REPORT FROM THE U.S.—Online review sites and various social media platforms are certainly here to stay, but insiders warn it’s far too soon to abandon traditional feedback methods such as the classic guest survey.
Marketing experts urge hoteliers to take a balanced approach because there is still a wide difference between these sources in the nature and depth of their offerings.
Thanks to the rise of social media, individual hotel customers have more of a voice than ever, but it’s only part of the picture. Guest surveys conducted by market research firms generally run longer and more specific in their questions and statistically draw from a much larger pool of respondents.
“What TripAdvisor and other social media sites do is a great service. But, this does not replace market research, and should not be construed in any way to be reliable market research,” said Jonathan Barsky, co-founder of Market Metrix. “If in the mad rush to grasp this new technology, companies throw out their market research and jump onto the social media bandwagon, they’re going to be in big trouble.”
But in a way, it’s already happening, most notably with the partnership between TripAdvisor and Wyndham Hotels and Resorts. The hotel chain has replaced its previous guest feedback process with a new TripAdvisor-powered feedback system driven by user reviews. According to a TripAdvisor official, it’s a natural step, even if the Wyndham deal is a bit more progressive than most.
“There are definitely things you want to monitor when you’re running a hotel operation: performance, operation and reputation. What’s clear is that you can probably manage all three dimensions just from looking at your reviews,” said Severine Philardeau, VP of global partnerships for TripAdvisor. “We have hotel partners that have decided to get rid of their guest satisfaction surveys completely, which I think is still a pretty bold move. I don’t think many hotel chains have necessarily embraced that change yet.”
Wyndham’s new system essentially packages survey questions and the chance to leave a TripAdvisor review within the post-checkout email every guest receives. The survey questions, which Wyndham says have been shortened, are fed into a datawarehouse/social media solution run by Revinate, while the authenticated reviews are posted on TripAdvisor and Wyndham-branded sites. Wyndham is even employing text analysis software to extract information from the reviews.
“We wanted to make sure we could be giving our consumers the data and information they’re looking for, and consumers are telling us time and time again that the information they’re looking for is the ability to see what other travelers are thinking,” said Diane Barr, VP of customer experience for Wyndham. “We’ve created good technology, a good next step for us, and it really just was about evolution. The social feedback industry in general has evolved so much that this was our way of evolving with it.”
Others remain unconvinced. Barsky brought up multiple issues with review sites and social media, including a demographic bias toward younger users (who spend less), a tendency for negative reviewers to be more compelled to write, smaller respondent pools (some hotels receiving only a handful of reviews per year), the inability to affect change until after check-out, and false reviews.
Wyndham claims to have fixed that problem by tying their reviews to actual guest stays, but overall Barsky points to numerous studies indicating a trend toward illegitimate postings on review sites made by hotels themselves to boost their reputation or bash competitors. Some properties even hire firms to create such fiction.
“The Gartner Group concluded that as many as 15% of online reviews will be paid for by hotels. They go out and hire people to write reviews,” Barsky said. “There’s warfare going on in the trenches of these small, independent hotels. They bash each other online. There’s no police; it’s whatever you want. This is for business, for money, so of course they’re going to be doing this.”
The more, the merrier
The answer, according to some hoteliers, is to juggle the various sources of guest feedback information, pulling the best parts from each. In many cases, hotel companies are partnering with review sites in order to manage their online review presence, but still outsource guest feedback surveys to a traditional market research firm. Each approach yields different results, depending on the nature of the inquiry.
“The online channels are important, but the brand-specific surveys that we distribute are targeted towards specific data points, whereas non-branded sites tend to be more free-flowing in terms of the feedback received,” said Thorsten Kirschke, president of Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, Americas. “We create a brand-specific survey to gather feedback that is identifiable and actionable based on the offerings of our hotels. Unfortunately, the online sites may not capture this same specificity, making it more difficult to learn the exact details about feedback.”
Red Roof Inns has had success with the combined approach. The company uses traditional tools yet recently also forged a partnership with TripAdvisor that funnels TripAdvisor reviews of Red Roof properties into Red Roof’s own branded website. On the other hand, the more in-depth data from traditional tools has helped with implementing system-wide change, such as the implementation of more smoke-free rooms.
That was very actionable; we saw what consumers were saying and we were able to correct that,” said Marina MacDonald, senior VP for Red Roof Inn.
She added, “However, we get quite a bit of reviews on how great consumers love our smoke-free hotels. So we use all of it to measure.”
A work in progress
Of course there’s always potential for data overkill. Some question whether the lengthier surveys are really necessary at all anymore, and if subjecting guests to such an arduous process is worth the potential hassle to the customer. Multiple sources indicate a tendency for online reviews to focus on service at the hotel, which underscores the importance of this specifically for the guest.
“Maybe the 200-question survey has been outlived and maybe you don’t need to be asking questions on every single aspect, when people just want to talk about their general experience and maybe comment on the Wi-Fi, and not the shower pressure,” TripAdvisor’s Philardeau said. “It gives hotels a chance to focus on what really matters: their service.”
That said, many believe the streamlined approach from online review sites still can’t replace guest surveys entirely, if for no other reason than basic due diligence. Experts warn there still isn’t enough qualified data from the channels for hoteliers to safely make important, expensive, operational decisions.
“Do you want to make investments, change your beds, change your décor, spend millions of dollars, based on a few reviews, a few comments?” Barsky said.
Wyndham is banking that they’ve built a better mousetrap by tweaking the TripAdvisor system for their own internal uses. Barr said the company is confident its reviews are legitimate, the response rate is much higher than the averages on TripAdvisor.com and there is little of the negative review trending claimed by critics. And Wyndham’s partnership with TripAdvisor is still only in its infancy.
“We’re just at the tip of the iceberg of how people communicate about things and how they share information,” Barr said. “It is definitely a different world out there today than it was three years ago, even a year or two ago, in the way we do things. Our entire philosophy has shifted in the past 12 to 18 months based on the way consumers are talking. I’m really excited to see what comes next, because I think it will continue to grow, continue to change.”