Takeaways
- Hotels MUST think about how they communicate with guests. This is an opportunity to educate, upsell, and solve issues with more efficiency than ever before.
- Invest in online channels – your guests are using their phones and social media more than any other method of communication. Talk to them via these channels, and receive better feedback in less time.
- Personalization is key. Online channels feel personal to us – Facebook is a place for fun, texting is a place for friends and family – be on those channels, and get happier guests.
Practical applications
- Onsite messaging solutions – text, Facebook messenger, and email. Integrate with your own task management solution for efficient problem solving.
- It may require a change in the way your hotel operates, but being proactive instead of reactive can help achieve more efficiency while reducing costs.
Download the TrustYou study at: http://www.trustyou.com/resources/consumer-research-guest-hotel-communication
Follow TrustYou on Twitter:
@TrustYou
Follow Valerie on Twitter:
@valbonillo
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In The News
Expedia moves beyond distribution with new tools to help hoteliers sell direct
https://www.tnooz.com/article/expedia-moves-beyond-distribution-with-new-tools-to-help-hoteliers-sell-direct/
Hotels Push Back Against Aggregators
http://www.cmo.com/features/articles/2017/8/2/hotels-fight-back-against-the-aggregators.html#gs.ON01j9A
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