Running a successful hospitality business has long relied on positive word-of-mouth to attract guests, and with the rise of review sites and social media, guest feedback is more influential than ever before. The press has made much of the damage a bad review can do to a pub, restaurant, or hotel. However, we believe with the right approach, negative feedback can provide an opportunity to improve your guest experience and strengthen your business.
Previously, one of our surveys uncovered that 18% of guests believe TripAdvisor has the most influential role in helping them choose where to go. Negative feedback about your business might be hard to hear, but with so many guests relying on review sites, hospitality operators must take steps to ensure they are hearing and understanding what is said about their business.
Your staff should be encouraging every guest to leave feedback, regardless of their experience. Showing that you welcome comments of all kinds demonstrates to your guests that you genuinely care about their opinions and are seeking to learn from their experiences. Offering guests a platform to voice their complaints shows you value and appreciate their custom. You are not battling against guests, you are seeking to improve your guest experience management and ensure that any unpleasant situations do not occur again.
In addition, setting up an online feedback site provides the chance for your guests to feedback directly to you, rather than on a public forum where potential visitors be able to will see it and perhaps be put off. The prevalence of sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp prove that guest enjoy reviewing their experiences; it is far better that bad reviews come directly to you so you're able to tackle any issues raised. Using a branded GEMdirect site will give your guests the opportunity to let you know their thoughts, and targeted alerts will draw your attention to any problems so that you can take immediate action. After all, if you don't know what has put a guest off, how can you make the changes necessary to encourage them to return?
Of course it stings when your business receives negative feedback. However, by acknowledging it will happen, empowering your staff to respond to it, and building a culture that accepts and appreciates all types of feedback as an opportunity to grow, you can use negative experiences to monitor and target areas for improvement... and hopefully win those guests round to become positive ambassadors for your brand in the future.
