NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Guest review data is a valuable tool for hoteliers to make changes to their operations and strategies to gain more business, as long as hoteliers know how to navigate it.
First and foremost, hoteliers should be doing everything they can to set guests' expectations for their hotel experience, said Lior Sekler, chief commercial officer at HRI Hospitality, on a panel at the recent Hotel Data Conference.
If guests "have the right expectations, then they'll come to the property and they won't be disappointed, and it'll increase the satisfaction," he said. "We're spending a lot of time right now on data-scrubbing and making sure that all of our hotels are properly displayed ... so when they arrive on the property, they have that true, accurate and authentic experience."
Setting expectations always comes down to the content and communication in that pre-arrival stage, said Sean Whalen, senior director of corporate revenue strategy at Sonesta International Hotels.
"We really focus on making sure our hotels have all the accurate information — content is key," he said. "We want to make sure we're setting up the hotel for success with those travelers that are going to be joining us."
Transparency is also a part of providing the correct information, such as the hours for the restaurant, bar, pool or spa on property, to guests ahead of their stay, especially if it's information they aren't going to be happy about like construction or resort fees.
During a renovation, "everyone knows that you're going to lose conversions no matter what," Whalen said. "But you'd rather that than get a full page of guest reviews. Then all of a sudden, your placement on Booking or Expedia goes to page 17, and you're losing conversions."
Hotels under renovation also have the opportunity to build excitement by displaying renderings and inviting guests to come back once the project is finished, he added.
In addition to transparency, consistency is important to inspire positive guest experience, and therefore reviews, said Andrea Stokes, practice lead of hospitality at JD Power, in her data presentation.
"Consistency equals trust, and I think if you're from a chain or branded property, you know that consistency is very important, no matter what the chain scale," she said.
In general, hotels are doing a good job at this, according to the JD Power survey data, which polls guests following a recent stay.
"You would think, 'Well, guests are paying more — they're not going to be happy because everything's more expensive. Food and beverage was more expensive. The rates are high,'" Stokes said. "But that's not the case. And this year, overall satisfaction is up across every segment."
She added that some reasons for this could be that the hospitality industry has happier employees now and guests have changed their perception of value.
Setting up the right systems
Hoteliers should strive to provide this transparency and consistency for guests, but ultimately they have to stay tuned to their reviews from guests to see if they are successful.
Hotel operators should "utilize reviews as a tool for you to be able to enhance your strategy within your property," said Maribel Calderon, regional manager at Booking.com.
While hotels attempt to anticipate their guests' wants and needs, getting guest feedback is critical to knowing if they are on the right track, Sekler added.
"We try to not assume what the guests want, but actually use the feedback from the guests to help our operation improve. ... Their perception and their expectation might be completely different from ours, and then we miss the mark on it," he said.
The hoteliers on the panel explained that the best way to approach reviews is to set internal systems in place to evaluate reviews and translate them into actionable improvements.
HRI Hospitality integrates review data and satisfaction scores into weekly commercial strategy meetings and issues monthly recap reports, Sekler said. Whalen added that Sonesta sets goals for its hotels, uses satisfaction scorecards and even implements internal competitions between the company's hotels. Brands, too, have increased importance in guest feedback.
"The brands are placing a lot of focus on the management companies to raise those ITRs, the intent-to-recommend scores," Sekler said. "So the brands are really trying to focus on building the loyalty base, but also while they're building the loyalty base, is that the intent-to-recommend scores are also elevated through the operation."
Hoteliers can also use reviews to affect their pricing strategy, but that's a little less direct.
"Guest reviews don't influence the pricing strategy, but guest reviews impact demand, which in turn impacts your pricing strategy. ... it's kind of a cycle," Sekler said.
Another internal system Sekler said he uses in regard to guest reviews is an agency that responds to every single review of his portfolio hotels, positive or negative, and the agency can escalate any of the more serious reviews or feedback to the management team.
At the end of the day, it's a team effort, Whalen said, adding that hoteliers should take themes away from their reviews, instead of getting hung up on individual items.
"It's not the old days where everything's siloed, and this is an operations responsibility, right? Have a synergy going. Have a overall team supporting this," he said.
Where tech can help
Technology plays a key role in introducing new processes and systems internally. One tool hotels are using is AI-supported chat with guests, releasing hotel staff from the burden. However, authenticity is key when conversing with guests.
"Using 'AI' in a different acronym is 'authentic interaction,' and using the text messaging to actually interact," Sekler said. "Train the staff to interact with a guest through the pre-arrival and on-site text functionality to gain insight on their experience, what they're missing, what they need, how we can elevate it, how we can improve."
Essentially, this pre-arrival and on-site communication can prevent a negative experience and potential negative review.
As AI tools continue to rise, there's even more opportunity to use it to improve customer relationship management. Sekler gave the example of knowing more about guests and using that information to avoid a negative hotel guest experience.
"The CRM platforms today also allow you to have this database where you know that somebody had a bad experience in another property, and you can do the service recovery at your property as well based on the information you have in the database," Sekler said.