Welcome to GCommunity – an e-Newsletter that will keep you informed about the latest trends in digital hospitality marketing and how GCommerce can help you harness the power of the World Wide Web!
Tweet
This 26 room boutique hotel had a good reputation and following, but was lacking revenue created from online bookings. GCommerce did an extensive redesign of the website, launched new packages and a complete paid advertising campaign plan. Because Rancho Caymus is a small boutique hotel with only 30 rooms, balancing occupancy and ADR was a major issue. GCommerce created a way to maximize both.
Click here to download the full case study.
The Michel Berger Hotel in Berlin was built to be different. In reading their story about developing a unique hotel, their passion is obvious. The following words are pulled right from their website:
“Inside we packed it up with as much Berlin vibes and love as possible and outside there is lots to explore. 119 Rooms in an old factory building, built for Austrian carpenters, Swedish models, English rockstars, Japanese businessmen, German racing car drivers and American dudes.
From friends for friends.
Sincerely yours, the Michelberger Intergalactic Explorers.”
This place is bold. It’s audacious. It oozes vibrancy and interconnectivity with its surroundings. You get an immediate sense that something unique will happen to you, and with you, when you stay at the Michael Berger Hotel. It’s unlike any hotel I have ever seen. Read more...
Methods for Encouraging a Higher Volume of Reviews
Objective: gain greater volume of reviews and more realistic insight into the minds of your guests. The following offers some of our effective ideas based on experience. As needed, GCommerce will support this effort by creating a standard approach and assisting with a training program for each property.
Recommendations:
1) Create Front Desk Comment Cards and Material. Create printed comment cards with links to the top one or two review sites (depending on the property and based on the objectives to improve). These cards can be provided in a check-out folder or simply handed to a guest as they check out.
2) Launch Front Desk Motivation Program. Create an incentive program for front desk staff to encourage reviews. A standard check-out procedure could include a quick satisfaction question and encouragement to the guest to post a review. Support by handing out a guest comment card with the links embedded.
3) Create Awareness from eCRM. Infuse the current eCRM application with a prompt to write a review at two points in the process as needed. Track through your eCRM application to see which guests clicked on the link and which ones did not. Send a bounce back offer with reminder to those who did not respond with the first try.
4) Use Mobile Response Program. Send a thank you text with a prompt to post a review on the targeted top review sites. The guest should not receive an email prompt if the mobile prompt is sent and a response received.
5) Create In Room Tent Cards. Provide branded tent cards in the room encouraging guests to write a review. List the name of the site and URL. The card should suggest the property cares about the guest’s feedback, and would like others to hear about the experience.
6) Use Check-out and Internet Screen. Add the prompt and URL on the checkout screen of the TV. Offer an option for the link to be sent to the guest’s cell phone. Prompt guests on the welcome screen as guests sign onto the internet from the hotel.
7) Tap Groups. Encourage business group guests to respond. Upon departure, an email thank you is sent recommending they post a review. Again, provide the site name and URL.
8) Leverage All Touch Points. Target guests who have eaten in the restaurants and experienced the spa. These reviews could be encouraged via mobile, tent card or business card included with the bill.
9) Use GuestBook. GuestBook is an independent guest review service that provides a unique, separate page for guest reviews. Hotels can directly benefit from their reviews, and coordinate them with Google local listings. See the article below for more information.
This method increases volume on the review sites and offers more detailed insight for individual revenue centers.
An emerging online review service from GuestBook provides an innovative approach for hotels to directly benefit from their own guest reviews. The Washington Court Hotel on Capitol Hill, which began a pilot in August 2010, has already seen guests post reviews at a greater rate and with higher satisfaction, than on other review websites. Following this success, GuestBook recently signed up The Steamboat Grand in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and Royal Palms Resort and Spa in Phoenix, Arizona.
GuestBook is designed to counterbalance OTA review websites by turning to a hotel’s advantage the competitive review factor that affects online reservations. A recent study found that “OTA shoppers who visit hotel review pages are twice as likely to convert.” GuestBook enables hotels to increase their conversion rate by providing visitors to their website a direct link to see the hotel’s guest reviews posted on GuestBook. In addition, GuestBook attracts visitors to the hotel’s website from places such as its Google Place Page and Facebook Page.
GuestBook’s invitation system leverages the hotel’s relationship with its own guests. By using an invitation process, GuestBook enables a hotel to obtain more reviews than are posted on other review sites and from many guests who would not otherwise consider posting a review.
For a hotel that uses post-stay email surveys, Guestbook can be integrated to allow guests to post a review as part of the survey. This is done using a web service that enables survey vendors to automatically send to GuestBook the reviews and ratings derived from the guests’ answers to survey questions. Currently, more than 10% of survey respondents also post a review.
If a hotel does not use post-stay email surveys, GuestBook provides the hotel with a number of options to invite guests to post reviews using email and/or printed invitations. Each of these invitations contains a unique code to ensure that only actual hotel guests can post reviews. These codes also make the login process simple for guests and avoid requiring any registration. Email invitations even enable guests to automatically login by simply clicking on a link in the email.
Reviews for each hotel are posted on a dedicated webpage with information about the hotel and links back to the hotel’s website and to its reservation system. Since a potential guest cannot access other outside links from the webpage, a hotel’s GuestBook webpage functions as an extension of the hotel’s website. In addition, there are no comparisons to other hotels and no advertisements so a potential guest remains focused only on the hotel’s guest reviews.
A hotel directs its website visitors to its webpage by placing a GuestBook “Read Our Reviews” logo on its website. A hotel can also attract visitors to its GuestBook webpage from websites where travelers may be seeking reviews of the hotel. For example, a hotel can place a link on its Google Place Page in the “Details” section above the section for “Reviews from around the web”. Also, a hotel can use GuestBook’s Facebook app to add an “Our Reviews” tab to its Facebook Page in order to link to its GuestBook webpage. Reviews shared by guests on their Facebook pages are also linked to the hotel’s GuestBook webpage.
When a review is posted, Guestbook will send the hotel an automatic email with the title and content of the review. A hotel can then login to GuestBook and post a response to any critical reviews. (A hotel that uses a survey system, can also login to their survey portal and reply directly to any guest.)
While positive reviews are the goal, all hotels should expect to receive a certain number of critical reviews. Even top ranked hotels on major review websites typically have a positive review percentage that does not exceed the low 90’s. Travelers have come to expect to see a certain percentage of critical reviews for all hotels and if a hotel did not receive some critical reviews, travelers would likely assume that critical reviews are being filtered and go to another review website. However, the GuestBook invitation system does prevent false negative reviews from competitors and disgruntled employees. Also, since GuestBook enables a hotel to generate a large number of reviews, any critical reviews will most likely be overshadowed by the vast majority of favorable reviews.
GuestBook can leverage your online marketing in many ways that no other product or service can match. GuestBook is offering hotels a two-month free trial. Please contact your account executive at gCommerce for more information.
