TripAdvisor is playing a much more important role in the hotel industry and directly impacts your hotels ability to acquire new business . According to TripAdvisor the best way to enhance your reputation online is to increase quantity, quality and recency of reviews and we have set out below 5 practical ways to improve your hotels ranking on TripAdvisor. Good online reviews are a key part of your hotel KPI’s and need to be managed to get the right results.
Control Frequency
Hotels needs to achieve some level of control over their TripAdvisor content. Currently reviews get posted randomly by guests, sometimes many on the same day, and sometimes none for a week. There are some practical ways to achieve this and it is also important to note that TripAdvisor does not allow hotels to incentivise guests to leave a review. One way is to hand out a card on check out (to happy guests!) with instructions on how to leave a review. Another method is to send an email 2/3 days post check out, again with instructions on leaving a review. Whatever way you do it, it is important to have the ability to influence the frequency of reviews posted, not only to flush bad reviews from the page, but also as frequency of posts is a major factor in TripAdvisor ranking. Consider adding a TripAdvisor review option into your hotels email marketing campaigns.
Double down after a negative review
Why is it that bad reviews seem to linger as the most recent post for much longer than good ones. You check several times a day in the hope that someone has posted a nice positive review so that the bad one moves down the feed. Once you have some level of control over the frequency of reviews left by guests, step up the efforts to get some good reviews in place. With more effort you should be able to move that negative review off the first page quite quickly.
Identify Advocates and Ask
By identifying happy guests, who are likely to leave positive reviews, you can focus your efforts on those most likely to add more stars to your hotel profile. Consider using comment cards, with a space for email address to get some feedback from guests. Also consider using the Net Promoter Score method (see image above) to identify your hotels valuable advocates. Once you know who your promoters are and you have their email address, then all you have to do is ask.
Respond to negative reviews within 24 hours
Negative reviews will happen, so when they do it is important to respond as quickly as possible with some thought. Bad reviews should not always be considered a negative as they constitute important feedback that you can hopefully do something about and fix for the next time.
Do not batch replies or use a template reply
By sitting down and replying to all reviews at once you run the risk of repeating the same things and coming across as insincere to the individuals who took time to post a comment. Even more so, the use of cut and paste templates should be avoided as they are impersonal in the extreme and do not create a good impression. A short personal note, thanking the reviewer and addressing or acknowledging their comments will suffice.
Focus on good customer service
Last and not least, the best way to guarantee good TripAdvisor reviews is to give your guests the best service that you possibly can. It is much easier said than done but is the foundation required to improve your hotels TripAdvisor ranking
Improve your hotels TripAdvisor Ranking today
TripAdvisor plays an important role in the hotel industry ecosystem, and that influence will continue to grow into the future. It is better to have some level of control over this key business driver rather than leaving it open to hope and chance. Improve your hotels TripAdvisor ranking now by getting started with these practical steps.
