Hotel Revenue Management
Management of Hotel Reputation Is Critical
For any business to succeed it has to have a strong reputation in the market. While the reputation of any business was subject to word of mouth publicity, things have changed in this digital age. Now it is the virtual world or the internet, which makes or breaks a business’s reputation.
Reputation does matter
As part of hotel marketing solutions, it has become essential for hotel businesses to better manage their reputations online. Now an increasing number of hotel guests express their views of any hotel brand and experience of staying there on social media and other internet channels. With online reviews dominating the decision-making process of prospective guests and reviews after prices influencing booking decisions, it is time to manage a hotel’s online reputation. Since any business’ success is heavily dependent on online reputation a few ways to improve it are:
Keep a watchful eye on independent review sites: With sites like Trip Advisor and Yelp and other top-rated reviews sites influencing customer’s decision making, these have to be well managed. Keep a check on reviews both positive and negative, and add useful information on them to improve traffic to your website and social media pages. Ensure that all the images of the hotel and of the highest-quality and represent your services and facilities in the best possible ways. Remember just having good quality images of your hotel can increase booking percentages by a considerable amount.
Make the most of the available data. There are plenty of management tools available to gauge customer satisfaction and loyalty. Conducting regular surveys among existing clients is a good way to measure customer satisfaction and the probability of them leaving recommendations. Those who express satisfaction can be asked what areas of service or facilities were they satisfied or impressed by. Similarly, those who express displeasure can be asked to enumerate the reasons or areas that caused dissatisfaction. Following up on these and taking remedial measures will improve reputation and show how much customer satisfaction you value.
Be prompt in your response to customer reviews or queries. It is the most effective way to show that your hotel values its guests and their opinions of those that express their views online. From engaging to following up on every bit of feedback on social media will reflect positively on the business. Studies clearly show the connection between being responsive and improvement in a hotel business’ performance. The greater the responses to reviews and feedbacks, the higher are the ratings of a business.
Reputation management for hotels is just no more something nice but rather critical and a must have. What once served as an asset to marketing is now an integral and vital part of any hotels revenue management strategies. The more we interact and respond with customers online the better will our hotel reputation be.
The bottom line is effectively managing a hotels reputation is the key to succeeding in the extremely competitive hospitality industry.