Tuesday 8 April 2014

Response rates - Dialogue v. CRM for Hotels

If Dialogue is to work for you - enabling you to manage negatives in private and get more positive reviews written - then 'volume of response' to the feedback invitation is one of the key factors.

One of the most frequent questions we are asked is "What about response rates?" and the answer is simple, even if the reasons behind it are not...

"Dialogue is about 10 x better than conventional CRM" 

That means if your current CRM (or Guest Relations Management, as some call it) is generating a response of +- 0.5% (one in 200 guests) then Dialogue is likely to lift that to 5% (one in 20 guests).

'How?' and 'Why?'

Anecdotal evidence gleaned by our moderators as they read each review and response indicates that it is Dialogue's independence that makes the difference. Guests are much more likely to respond to a request for feedback when there is a third party involved, and that third party reinforces a 'promise to publish'. This is backed up by pure logic when we compare pre-Dialogue CRM response rates for our clients; our independence is the only thing that differentiates Dialogue's results (in terms of volume) from the hotel's own CRM.

Why is this response rate so crucial?

If part of your focus with Dialogue is presenting the best possible face to the world (your potential guests and clients) then it is absolutely vital that...
  • Your 'less than completely satisfied' guests have a channel to voice their opinion before they resort to posting a negative review*
  • You can encourage more of your happy guests to post to TripAdvisor
To achieve both of these you need response - in volume and from both categories of guest - happy and unhappy. Dialogue will get you that response - and achieve both these objectives.

A case study

Let's take a client that ranks in the top 100 hotels in London...

In the last 12 months we have enabled them to manage over 80 negative reviews which, had they been published, would have ranked the hotel at either 3, 2 or 1 star.

On top of that Dialogue has achieved 43 reposts of 4 or 5 star reviews to TripAdvisor.

So - fewer negatives, more positives - Dialogue much more than paying for itself.

*This is about much more than just stopping the guest from posting a negative review, it is just as much about guest retention: having an effective mechanism that allows the guest to say "If you do [this] I'll stay again."





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