Lately global tourism has become larger. With the introduction of online bookings for hotels, number of airlines available and most importantly customer’s sharing personal experience of their stay in the form of online reviews has revolutionized the tourism industry significantly. Which means the world has more reasons to travel. Because it has access to information on how different hotels serve their customers, what are the amenities and even compare the prizes with other hotels. That being said, online reputation management for hotels comes into play with no delay.
Online reputation management for hotels in today’s digital world is not about glorifying your hotel size or amenities available. Its beyond that. Millennial leverage their social media accounts for posting their travel pictures and experience. Much to this, it has been researched that about 90% of millennial post pictures on the same, with Facebook and Instagram leading the pack.
All in all, online reputation for hotels is an indispensable part of their online presence. Following are few rules that must be kept in mind for careful online reputation management for hotels.
1. Manage your online presence
Be it any social media networking site, managing and monitoring what people say about you is crucial. Sites like TripAdvisor, Booking.com, OYO, Agoda and many more are used by customers for booking the hotels. This increases the reach of customer to be able to leave a review. Therefore, employ a dedicated team which would look after the reviews, respond them and effectively implement solutions.
2. Master the art of responding
As much as an online review impacts your brand, similarly, the way you respond to reviews matters the most. About 63% of customers confessed that they expect replies from hotel managers on their reviews. For that matter it becomes important to reply. Reach out to customers and give them comforting environment by calming their anxiety. Gain details of their experience by asking for more information. Lastly, assure them a solution and improvement in future.
3. Ask for reviews
Yes. Your heard us right You should ask for reviews, but in a polite and friendlier tone. Most of the times, customers would escape reviewing process due to lack of time. Instead, your public relationship manager should have means and sources available to find the best time to ask for reviews. Additionally, you can also quickly ask them to fill questionnaire on the notepads or iPads. Well, that’s a quick way. Other ways for gathering reviews is to send them WhatsApp messages, emails or send customized cards to further form connections.
4. Hire an ORM service provider
There must be times when you are busy in board meetings, budgeting the next year budget, planning future events, etc. In those times, keeping aside your online reputation is not a healthy option. Better to hire an online reputation management service provider for your hotel so as to oversee your online presence while you look after your business.
21st century is all about how you act and perform digitally. The more active you are, the more convenient it is to manage your online reputation management. If there are other important points that we missed out, let us know in the comments.