As an online user in this advanced generation, do reviews affect your daily life? Would you still go for a product/service that has negative feedback from people who also have had buy or used it? There could be a lot of factors that could affect the decision of each guest the moment they check on the internet for a hotel to stay in. If they were to see some horrible comments about the property, chances are 90% they’d look for another place to stay and 10% they’d still reconsider. Why? because probably the property still has something they would need. That 10% chance for a guest to book your property for their stay could also mean they’d still book anyway since you may have one of the lowest rates available on their desired date. Most people couldn’t stand some imperfection on the appearances of the property especially when they paid for it.
Now, digging deeper into the topic, a negative review may actually affect nearly 50% of potential customers. They might want to disregard your property as one of their choices. For the past years, online users and the significance of online reviews have grown rapidly making it the number 1 source for most people in terms of choosing where to stay, where to go, what food to eat and any other products and services that are available.
Most of the customers weigh in options. Booking hotels also need a certain level of focus and information so the not-so-good feedbacks may contribute to it. Guests will take positive and negative reviews into consideration to see if what they’re currently looking for and weighing is something that would be beneficial to them. Getting negative feedbacks might also be quite a help for one’s business but it mostly does the harm. This opposing feedback stands as a starting point for you and the team to target the customer’s point of view. To know more about the people’s opinion, you may need to start up collecting data and doing the job to avoid any uncomfortable circumstances not just for the whole management but most importantly, to the guests.
How can bad reviews affect the business?
Many business owners tend to ignore the comments posted on their websites. Positive or negative, most of them don’t really bother and that’s something businesses should never do. As we all are evolving, the number of people who actually checks the internet for information has already hit a whopping 63.4% of the world’s population so you might want to consider getting people to handle some social media accounts. Every single day, booking sites and any other platforms are being created and information regarding the property is being published on it. Whether you had paid those sites to give you a lift on your business and marketing strategies, reviews still determine the future of your potential guests and that needs to be organic which means you must not take control over what’s being posted online just so you can create a pretty wall of feedbacks. So, what do you think are the do’s and don’ts of handling cynical comments?
First of all, you don’t have to be defensive. The reviewer might have had irritating and uncomfortable experiences on his or her stay and our task is to make them feel like we really understood them. We apologize and acknowledge their complaints. We also don’t want to make it look like we did nothing about the issue so as much as possible, explain to the guests in a calm manner. Who knows? You might turn a negative review into a positive one.
Second, be real and authentic when dealing with them. Corporate ways of replies would just follow a certain pattern of words to issue as an apology but that’s actually even worse for a guest to read. They’d immediately label you as an insincere being that doesn’t care about the welfare of the guests.
You may want to tell them the role you have in the business and ways to contact you just in case they may want to bring out the issue even more. At least in this way, you get to avoid having a negative buzz and you can deal with the issue privately. Nothing beats a sincere way of reaching out.
And lastly, learn from these. After dealing with a certain situation you have to learn from it to avoid any further unhappy guests. As negative reviews are there to let you know of a problem, it’s a way for you to do more research and make changes.
How your staff can make a change?
They say that a happy employee equates to a happy customer. Indeed, that is a fact. When you take care of your employees, you are making them the best person that they can be. They spread happiness and smiles for your customers and it eventually drives success to the business. In an organization, it is important to give off a positive aura to your trainees, employees and any other staff. This way they can spread positivity all over the place. Everyone should also be trained in handling customers especially when one guest displays his or her dissatisfaction with the property, the services, and any other hotel related concerns.
According to Emily Smykal (jibe, Jan. 5, 2016) the common qualities of a good employee are the following:
1. Strong work ethic: Setting and achieving goals
2. Dependable: Consistently following through
3. Positive attitude: Creating a good environment
4. Self-motivated: Working effectively with little direction
5. Team-oriented: Making the most out of collaboration
6. Effective communicator: Understanding the benefits of clarity
and lastly,
7. Flexible: Adapting in a meaningful way
With all of these taken into consideration, having intense but somehow fun training and shaping the employees to be customer and service-oriented, they will be the best version of themselves. But most of all, a clean, well-maintained, cozy ambiance, and excellent customer service will really satisfy your customer.
