Ever feel downhearted when a one-star review comes in? You’re working hard to improve your on-site experience and your staff are doing what they can to provide exceptional service. But, circumstances are against you. You're facing staffing shortages, and guest expectations are constantly changing.
Remember, the guest journey isn’t linear. Online reviews are an important part of what makes it dynamic. Positive reviews turn ordinary guests into brand advocates, raising awareness of your resort and influencing potential guests on the search for their next getaway. It’s a cyclical motion, like a flywheel. And you need to keep it spinning.
So, what can you do to make sure the five-star reviews are ticking in for your resort? Try out these five things:
The first step in improving your rating is to know your demographic, and then give them an experience to rave about.
84% of Gen Z and 76% of millennials prefer using tech-based kiosks. They value the convenience, the shorter wait times, and they’re simply more familiar with tech-based interactions in their daily lives. So, if you know that you’re predominantly catering to these younger generations, investing in self-service tech is the right move to meet their expectations. Features like a digital front desk, in-app activity booking and mobile room service are worth looking into.
Conversely, older generations are less familiar with self-service tech and value human assistance in their resort experience. If your resort attracts elderly guests, you may choose to tone down the tech to ensure they feel comfortable.
Guests who enjoy themselves but aren’t asked to leave reviews probably won’t. According to RizeReviews, customers are ‘more inclined to write negative reviews than positive reviews because of the heightened emotional response.’ It’s about timing.
Often it’s when things go wrong and guests get irritated, that they decide to leave a negative review. Sending out an email after a guest’s stay asking them to leave a rating isn’t going to work here. To mitigate bad reviews before they happen, you need to give your guests regular opportunities to leave feedback through managed platforms like a mobile app and address the feedback directly.
Being asked for feedback at an odd or inconvenient time doesn’t work, and your guests aren’t going to want to deal with complex email surveys right after their holiday. Pivoting to a digital feedback gives you a one-click NPS that guests are more likely to fill in, helping you gauge exactly how guests are feeling at any given point during their stay. This means you can jump on problems as soon as they arise.
You can be strategic with this feedback prompt too. Try asking guests just after the best moments of their trip—for example, if you know that they had an amazing afternoon at the spa because you can see that they had a booking and then went on to purchase extra treatments, take advantage of that warm glow and relaxation by shooting them a strategically timed push notification asking them to leave a review.
We know that today’s guests prefer to use self-service options. In fact, nearly 1 in 6 would wait for a self-service kiosk even if the human-run checkout had no line. But, that doesn’t mean you should put all your investment into technology and lose the human element at your resort.
Attentive, personalised customer service is one of the main reasons people leave positive reviews, so freeing up your staff to become customer service ambassadors through technology is a great way to manage this during difficult hiring periods.
And this personalised service carries into the post-visit phase too. Responding to reviews online with a friendly and personalised approach can help you improve perception of your brand. In fact, 77% of travellers are more likely to book when business owners respond to reviews. So make sure you drop a note of thanks to positive reviews and ask for more information on the negative ones.
Take a look at this blog to find out how you can maintain exceptional service without losing the human touch.
An important step towards improving your reviews is to make the most of the feedback you do have. Whether it’s good, bad, or just interesting to know—it’s all worthwhile. Analysing your existing guest feedback helps you identify weak points in a stay at your resort and make improvements based on reoccurring issues.
Relying solely on review sites to manage guest feedback is tricky. TripAdvisor doesn’t allow you to extract or scrape reviews of your company from their website without using a third-party tool, making it difficult to track how often problems are happening and accurately make improvements. But, if you pivot your collection method to a digital platform, you can get on-the-pulse feedback and eliminate issues before they affect your online reviews.
The Attractions.io platform integrates guest feedback into your mobile app, allowing you to get greater input from a larger proportion of guests with less admin. A Bluetooth beacon installed near your attraction's exit or a push notification gives guests the chance to leave immediate feedback. The app then automatically asks happy guests to leave feedback on TripAdvisor, while anyone who leaves negative feedback is given the opportunity d to provide further details so that you can address the issue.
Lastly, you can build marketing campaigns specifically around leaving feedback to encourage guests to head to review sites and bulk up your numbers.
Showcasing positive reviews on your digital channels and in your marketing materials encourages new visitors to book, and the possibility of seeing their reviews on your testimonials page can make them more likely to leave you something on TripAdvisor. This builds trust with your guests, as potential customers are more likely to trust someone who’s actually visited your resort.
Make sure your TripAdvisor page is accurate and up-to-date and your guests can find it easily. One or two five-star TripAdvisor reviews won’t make much of a difference on your overall ranking. You need consistent positive reviews to keep your rating up.
Customer experience consultant Alex Allwood once said "It comes down to how your customer experiences the brand – and how that brand makes a person feel." Positive reviews stem from feelings, so ensure your on-site experience generates the smiles that translate into five-star reviews. Make sure you’re prompting for feedback at the right time, and have the right tools on hand to manage it.
The Attractions.io platform gives you a daily reading of your guest satisfaction level, along with the insights you need to best prioritise initiatives, rectify issues and identify areas for improvement. If you’re eager to stamp out the issues that cause low ratings, book a discovery call today.
