The Revinate Blog

Observations about Hotels and Social Media in 2011

As we welcome 2012, I wanted to share some observations based on a year spent marketing to and working with hoteliers. The industry has made incredible progress this year when it comes to monitoring and managing online reviews and social media. Here are my top ten observations:

1)   As the year progressed we found it less and less and less necessary to educate hoteliers on WHY online reputation is so important. Instead, the conversation focused on the resources needed to succeed in an ever-changing online world. Many hotels we work with have hired dedicated social media managers this year to respond to reviews and manage engagement on social media channels.

2)   More and more hotels recognize the importance of responding to reviews. By the end of 2011, 73% of our customers were publicly responding to online reviews.  (44% of all hotels we track (customers and competitors) are publicly responding to reviews.)

3)   Hotels are finally starting to realize that social media response time is critical. As hotels begin to get on board with Twitter and Facebook they realize that clients expect an almost immediate response to tweets and posts. At the same time, guests begin treating social media administrators as online concierges, asking pre-travel questions about where to eat and what to do when they visit. The hotels that are nailing social media are providing value and acting as trusted friends without delays in response time.

4)   2011 was the year that brands and management groups began including social media metrics in incentive plans. As a result, Revinate introduced GS2 Reports, which allow hoteliers to set goals and monitor their hotels’ performance on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis.

5)   Recognizing the operational value of knowing what guests like and dislike about their hotels, clients began requesting the same service for their restaurants. Hence, Revinates for Restaurants is launched in December, 2011. The service is focused on the review sites most important to restaurants, such as OpenTable, Urban Spoon, Google and more.

6)   Recognizing the value of being on page one of TripAdvisor, hotels continue to focus their efforts on improving their ranking on TripAdvisor’s Popularity Index. Some have great success by encouraging reviews and improving their ratings. Others are able to exceed their comp set’s performance in terms of review rating and frequency, but find themselves unable to climb up, leading some to question TripAdvisor's black-box algorithm.

7)   Hotels begin using great online reviews to motivate and reward employees. Many management team meetings now include reading reviews and recognizing employees that are mentioned by name or function. Revinate clients use Sentiment Analysis reports to quickly isolate these reviews.

8)   Hotels are using social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and foursquare as vehicles for offering loyalty rewards. Consumers are becoming trained to check-in via foursquare or check Twitter and Facebook before booking to see if there are any upgrades to be had by knowing the word of the month or promo code to mention at check-in.

9)   Review volumes continue to climb both on online review sites and OTAs. This year Google began encouraging reviews, both on Google Places and Hotel Finder and removing 3^rd party reviews from search results. As a result, Revinate begins not only tracking Google reviews, but also investing in capacity and performance as we scale to many millions of reviews and tens of thousands of hotels.

10) Finally, 2011 marked the year that hoteliers, and businesses in general, began thinking of reviews as a currency that can directly impact business. We saw hotel brands, such as Starwood and Marriott, collect their own reviews and publish them on their own brand sites, doing away with the middle man.

Please let me know if you have other observations about 2011 in the comments section. Happy New Year!

2011 - How Did We Do?

As we come to the end of 2011, I wanted to share some stats related to our clients' performance. The Revinate database contains paying customers as well as their comp set hotels so we can easily track the performance of both customers and non-customers. Across every metric we examined, our customers are out-performing non-customers. See what happens when you take the time to manage your online reputation? Here are some reasons to be proud to call yourself a Revinator:

* Revinate customers are far more likely to publicly respond to a TripAdvisor review than non-customers. Close to 73% of Revinate customers responded to a review in the second half of 2011. Only 44% of non-customers publicly responded to a review in the same time period.

* The average TripAdvisor rating of a Revinate customer for the second half of the year was 4.16 (out of 5). The average rating of non-customers was 4.018. A narrow victory!

* Revinate clients are quicker to respond to reviews than non-clients, shaving more than day off the average response time.

Want something to aspire to? Holiday Inn St Louis Forrest Hill responded to 100% of their reviews. And their response was published 2.938 days after the initial review was posted. With time for TripAdvisor to moderate, that's speedy! Oh, and their average rating happens to be 4.562!

And finally, since our clients often ask whether they should be responding to positive reviews as well as negative ones, I wanted to share what your colleagues do. Your colleagues responded to 28% of 4 and 5 star reviews. 32% of 3 star reviews and 46.52% of 1 and 2 star reviews.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

Why TripAdvisor is the Content Leader

I write reviews. Why? In addition to being one of the few people I know who loves to write, I am thankful that there is a platform for sharing thoughts and opinions with thousands of people.  It's a very democratic concept and I take full advantage of it. But recently I have noticed that TripAdvisor is doing more and more to appeal to my ego to encourage me to write more reviews. The company's ability to drive reviews is undoubtedly what has made the company the market leader in terms of content, with more than 50 million reviews and opinions.

First, as soon as 100 people have ready my newly posted review, I get an email letting me know about the milestone.

Then, I get periodic updates about how many people have read my library of reviews. The last email I received (shown on the top left) blew me away. More than 6000 people read a review I wrote about La Casa Que Canta in Mexico. My voice is being heard, and not just in the United States. At the bottom of the email I got to see the demographics of my readers.

Finally, TripAdvisor does a great job of encouraging me to write reviews by displaying badges that appeal to my ego. I am currently a senior reviewer but if I write 3 more reviews I will be a contributor. Badges, used in many online businesses that require consumer action, have become a great virtual reward to incentivize consumers.

And when the hotel responds to my reviews and thanks me for taking the time to share my thoughts, I always feel good. As a consumer I feel like the system is working, from the review site platform to the hotel, to the community.

 

 

TravelPost Site Changes

Whoa! What happened to the reviews on TravelPost? They're gone. In their place is only the star rating and links to Yelp, TripAdvisor and Hotels.com. TravelPost was never a content king and content needs to be fresh to be engaging, so this change makes sense. The one constant in this game is change, and we will continue to evolve as the review sites evolve. Stay tuned for more information.

Why Hoteliers Still Have Control in the Age of Reviews and Social Media

When I talk about online reputation management, I often say that power has shifted to the consumer in the age of social media. While at first this sounds like bad news to the hotelier, it's not. The shift simply means that marketing must be done in a new way.

Here is how I like to think about it: in this new age of public reviews and social media, hotel guests now own a critical piece of a key hospitality marketing channel, but it's important to note that they only control the delivery of the message. They do not own the content of the message. The message is still controlled by you. If you provide incredibly great guest experiences, that becomes the message that guests will communicate for you. In other words, the communication of your marketing message, which once required hefty media buys, has now in part been naturally outsourced to guests as they turn more and more to social media to share their experiences. It's also important to note that your message is now a very true, unvarnished and transparent reflection of the service, amenities and facilities you provide. So while you still control it, you have less opportunity to "spin" it.

Before social media, hoteliers were able to market their properties with fancy photos and catchy marketing verbiage. Today, consumers turn to friends and networks for information on hotels. They seek out and validate options on Twitter and Facebook and review sites and OTAs such as TripAdvisor, Priceline and Orbitz. Because consumers own the communication, a hotel's reputation is now a more direct and true reflection of service, quality, facilities, value and more.

This shift presents incredible opportunities for a savvy hotelier because WOM (word of mouth) marketing is now more powerful and viral than ever. A hotel that excels at quality and service will drive new business organically. And hotels that can create special experiences that get guests talking will be especially rewarded. With the prevalence of SmartPhones, a guest's moment of joy can be tweeted on Twitter and shared on Facebook or Google+ in just seconds to thousands of people. (Here's a good example from my recent trip to Texas.)

On the flip side, hotels that might have operational issues will know as soon as a review is written about perceived problems and shortcomings. If a program is put in place to manage reviews and route feedback appropriately, hotels can quickly fix issues and improve their reputations. (It is for this reason that we added a ticketing system to Revinate.) To avoid problems before they hatch, I always advise hotels to really examine their Web sites and business listings to make sure it mirrors the experience. A fancy 'spin' or misleading photos will only lead to disappointment, which you can be sure will arise in the review when the guest does what he does best  - -  tell it like it is.

Great new data about reviews and their importance

HotelNewsNow just published a great article with some exciting new stats from PhoCusWright about the importance of online reviews on OTA's. For example:

• According to a PhoCusWright study of 27,000 U.S. hotels comprising 65 major brands, two out of every three online traveler reviews were posted to an OTA. The remaining third, or 34%, were posted to a travel review site like TripAdvisor. (Of the reviews that Revinate monitors, we see 27.5% on TripAdvisor. See our distribution here.)
  
• Roughly 7% of unique visitors to any major OTA complete a booking within the same month. Of those who click through to read a full review, that percentage bumps up to 13%.
• Facebook, foursquare and Twitter helped the number of U.S. online travel reviews grow from roughly 880,000 in 2008 to nearly 1.1 million in 2010, according to PhoCusWright.
• Anywhere from 10,000 to 25,000 U.S consumers went to book a hotel room immediately after visiting a social review site like TripAdvisor from 2008 to 2010. Facebook dwarfed that count, sending upwards to half a million referrals during 2009 and 2010.

So what does this mean for hoteliers? For one thing, remember that you should be monitoring your reviews across the entire Web, not just on TripAdvisor. Revinate clients can use the reviews overview report to see which reviews sites and OTAs have a lot of reviews for your property, and which ones don't. Don't forget to see where your competitors are getting their reviews from and if you don't have fresh content on those OTAs, it's time to start encouraging your guests to write reviews.

With Facebook driving so many referrals, make sure you get your guests talking when they're on site. On a recent trip to Texas I was the recipient of a great amenity and I immediately turned to my social networks to share the news.   The post I shared with my friends is on the left. While proving an amenity to each and every guest isn't realistic, watch your Twitter activity to see who is tweeting while on site. These people are prime targets for surprise and delight since they're active sharers and will likely tell their networks about any extraordinary experiences on site.

Read the whole HotelNewsNow article here.

Distribution of Reviews

Revinate customers can click on the Reviews Overview Report to see where their reviews are coming from for any particular time period. I often get asked to look at a customer's chart to see whether it's 'normal' or not. While the chart will differ greatly from client to client depending on the OTAs that they work with as well as the markets that they are in, I wanted to provide a better answer as to the norm.

So a few weeks ago I asked our engineers to dive into our data to look at the distributions of all the reviews for the thousands of hotels that we monitor. Here's what we found:

27.5% come from TripAdvisor

18.25% come from Hotels.com

18.02% come from Priceline

10.11% come from Expedia

6.6% come from Orbitz

5.73% come from Booking.com

And the other review sites each have less than 5% share.

Please note that these numbers were run before we expanded our coverage to include large Asia Pacific and European review sources.