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How To Respond toOnline Hotel Reviews

‍Take a deep breath, and do not take negative reviewspersonally! While it can be tempting to go on the attack with guests who haveleft particularly scathing reviews, take a minute to collect yourself beforeresponding. What can you do to fix their concerns? What information can youprovide to set their mind at ease, or to thank them for leaving a kind review?Keep in mind that you cannot (and should not) remove reviews, regardless of hownegative their sentiment. Do not respond as though what happened was the guest’sfault, even if they were not exactly model guests. Choose your words carefully,focus on the highlights of the review, and even read your response out loud toensure that it makes sense. If you did not deliver an exceptional experiencethis time, be sure to let the guest know what steps you and your team aretaking going forward to ensure that what happened was an isolated incident. Didthey claim that the shower was broken? Check-in on the shower in their room,fix it if necessary, then let the guest know in your response that you did so.Remember that you are addressing the former guest, not whoever is reading thereview. To show your future and former guests that you are trulyapologetic in your responses, you can take two vital steps. 1) Vary your responses! There is nothing worse than lookingat the reviews for a hotel youwish to stay at and seeing the same formulaic response multiplied tenfold. Bespecific and address each concern with humility. 2) Never use the word “but” as this places the blame on theguest. For example, if a guest mentioned that they had an issue at check-in,responding with, “We apologize, but we were short-staffed that night and ouremployees do all they can” shows that, while you are making an effort, you arealso making an excuse for what happened as opposed to confronting the issue. You could instead respond with, “We apologize for theinconvenience at check-in during your stay. We have discussed your concernswith our front desk team to ensure that we are delivering a better experiencegoing forward.” Making the guest feel heard and understood is of utmostimportance and it is much better to address their anger than to write it off. Once you have responded to reviews on OTAs, do not neglectother channels like Facebook, Google+, and Yelp. While these channels are notwhere potential guests are booking their room, these are common channels forformer guests to voice their concerns for all their friends to hear. 

‍How To Manage It All?

‍Always follow up with your team on relevant issues likecustomer service, housekeeping, and dining. Again, be sure to check in onreviews as often as twice a day so that you can respond in a timely manner andbetter address a guest’s concerns. They may even still be staying in your hotel, and the sooner you respondthe sooner the issue can be remedied! Looking for a way to manage your reviews more easily? WhileBlue Magnet is always delighted to assist you with your reputation managementefforts, having a helpful management platform in your toolbox is an excellentway to stay organized and timely. If you are running your property’s social media andreputation management on your own, we recommend Birdeye, which allows you toshare and schedule posts to social, analyze where you stand with competitors,and actively monitor reviews across multiple channels. You can even reach outto current guests via SMS/MMS for a review! If you are looking for a tool to solely manage your reviews,we recommend ChatMeter, which features benchmarking and sentiment analysis tohelp you better understand what your guests are saying and what they need tohear in response from you. This is very useful if you are looking to keep allreviews in one place! Do you have favorite reputation management tools, or needfurther guidance in navigating the ins and outs of responding to reviews? BlueMagnet’s Social Media Team would love to discuss your issues and ideas.

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