The Revinate Blog

Why Customer Service and Social are Linked

American Express recently published the American Express Global Customer Service Barometer and the results show why it is so important to provide great customer service on social platforms. While the report isn't tailored to the hospitality industry, it's a great source of data for hotels and restaurants wondering whether to devote resources to social media.

For one, the report says, "consumers who have used social media for service tell significantly more people about their service experiences, and say that they'd spend 21% more on companies who deliver great service - compared to 13% on average." In other words, if you can wow your socially savvy guests doing what you do best - providing great service - they will tell others.  How can you identify your socially active guests? Monitor foursquare, Twitter and Facebook for any check-ins or mentions of your hotel. Revinate users can easily monitor these mentions in real-time using the Revinate dashboard, and even click through to the person's Twitter or Facebook page, if public, to learn more about him/her. As soon as you catch a mention or check-in, respond to the guest to show that you're listening and responsive to feedback or service issues over social media.

We have amassed great stories from hotel clients that have quickly resolved service issues over Twitter and turned an annoyed customer into a loyal guest that tells others about the high level of service he/she experienced at the hotel. Hyatt Regency Chicago, for example, monitors conference hash tags in the hotel for any facilities issues and responds immediately, wowing the conference attendees and followers with swift action. And it's not just complaints that you want to monitor. Four Seasons comes to mind as a hotel client that has had incredible (public) results sending amenities up to guests' rooms as an extra show of gratitude and service when they receive a check-in or tweet.

In addition, the American Express report shows that "consumers who have used social media for service in the last year are willing to pay a 21% premium at companies that provide great service." So rather than thinking about the expense of monitoring social media for service issues, you can think of it as an investment in your sales programs as happy, socially engaged customers are willing to spend more with you.

Read the whole report here.

 

Social Media Contingency Plans

In the early days of social media, many brands were fearful about customers having the ability to share their brand experiences across the Web. For the first time, brands were faced with not being able to control the public message around their products and services. As time went on, brands became more comfortable as they saw that the majority of experiences being shared online are positive and even when negative experiences arise, watchful brands have the opportunity to publicly show they’re listening and taking care of their customers. But what if the worst-case scenario becomes reality and there’s an outpouring of negative sentiment?

Just last week, McDonald’s was hit with a PR nightmare when a social media campaign they ran turned ugly. The company introduced a new hashtag and promoted tweets using it. The initial tweet read: “When you make something w/ pride, people can taste it.” McD potato supplier #McDstories All of a sudden, people began sharing their McDonald’s horror stories, ranging from foreign objects in the food to health problems that resulted from eating the food. But, the McDonald’s social media team had a contingency plan and less than two hours after the start of the campaign, they stopped promoting the tweets.

McDonald's social media director Rick Wion made a statement about the situation, saying, “Last Thursday, we planned to use two different hashtags during a promoted trend – #meetthefarmers and #mcdstories. While #meetthefarmers was used for the majority of the day and successful in raising awareness of the Supplier Stories campaign, #mcdstories did not go as planned. We quickly pulled #mcdstories and it was promoted for less than two hours.” While the tweets are still easily viewed by searching for the hashtag on Twitter, Rick did everything he could do. As everyone in social media knows, once something is out on the web, there’s vitually no way to remove it completely. All you can do is hope that new, positive messages push bad content down.

So what is the lesson here? First and foremost, you must stay on top of what is being said about your brand. When new customers first get access to the Revinate dashboard, many of them are floored by the amount of content that is out there about their hotels or restaurants. A comprehensive listening platform is key, as it is virtually impossible to manually find all the mentions of your brand without one.

Second, hoteliers do have the power to remove some negative comments if they appear on review sites and are clearly fake or violate the site’s rules. TripAdvisor, for example, allows hoteliers to petition the site to have fake or accidental reviews removed. For example, if you don’t have a pool and a review talks about an experience at the hotel pool, that review would likely be removed. But, if that fails or if the review is legitimate, but negative, many sites allow management responses. Management responses are critical because they allow the business to tell its side of the story and apologize for not meeting guest expectations. As research has shown, a management response can virtually wipe out the negative sentiment from a bad review.

Finally, hoteliers must think through all campaigns and ensure they have a plan in place for difference scenarios, especially if you’re asking for customers to share content. For example, what will you do if you ask guests to post their best trip photos to your Facebook page, and they post photos of your renovation or stained carpets? Will you remove the photos? Comment on them? Allow them to remain? Most importantly, the social media manager should have executive buy-in to ensure that he/she isn’t held liable if and when negative comments roll in. Brands should have a document that outlines the response they will take across different scenarios, along with the anticipated response time. This document should be approved by the heads of all department, as well as the GM, to ensure the whole team is on the same page.

Here is an example to help get you thinking:

Customer Action	Response Time	Responsible	Action
Negative Tweet	15 minutes	Social Media Manager	Tweet: Please DM me so I can reach out personally to help you resolve your issue
Negative Facebook Post	1 hour	Social Media Manager	Comment asking poster to email you so you can resolve issue
Negative review	1 day	DOSM	Investigate / Public response when allowed and reach out privately if you know reviewer's contact info.
YouTube video showing ugly side of hotel	30 minutes	DOSM	Email account owner requesting a call to apologize and discuss his experiences

It's OK to Ask for Engagement

This week I am in Antwerp, staying at the beautiful Crowne Plaza Antwerp hotel. The hotel is outside the city center but it maintains a very hip city vibe with modern furniture and lighting and some very cool touches. For example, the carpet in the restaurant contains the image of the city from Google Maps. While I will save the highlights for my TripAdvisor review, I was struck by the welcome note left in my room by the General Manager, Hans Wils. It read:

Post a message on Facebook to let your friends know you are staying at the beautiful Crowne Plaza Antwerpen. Don't forget to check-in in Foursquare where we welome you. Tweet the world that the Antwerp panoramic view is breathtaking. 

And for your Grandma or Grandpa... Send them this little traditional greeting card from Antwerp as they might not be online yet!

I love this touch! It's light-hearted and personal without being pushy and it lets you know that the hotel is active on social media and will welcome you when you engage. As I wrote in my previous post, consumers that engage with brands on social media are likely to spend more money, so it's in the best interest of every hotel to encourage guests to seek it out on Facebook, Twitter and foursquare.

Social Media Ambush Webinar Materials

This morning Daniel Edward Craig and I hosted a Webinar about what to do when guests threaten you with social media retaliation or use social media to request special attention. While social media brings incredible opportinuies for hoteliers, it can also bring out the greediness in people who understand the power of the platforms to spread opinions. We shared some real scenarios and discussed how best to respond.

Please find a link to the Webinar slides here.  You can also view the Webinar below. As always, we would love any feedback.

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.

Social Media ROI

What if I told you that in less than 2 minutes a day you could find people actively looking for recommendations of places to stay in your city and reaching them was as simple as sending a Tweet or posting a message. Social Media Searches is a feature in Revinate that many clients are using to book real business. They set up searches to try to unearth people looking for recommendations of places to stay in your city. For example, they might search for the following search terms - - Chicago Hotel Recommendation, Best Place Stay Chicago, etc. Here's a real example of the results from one of our Chicago properties.

Since we just show the first four results, when you click 'View All' you can see a feed of all the posts by source. If a social media manager or sales manager spends just a few minutes every day engaging with the folks looking for recommendations on Twitter and Facebook, you hotel can easily find transient business.

Finding opportunities is just the first step. Next, you must engage. On Twitter, my suggestion is to send a tweet from the hotel account that says, "Saw you're looking for a Chi hotel. What are you looking for? Downtown? Full Service?" Make sure you fit the person's needs before suggesting your hotel. If it is a fit, tell the person why. For example, "We are on MM, close to great shopping, restaurants etc. Let me know if I can help with reservation." So few hotels are listening and responding that your attention to detail is sure to impress.

We also show people with public Facebook pages who are seeking recommendations from their networks. Engaging on Facebook is a little trickier since many times people don't realize that they're page is public. I suggest sending the person a private message that says, "Hi. I noticed that you are looking for a Chicago hotel for you and five girlfriends. Since you have a public profile, I thought I would send you a quick note to let you know that we would love to host your group. We have a full-service spa, are centrally located and have played host to many girls weekends. I would love to talk to you more about what you're planning. Even if you have already found a hotel, I'm happy to offer suggestions of things to do. Please feel free to reach out to me at 555.555.5555. Thank you. Michelle" Again, you don't want to lead on price. You want to lead with service.

Revinate also unearths people looking for recommendations on forums and blogs. While you don't want to sell your hotel outright, you know your city better than anyone, so share some insights on things to do in the area and the hottest new restaurants. And, if your hotel sounds like a good fit for what the prospect is looking for, it is perfectly appropriate to say that you would love to help with reservations if interested, otherwise, you would love if he/she stops by and asks for you as you would love to meet in person. If they don't stay with you this time, you'll get them next time!

 

 

Revinate Integrates Klout Scores

Revinate clients will notice something new when they click on TweetConcierge or their Social Media Searches. Thanks to popular demand, we have integrated Klout scores into Revinate.

Klout has quickly emerged as a leader in helping brands measure influence. The scores they assign to users range from 1 to 100 with higher scores representing stronger influence. To read more about how to read Klout scores, please click here.

Klout integration allows Revinate users to see a tweeter's level of influence at a glance. We also show a list of "recent influencers" for each Social Media Search. Recent influencers are the most influential Twitter users talking about the topic. Click on the Klout logo or Klout score to see more about a particular user's area of influence, or click on their Twitter name to see their Twitter profile.

We know that adding Klout scores will help hoteliers who are looking to engage more closely with their guests. We know that part of being a hotelier is providing remarkable service, and it's always nice when your high service levels and excellent amenities are mentioned by guests when they tweet. Klout will help you see the true reach of a tweet and help you focus your efforts on the most influencer customers. Enjoy.

Webinar Materials - Facebook and Twitter For Hotels

Thank you to everyone that joined us today for our Webinar. We hope that those who joined were able to learn something from the examples of hotels doing great, and not-so-great things on Facebook and Twitter. A special thank you to Benji Greenberg of BCV for his social media expertise.

If you missed the event or would like to share the materials with your colleagues, please find a PDF of the presentation here. And please find a recording of the event below. We would also love any feedback in the comments section, below.

Loading playlist ...

Facebook and Twitter for Hotels – A Best Practices Webinar

Facebook and Twitter for Hotels – A Best Practices Webinar

With Guest Speaker, Benji Greenberg, President of BCV

While most properties have already signed up for Twitter accounts and Facebook Pages, the majority are still not sure how they should be using the social networks.  Join Benji Greenberg of BCV and Michelle Wohl of Revinate for an hour of straight talk, example sharing and best practices for driving loyalty and sales.

 

During the session we will:

• take a realistic look at how much time it takes to build relationships online and how to resource for social media
• look at examples of Hotel Facebook Pages that get it right and discuss why they work
• discuss ROI and what metrics you should and shouldn’t measure
• discuss the pros and cons of offering deals to followers
• provide advice about what to do with ‘squeaky wheels’ and irate customers

 Two sessions will be offered to accommodate multiple time zones:

Wednesday, April 20^th – 8:00am Pacific / 11:00am Eastern RSVP here.

Wednesday, April 20^th – 11:00am Pacific / 2:00pm Eastern RSVP here.

Extending Great Service Beyond the Stay

Revinate customer, Mark Hopkins San Francisco, was recently praised in a guest's blog for its excellent customer service, before and during a hotel stay.

Using Twitter as an extension of its already great customer service, the hotel engaged with Andrew before he checked in and then surprised and delighted him with a great room, free internet access and a nice welcome note. Read the guest's account of his experience here. Note how the exceptional service he receives makes him want to write a great review on TripAdvisor. If you provide exceptional service, guests will want to share their experiences, as Andrew proves.

Congrats to Mark Hopkins San Francisco and BCV, the firm behind the hotel's incredible social media engagement, for this social media victory.