Hotels - a valuable case history

If we ask hotels what they want from the day they join HelpHound their answer will invariably be:

1. Better rankings and scores all-round; TripAdvisor, Booking.com, Google and all the OTAs and aggregators
2. Less negative reviews on all of the above
3. More positive reviews on all of the above
4. Great reviews on our own website to drive direct bookings

And - in nine cases out of ten - that's what we deliver. This case history covers the the tenth.

A valuable lesson learned

We will not publish anything here to identify the hotel in question. Suffice to say that it is a modern central London property of more than 100 rooms owned by a major multinational. They joined in 2015. At the time they ranked inside the top 10% of all hotels in London. This is what happened to their TripAdvisor ranking after joining:

 
After twelve months they resigned from HelpHound (the hotel management, and their guest relations manager in particular, knew HelpHound were adding value by enabling them to address guest issues before the guest posted a publicly visible review, but Head Office were looking to make savings, so the axe fell on HelpHound).

This is what has happened to their TripAdvisor ranking since they resigned:

So?

Sometimes our role is simply to maintain a property's position. In the time they were clients we enabled the hotel to manage over three figures of negative reviews from guests who might otherwise have been expected to go on to post somewhere - TripAdvisor or Google or any of the other OTAs (and enabled them to get a similar number of extra positive reviews to TripAdvisor). Now - as you can see from the chart above - those 'less than happy' guests, lacking any other outlet, have been posting (and the 'happy' ones have not).

At first sight it doesn't look a lot - but a doubling of negative reviews has had a pronounced effect on the hotel's ranking - with the contingent knock-on on pricing

In the same way, this fall in the number of positive reviews has had a measurable impact on the hotel's ranking

We would respectfully suggest that a move ostensibly saving the hotel hundreds of pounds a month has resulted not only in lower RevPAR but in an overall weakening of guest relations as well (inviting and managing reviews is a massive aid to guest retention).
 
Note: Fair to all

HelpHound's role is not to make a hotel - or any other business - look better than it is. Rather, it is to enable the hotel and its guests to give an even more accurate impression - for the good of everyone concerned. 

Cornell School of Hospitality estimates that a guest is nearly fifteen times more likely to post a negative review than a positive one - HelpHound's role is simply to enable our clients to address that imbalance. 

If your property is using a service like ReviewPro or Revinate or any other customer relationship software to improve the guest experience, it should be using HelpHound at the front end - so it looks as good as it is - everywhere.

Cornell University and ReviewPro - essential viewing for every hospitality professional

A huge vote of thanks to Cornell School of Hospitality and ReviewPro for this study. For those who have an hour to spare we seriously recommend watching the whole presentation; here we present some of the key findings and overlay some of our own conclusions...

   
Online reputation and RevPAR

This study conclusively proves what we have always contended: that the two are inextricably linked:

• If you can positively impact your online reputation (your TripAdvisor ranking and your Booking.com score) your RevPAR will rise
• This applies equally to volume (occupancy) and rates. Until now businesses where occupancy was not an issue were sceptical about how scores impact on rates - no longer!

ReviewPro/Revinate and Dialogue 

Services like those provided by ReviewPro are invaluable for identifying and internally addressing the areas being criticised by guests. Acting on the detailed feedback these services provide will enhance the guest experience and is bound to feed through into more positive reviews.


Combine this with Dialogue and you will turbocharge the results: ReviewPro impacting on your ability to focus on improving the guest experience and Dialogue translating that into more positive reviews (by 20%+) and fewer negative reviews (by as much as 75%) and you will see the difference impact on RevPAR - dramatically.

Here are just two screenshots from the presentation:

Occupancy and Rates

And...

Showing that online reputation up = RevPAR up - and, interestingly more for 3 and 4 star hotels than their 5 star bretheren (the result for 2 star hotels was even more marked: at 1.9). Just a 1% increase in your TripAdvisor ranking (from 200 to 198 etc.) leading to a 1% increase in RevPAR

For further interpretation and advice please contact Karen (karen.hutchings@helphound.com).

Dialogue and ReviewPro/Revinate

This post will explain how Dialogue works with services like ReviewPro and Revinate. First, let's look at the excellent value this type of service can add for those in the hospitality industry...

• Benchmarking - analysing performance against your competitors
• OTA performance and review aggregating: analysis/social media monitoring - knowing what's being said about you online - up-to-date and with great analytical tools
• Service analysis - helping management and staff focus on areas for improvement

So - where does Dialogue fit in?

While these services report (as they are designed to) Dialogue enables you to be proactive in influencing your online reputation... 

• by heading off negative comments before they're posted

• by actively inviting your customers to post reviews to sites like TripAdvisor/Google/Yelp

So, if you're a client of a service like this you will see the effect Dialogue is having across all the areas that they report to you about. They'll highlight areas for improvement, and we'll make sure that improvement is reflected in your online reputation - on TripAdvisor and the OTAs, Google+ and other review sites and social media that matter to you.

 PLUS

 OR

The net effect? Your improved online presence impacts directly on your bottom line.