What is Hotel Reputation Management? Benefits & Strategies

Hopefully, this gives you an idea of the power of reviews and hotel reputation management. But if this still hasn’t (because they are just probably words), let’s read some stats and back the statements up: 

• 81% of people frequently or always read reviews before booking a hotel. 
• 55% of travellers read several pages worth of reviews to get a better sense of public opinion. 
• Any establishment risks losing 22% of bookings due to negative reviews. 

The stats speak for themselves and highlight the importance of garnering positive reviews, avoiding negative ones and managing the hotel's reputation online.  

So, starting with the basics of the concept, let’s look at some of the effective tips that would help in reputation management for hotels.  

What is hotel reputation management?

Hotel reputation management refers to the techniques, strategies and tools used by hotels to monitor and manage their brand reputation in the marketplace.  

It is done online. Hoteliers use these strategies to reply to reviews, and feedback and manage and enhance how their property, service, and brand are being perceived online. Hotel reputation management is imperative to the hotel’s business and revenue.  

In a business that is driven by hospitality, the quality of service and reviews, hotel reputation management helps hotels to attract more guests, enhancing occupancy rates and overall revenue.  

Why should you practice hotel reputation management software?

Contemporary brands are coming up with innovative ways to sell their names and manage their reputations. And newer generations that seek change, creativity and first-hand experiences, are appreciating these ways to a large extent, which is being reflected in the balance sheets of these brands. Even small brands are surpassing the big brands with innovative punch lines and out-of-the-box marketing campaigns.  

Thus, in this kind of new market, bigger fish are less likely to swallow down the smaller fish. Instead, a slower fisher is likely to be eaten up by the faster fish. And you certainly want to be the latter. So, to be the fastest fish, you must always keep your online reputation management (ORM) game on and strong, always. 

ORM doesn’t allow you to have visibility in the marketplace through OTAs, it also impacts your top line and revenue. It builds a stronger brand for your business and blurs the line between a bigger and smaller brand.  

What further distinguishes between a strong and a weak brand is an army of loyalists and a resultant good NPS (Net Promoter Score). What’s NPS, though?  

NPS or Net Promoter Score is a market research metric that draws its findings from a single survey question asking respondents to rate the likelihood that they would recommend a company, product, or service to a friend or colleague.

ORM helps a hotel build an army of promoters, that further improves the NPS, making you a visibly stronger brand and more likely to be recommended. Promoters or delighted guests are keener on recommending your brand name than neutral guests. 

As per reports, more than 40% of travellers will leave a review if they have a positive experience at a hotel. Thus, hotels are advised to produce more and more delighted guests through their impeccable services and warm hospitality.  

Hotel ORM further helps to manage the negative reviews or detractors in a more professional yet gentle manner and increases the chances of turning the emotion around. In, fact, 48% of guests leave a review after a bad hotel experience. All of this is carried out on online platforms and is, therefore, visible for the world to see. This is the reason hotels need to manage negative reviews tactfully. 

You must have heard a lot about this one website that is TripAdvisor. But why is it so important for both guests and hotels? Let’s see why.  

TripAdvisor is the Defacto platform for hotel feedback. It is most visited by guests while planning their stay and looking through hotel reviews, among other things. 

Thus, hotels need to have a presence on this platform via guest feedback and review. Additionally, they must follow and monitor TripAdvisor regularly to leverage ORM strategies.  

Furthermore, hotels need to offer their guests a unique and personalized experience at the service level to have a good reputation online. 

The hotel property, services or event spaces need to evoke positive, joyful memories on guests’ revisits, and conjure a happy picture in their minds. This would help the hotel form a list of loyalists or promoters.  

For example, Starbucks, a global name in the coffee-selling business, allows customers to live a personalized experience every time they visit for a coffee. They call customers by their names and have them written on their coffee cups. This leaves a lasting impression and shopping experience in the minds of their customers and has built a long list of loyalists.  

Thus, reputation management for hotels is a crucial factor in staying relevant as a business and evolving as time progresses.  

Benefits of Hotel Reputation Management Services

There are direct benefits offered by Hotel ORM that are as follows:  

• ORM helps in creating a greater brand impact, attracting more guests and hence, earning more revenue 
• Hotel reputation management service helps a hotel to nurture hotel-guest relations for new and repeat business 
• ORM creates stronger brand awareness and image  
• It attracts more business and hence, helps hotels to stay ahead of the competition 
• Lastly, it attracts top-notch talent/resources for the hotel business and enhances the quality of services offered by the hotel  

Now let’s look at the most utility-generating part of this blog- the strategies for managing the hotel's reputation for growth and expansion.  

Strategies for Effective Hotel Reputation Management

These hotel reputation management tips are simple to implement yet very effective. Let’s learn about them:  

1. Online reviews matter (A LOT): 

The stats provided at the beginning of this blog clearly pointed out the significance, impact and reach of online reviews. To add to it, an online review is a public opinion that is used as a base by potential guests while planning their stays.  

In fact, 52% of individuals would never book a hotel that had zero reviews. Online reviews give assurances about your hotel property, services and amenities to guests seeking hotel stays. Online reviews are an attempt by hotels to appeal to a wider audience.  

Newer generations anyway believe in making the most informed decisions and investing their money, time and energy into relevant and suitable experiences. Online reviews are more important with this kind of audience. As per research, 68% of millennials trust peer reviews and 53% are influenced by user-generated content. 

Thus, presence on review websites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Google Reviews is a must for hotels seeking more occupancy and revenue. Guests should be made aware of the value of online reviews in creative ways, as a part of marketing strategies so that you shine on these websites.  

Hotel review management is a crucial part of hotel reputation management tools. Online reviews are integral for hotel branding and reputation management and are thus the top tactic for ORM. 

2. During and post-stay feedback is crucial  

Feedback is an extremely important aspect of any service-led business. Hotels too thrive with feedback or constructive criticism. And not only are the post-stay feedback crucial but the during-stay feedback is equally imperative. The former helps a hotel to collect reviews and personal opinions, while the latter helps them to convert potential negative reviews into positive ones.  

During-stay helps a hotel to act on the bottlenecks or the pain points in real-time, making the guest stay more pleasant and avoiding any negative reviews later. It helps hotels offer a proper channel or platform to guests to communicate any problems or issues that are hampering their stay or experience. This way the hotel avoids negative or bad reviews from reaching public platforms and taint the hotel's reputation.  

Hotels thus need to gather during and post-stay feedback to avoid negative reviews and enhance the guest experience. Train the hotel staff to manage the feedback and use it to the hotel’s strengths.  

Hotels can leverage BOTSHOT’s hotel automation feedback solution HEDA, which allows hotels to collect pulse and post-stay surveys. Hotels can customize the survey length, content and template according to their brand image and requirements.  

With HEDA, hotels would be able to view, respond and action feedback using a single software, centralizing and streamlining their ORM.  

3. Respond to all kinds of reviews cordially, on all channels  

A hotel should respond to all reviews, irrespective of the emotion. While it looks good to show gratitude for positive reviews, it also leaves a good impact on the viewer when the negative ones are addressed with an expression of regret and striving to do better in future. 

As per an Expedia report, 91% of travellers want property owners to respond to negative reviews. Ensure the guests with negative reviews that the issue will be fixed immediately. And this should be done on all online platforms.  

The reviewer should be contacted to know more about the problem/issue, go to its depths and correct it there. Negative reviews should initiate action that helps a hotel improve its services and hospitality. 

Responding to all the reviews, especially the negative reviews is an important practice in hotel review management and thus, ORM. 

4. Be active on social media and build a community of brand followers  

In the times where social media is transcending borders, boundaries and oceans, it is important for you as a hotel to have social media presence and engage with guests in real time. Create an impact that reaches a larger audience through social media platforms.  

These platforms allow hotels to showcase their brand and communicate their brand story, ethos and values as they want to their audience. Respond to comments, and queries and engage with your followers regularly, across all appropriate channels. 

Post reels, videos, polls, and other engaging and quality content to attract more and more people. Build relationships that would turn into business for you in the near or distant future.  

Social media platforms let you play by your strengths as you control the content posted. Leverage them to create a positive and strong brand image. Connect with guests who will become loyalists in the future and promote your brand through them.

Forge connections to create as many brand advocates as you can. And serve them and others too, with the most top-class services to ensure repeat business as well as multiple promoters.  

Read through ‘Best Social Media Marketing Strategies for Hotels in 2023’ and never go wrong with your social media marketing. 

5. Leverage digital marketing techniques 

The first and foremost rule of growth is adapting to the changing times and their ways. Then comes consistency. ORM demands both.  

Therefore, hotels need to employ different modern digital marketing strategies to gain maximum traction online and in business. This can be done through content marketing where you put and post relevant and engaging content on your website and social media platforms. This can also be done through email and WhatsApp marketing and feedback. Or through digital advertising.

Read our very informative blog on how hotels can leverage digital marketing.

Hotels can also use Reddit, Quora and other business listing websites to promote their brand name.  

Confused about how to promote your business through email and WhatsApp?  

With BOTSHOT’s eMark-IT, a hotel can successfully market its brand via both, email and WhatsApp. It allows you to create your own templates and regulate the number of messages that are sent out. It’s the best tool to reach a larger audience via both traditional and modern means of communication.

Read Now: Tips to Increase Hotel Revenue

6. Optimize your website for search 

Hotel websites are really important. They create hotel visibility, build brand trust and allow hotels to take direct bookings. So, for starters, hotels need to create a website that tells the brand’s story and provides relevant information. 

Now, after the websites are created, they need to be optimized for maximum visibility, visits and engagement. In fact, 93% of online experiences begin with search engines. Thus, optimizing your website for search engines makes a lot of difference.  

This must be done through Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Under SEO, you need to add keywords to your website and keep the information relevant, short and crisp. This ensures readability. In fact, the first 1 to 3 seconds are crucial with regard to user experience. Bounce rates can increase by 32% if you are not able to capture your visitors' attention in this timeframe.  

This practice also enhances SERP (Search Engine Results Page). SERP ensures that you rank on the top pages on search engines which is crucial as a study points out that as low as 0.63% of users click on the results from the second page of a Google search. 

Create the best hotel website using some helpful tips to maximise your revenue. 

Conclusion

Thus, ORM is extremely important for hotels to not only survive but thrive in this ever-so-competitive marketplace. Service-driven businesses are all about guests and their experiences and what they share about the services. Creating a reputation that attracts guests rather than pushing them away, is thus of utmost importance for these businesses.  

]Hotels should monitor and manage their online reputation for maximum business and revenue. It is as simple as that. The importance of hotel reputation management cannot be emphasized enough. It assists hotels in creating a public image that is welcoming and the best in the business. 

When deciding between two similar properties, 79% of guests are more likely to reserve a room at the hotel with a higher rating. Thus, positive reviews and higher ratings give you a competitive edge too. 

Therefore, you would immediately want to think about the image you would like to create for your hotel using these tips and strategies. And if you are struggling with hotel reputation management strategies, well we are there for you!  

BOTSHOT’s hotel automation solutions would help you manage your online reputation in a way that enhances your business image and revenue. These solutions allow you to efficiently manage your review, and feedback and take the necessary action timely.  

• Our feedback solution, HEDA helps hotels gather pre-, during and post-stay feedback that further helps you improve your brand services and image.  
• Similarly, our marketing solution, eMark-IT helps promote your brand and its services via channels like email and WhatsApp. This creates a larger impact on a wider audience.  
• Lastly, our smart website builder, CreateWith, assists hotels with, inter alia, building their brand website, optimizing it for maximum engagement, rate and inventory management, and channel management.

So, begin your ORM journey with us and dominate all online reviews and social media platforms.