The Revinate Blog

Revinate and HeBS Digital Announce Strategic Partnership

New York, NY (December 8, 2011) – HeBS Digital, the leading hotel digital marketing and direct online strategy firm for the hospitality industry, today announces its strategic partnership with Revinate, the leading social media and reputation management solution for the hospitality industry.  The insight and robust tools that Revinate provides, combined with HeBS Digital packages designed to complement Revinate’s offerings, put the power of a strong customer review monitoring strategy at the hotelier’s fingertips.

“At HeBS Digital we know the crucial role that customer reviews play in driving website traffic and bookings,” said Max Starkov, President & CEO of HeBS Digital. “Hoteliers must also align the hotel’s ‘official’ content on their website with the ‘unofficial’ customer-generated content – otherwise there will be a gap in credibility. Revinate’s platform, coupled with HeBS Digital services, will allow hoteliers to take control of their reputation online, compare their performance against the competition, make operational improvements, increase loyalty, and drive sales.”

Revinate aggregates online reviews from sites like TripAdvisor, Expedia, Hotels.com and Priceline into one intuitive dashboard.  In addition, Revinate allows hoteliers to create custom searches to collect every mention of the hotel, its restaurant, competition,  or more across news sites, blogs, photo or video sites and social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and foursquare. But more than a listening platform, Revinate allows hoteliers to take action by responding to reviews, opening tickets, or updating social media accounts in real time, directly from the Revinate dashboard.

“Revinate’s intuitive platform helps us manage our customer reviews and social media strategy with better insight,” said Chad Hallert, Director of eCommerce/Internet Marketing at Eldorado Resorts, LLC. HeBS Digital takes this insight and provides recommendations based on how we’re doing against the comp set and against our goals.  The Revinate platform, combined with HeBS Digital’s customer review action plans is the key to our online reputation success. ”

“We are pleased to be working with HeBS Digital to provide our customers with the thought leadership and strategy that is often necessary to ensure that the deep intelligence we provide is being used to its greatest potential,” said Marc Heyneker, Co-Founder and VP of Sales and Business Development.  We look forward to seeing our customers thrive with their services.

Hotel-controlled content on review sites and social media channels have a considerable impact on visitor traffic and conversions, and HeBS Digital is a pioneer in driving customer review strategies for its clients. The HeBS Digital offering includes the Revinate platform plus HeBS Digital’s Customer Review Services, designed to help hoteliers make the most out of Revinate data, reviews, trends, and comp set statistics. HeBS Digital offers both a quarterly package and services a la carte. Click here to learn more about HeBS Digital Revinate Packages and Revinate services.

About HeBS Digital:

Founded in 2001, HeBS Digital is the industry’s leading full-service hotel digital marketing, website design and direct online channel strategy firm based in New York City (www.HeBSDigital.com).

HeBS Digital has pioneered many of the “best practices” in hotel Internet marketing, social and mobile marketing, and direct online channel distribution. The firm has won over 130 prestigious industry awards for its digital marketing and website design services, including numerous Adrian Awards, Davey Awards, W3 Awards, WebAwards, Magellan Awards, Summit International Awards, Interactive Media Awards, and IAC Awards.

A diverse client portfolio of over 500 top tier major hotel brands, luxury and boutique hotel brands, resorts and casinos, hotel management companies, franchisees and independents, and CVBs has sought and successfully taken advantage of the hospitality Internet marketing expertise offered at HeBS Digital. Contact HeBS’ consultants at (212) 752-8186 or success@hebsdigital.com.

HotelNewsNow Covers Revinate

On Tuesday, November 29th Michelle Wohl, Revinate's VP of Marketing, participated in an HSMAI Webinar about "The Future of Distribution" with Amy Severson from Expedia, Jan Freitag from STR, and Scott van Hartesvelt from Gcommerce Solutions. All the panelists agreed that social media and online reviews were changing travel at a rapid pace. Read the whole article at HotelNewsNow.com.

Why User Generated Content is the Great Equalizer in Hotel Marketing

Subscribers to Hotel BusinessReview/HotelExecutive.com can read  Michelle Wohl's article about how small and independent properties can now compete with large brands online thanks to user-generated content. Read the article here.

The Changing Face of Revenue Management

I was recently asked to speak on a panel about the future of distribution. Just a couple of years ago it would’ve been crazy to find a marketing VP from an online reputation management company on that panel but times have changed.  Today, many traditional aspects of marketing have moved to revenue managers who are tasked with determining the right channel and price to sell inventory. But there are other trends that are changing the face of revenue management.

Online reviews and social media are becoming increasingly important to selling rooms. Revenue Managers have long looked to STR data for quantitative metrics to help determine pricing but today they’re beginning to look at including qualitative metrics in their pricing strategy. They are asking themselves, “Are my customers happy? Are they loyal? Do they tell their friends and networks about the experiences they have at our hotels. What are people saying about our competitors.” Whereas these metrics used to be hard to quantify, today they are easily measured and readily available in ORM (online reputation management) services such as Revinate.

Today, consumers are spending more and more of their time on social sites such as Facebook and TripAdvisor. A large part of what they’re doing on these networks is sharing user-generated content in the form of reviews, photos, videos and comments. Because the goal of revenue management is to maximize revenue many hoteliers are actively working on their social media strategy knowing that if they can engage and capture guests on their own Facebook page or through Twitter and have them book directly, the acquisition cost is lower than through an OTA. These efforts are validated by a recent Bain & Company report that shows that customers that engage with brands on social media are more loyal and spend up to 40% more than other customers.

Many brands and properties are now including booking engines on Facebook pages. While bookings through Facebook aren’t yet significant, revenue managers are pushing for the applications to provide consumers with the tools they need to check rates when they’re thinking about booking, on their preferred channel. I have no doubt that this channel will become more and more important as consumers become more comfortable booking on social channels and expect to be able to check rates and book regardless of platform.

When it comes to their own Web sites, more and more hotels and brands are bringing reviews and social content to their sites in an effort to keep people from jumping to other channels to validate hotel choices with other consumers, where they might become distracted or choose to book with an OTA. Review widgets, such as Revinate's Social Buzz, are now common companions to booking engines and we expect to see more and more hoteliers use review widgets in 2012. 

And of course OTAs are all now including reviews so people can read what others thought about their hotel experience before confirming the booking. And even more interesting is the trend of social engagement on review sites. Close to 90% of Revinate customers (hoteliers and restaurateurs) are now publicly responding to reviews on TripAdvisor and OTAs. Why is this becoming so prevalent? We know from a recent TripAdvisor/Forrester study that when a hotel publicly responds to reviews, it has the opportunity to reassure a prospect and even win new business.

 Flash Sales and Social Buying sites are also changing the landscape of distribution, though it’s unclear whether they are here to stay – at least in hospitality. Part of the reason why Groupon and Living Social were so successful out of the gates is because of the social, sharing aspect of the deals. Friends were able to quickly share information about deals on Facebook and drive more people to the offer. While there has been a lot of discussion lately about whether this channel helps or hurts the industry, I can tell you from the online review side that we do see hotels suffer when they bring in the wrong customer for their hotels. Similar to opaque channel customers, price sensitive customers that book a great rate on a flash sale might not factor additional costs for parking and internet, for example, into their plans and feel nickel-and-dimed upon check-out. Their reviews often complain about ‘hidden costs’ and the high price of food and drinks.

 Finally, you can’t talk about distribution today without discussing mobile. Armed with smart phones, consumers expect to be able to do anything on their phones that they can do on computers, and more, given location-based services. 2012 is likely to see both a decrease in booking window as well as a rise in ‘just in time’ travel services, such as Hotel Tonight. These mobile services can be great ways to sell extra inventory for tonight, while maintaining rate parity and your good reputation, since your discount isn’t visible for the world to see.

When I think about the goals of revenue management, one thing hits me like a brick. There is so much room for social to play a huge role. If I look at how hotel marketing has largely moved from the hotel marketing team to guests via social networks and online reviews, the same thing is primed to happen with distribution. Top Guest has started to get people thinking about how can you use social media to enable your customers to promote your hotel and others are likely thinking about closing the loop with bookings. Along these lines, savvy revenue managers will begin to figure out how to “outsource” inventory distribution and booking generation to consumers, who now have more ways, and social incentive, to share tips and recommendations with their networks of connections. More is definitely to come.

 

The Importance of Online Reputation Across the Hospitality Value Chain

Whether you work at a hotel or for a brand, at an asset management company or for an ownership group, everyone in the hospitality value chain is seeking a different spin on the same thing - - reliable, actionable data on guest satisfaction and hotel performance. Learn how Revinate can help by viewing the following webinar recording.

Imagine every guest is a review writer

If you trained all employees to expect every guest to write a review, how would that change the way your hotel operates? My guess is that it would drive staff to provide better service and take care of small issues in person, before guests have a chance to complain online.

For example, during a recent hotel stay I left my room to get coffee before a morning conference call. When I came back up to my room my key didn't work. I went back downstairs and explained the situation and was given a new key, even though I said that the light blinked green but wouldn't open. The new key didn't work either. Rather than go all the way downstairs, I asked a housekeeper in the hallway to call security since it was clear that it wasn't the key, but rather the lock, that wasn't working. About ten minutes later someone showed up and verified that the lock was broken. He had to use a metal devise to try to open the door manually by catching the inside door handle with a metal noose. It was a frustrating process (for both of us) that took a long time. Once he was able to open the door, I raced inside to jump on my call. Unfortunately, the lock had to be removed and reinstalled so there was a lot of drilling going on in the background. The entire process took over an hour and while the staff that handled the issue was professional and helpful, I felt put out. The average guest in the same situation would surely write a review and complain.

But if the hotel assumed that all guests were going to write reviews, I imagine the situation would've been handled differently. For starters, when I went downstairs and explained how the door lock was malfunctioning, the employee should've sent someone to accompany me to my room to ensure that I was able to get in. Then, knowing that it would take a while to open the door, I should have been offered an apology and quiet place to make my call. Finally, the GM should have called me later in the day to apologize for the inconvenience. Had all this happened, I might even have written about how great they were handling unfortunate situations that arrive.

While service perfection is an unrealistic aspiration, with more and more people sharing their experiences online, it is critical for hoteliers to adjust their service levels to ensure that guests don't leave the hotel with any misgivings or ill will. How can this be accomplished? For starters, review the service logs and tickets regularly throughout the day to see what issues have come up that affect guests. When in doubt, leave a message with the guest or send up a personal thank you note. And finally, empower your staff to provide compensation when needed and create a culture where staff feels comfortable going to management with guest issues.

 

 

A New Way to Engage on Travelocity

Travelocity's Ask & Answer is a Question and Answer function that allows customers to ask questions about a hotel during the booking process, thereby providing an opportunity for hoteliers to engage with a potential customer.  Hotels have a unique opportunity to differentiate themselves by participating in this social community which will drive future bookings. 

Hoteliers can sign up to receive email notifications whenever a question is posted.  

1.        Go to Travelocity.com and search for your hotel

2.        Select the "Questions" tab

3.        Select the "Keep me updated" link to enroll in automatic notification of questions posted. 

Hoteliers can then respond to questions that are generated on Travelocity's website.

1.        Select the Questions tab and select the question you wish to respond to

2.        Select Answer this Question

• Travelocity login required (email address, password, country, and zip needed)   
• Answer the question (try to include the hotel name in the answer)  
• Please do not include personal names, phone numbers, or hyperlinks (spam control)
• Maximum 350 characters.

3.        Complete your information

• Pick a social nickname for use on the community
• Send social nickname to joshua.bright@travelocity.com to get a hotel badge

Hoteliers can also post a Frequently Asked Question(s) and include photos and video to enhance the answer.

1.       Select the Questions tab, then select "Ask a New Question"

2.       Create a question (if none exist)

• Popular topics include room differences, pets, shuttle, and parking availability.
• Maximum 150 characters in the initial question box and 350 in the More Details area.
• Content modification takes up to 24hrs before showing up on the site.

3.       Add a Tag to your question, this tags the question for customers so they can quickly understand what the question is about.

4.       Add photos and/or  a video.

5.       Complete your information.

6.       If selected, you will receive notification when your question has been posted.

A Guide to Finding Your Hotel's Voice Online

A Revinate Best Practices document is featured on HotelMarketing.com. The article and included exercises aim to help hoteliers find their unique voice when responding to reviews online. Check out the article here.

How 'Real' is Online Reputation Management

Just how real is online reputation management? According to a press release issued by Willis in October, hotels can now get insurance to guard against the effects that bad PR can have on their bookings. The release reads, "To help protect hoteliers from losses as a result of such adverse publicity, Willis Group Holdings the global insurance broker, in conjunction with Lloyd's of London underwriter Kiln, has created a policy aimed at limiting the financial fallout from negative PR."

The release goes on to say, "Laurie Fraser, Global Markets Leisure Practice Leader for Willis said: "In the extremely competitive hotel industry, reputation accounts for approximately 30-40 percent of a business's overall worth. Therefore, damage to reputation, which spreads virally through social and other media channels, can have a significant financial impact. Our product is designed to tackle both the actual loss of revenue and the costs of containment."

Of course the best way to prevent a PR disaster is to monitor your online reputation so you're aware of murmurs before they become screams. Using Revinate, a hotel can see every tweet, tagged photo or video, public Facebook post or blog entry about your property in real time. These notifications become your best defense against a potentially harmful story that has the power to be retweeted and shared. Adress the issue immediately with the guest and you can circumvent the need for disaster recovery later.

Hoteliers Guide to Finding Your Voice in Management Responses

A few months ago I spoke with a couple of clients who were struggling with their management responses on TripAdvisor. The first client was in corporate communications for a medium-sized brand and noticed that each property was responding to reviews in a very different way. He felt that the brand was missing a big branding opportunity by ignoring the voice of the brand in the responses. He was interested in providing some guidelines to his general managers around tone and voice. The second client was the GM of an independent hotel who felt like his responses were becoming stale and sounded too professional given the quirky nature of the hotel. He wanted some ideas for sprucing up his responses.

As a result of these conversations we went to work putting together a guide that allows properties and brands to find their voice in external communications. It contains exercises that staff can do together to hone in on what makes their property or brand special, and then provides ideas around language and tone.

Download the guide here.