Thank you to everyone who joined us for our most recent free webinar on Reviews and Online Reputation Management best practices. We have held this webinar several times this year, and each time the content has been updated and well-received by attendees. As we do after every session, we are providing you with both the webinar slide presentation as well as video recording so that you can review the material covered. The assets are below:
Thank you everyone for joining us for our webinar yesterday. Also, we'd like to say a special thank you to buuteeqfor co-hosting the session with us. In case you missed the webinar, here is a recording of the presentation, a copy of the deck used and a compilation of Twitter notes.
If you have any questions about buuteeq's digital marketing services, please email info@buuteeq.com.
Also, please subscribe to the blog for more tips on how to manage your hotel or brand's online reputation and social media presence.
Finally, please take advantage of all the free content that we develop for hoteliers by visiting our Best Practices page and signing up for future Webinars with us. And, if you liked what you saw and would like pricing information or want to learn more about Revinate, please let us know by e-mailing info@revinate.com.
Thanks to those that attended our Social Media 101 webinar on Tuesday. Both Ashley and I enjoyed sharing tips for managing your social media presence across various social media platforms. We hope that you are able to put our tips and tricks into action.
As promised, here is both the recording of the presentation as well as the Powerpoint deck we used:
Also, please subscribe to our blog for more tips on how to manage your hotel or brand's online reputation and social media presence.
Finally, please take advantage of all the free content that we develop for hoteliers by visiting our Best Practices page and signing up for future Webinars with us. And, if you liked what you saw and would like pricing information or want to learn more about Revinate, please let us know by contacting us at info@revinate.com!
This week we parterned with Blue Magnet Interactivefor a webinar focused on how to manage, measure and report on social media campaigns. With the emergence of new social analytic tools, figuring out the ROI of social campaigns has never been more manageable. During our webinar, we addressed how to go about this entire process, from setting campaigns goals and objectives to defining soft and hard key performance indicators (KPIs). In case you missed our session, you can listen to the recordingor view the slide presentation by clicking on the preceding links. We also live tweeted the event and took copious notes during the session. Next week we will be posting again on this topic as well as updating our webinar listing for April, so stay tuned! As always, be sure to engage with us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated on the latest trends in social media and online reputation.
We first want to thank everyone who participated in our Reviews and Online Reputation Management 101 webinar on Thursday. We received lots of great feedback via Twitterand we were excited to see so many participants fully engaged. In case you missed the session, you can download the presentation and listen to the recording by clicking on the preceding links. We also encourage you to check out theReputation 101 recapwe posted in January which outlined all of the review sites that permit management responses.
Tomorrow we will be hosting another free webinar on Social Media Campaigns - Strategies and Metrics where we will share tips and examples for creating successful social media campaigns and performance reports. In preparation for this event, we posted several social media analytics stories on the blog over the last few weeks - one focusing on how to evaluate your hotel's Twitter performanceand the second highlighting some social media analytics strategies and toolsto leverage. As social media measurement has become a paramount priority for hotel marketers, this session is sure to be rich with valuable information. As is customary with all of our webinar events, we hope that you join us on Twitter during the session by using the #smcampaigns hashtag.
Yesterday, we hosted a webinar that outlined five ways hotels can improve their online reputation. By measuring their reputation management efforts, involving the entire operations team, and tying compensation rewards to reputation achievements, hoteliers will see improvements in their overall guest satisfaction scores and, in turn, will receive higher review ratings. In case you missed this informative session, you can listen to the recordingand view the presentation deck.
As our Cornell University co-host published in a recent study, proactive online reputation has a direct impact on your hotel's bottom line; their Center for Hospitality Research (CHR) report shows that a one-point increase in a hotel's average user rating on a 5-point scale makes potential customers 13.5% more likely to book that hotel. Moreover, hotels with great online reviews can charge more than those that do not rate as high. Finally, hotels that use social media for service and engage in the space to surprise and delight customers earn more positive guest sentiment scores.
Finally, we received a number of questions come in during the session via our live Twitter chatthat we would like to answer in greater depth here:
How again can property management be awarded bonuses or compensation benefits for better online reputation?
By paying close attention to Revinate's guest satisfaction (Gs2) reports, hotels can leverage aggregated hotel review data to set goals for hotel staff to meet across all functional areas. Overall guest sentiment scores, for example, can make a valuable incentive for hotel general managers. Department heads could be awarded bonuses based upon
departmental sentiment, while front desk managers could be given goals around response time or social media management. To learn how social media will change hospitality compensation plans, have a look at our blog post on the topic.
What are some ways that hotels can involve their entire hotel team when it comes to online reputation management?
A few ideas that we covered during the webinar included having your front desk employees engage with guests on
social media to maintain responsiveness or offering spot bonuses to employees who are recognized by name in online reviews. To ensure that all employees see this feedback, one of our webinar attendees shared that her hotel posts all positive reviews in employee elevators, locker rooms and cafeteria. Ideas like these will guarantee staff involvement and engagement.
Is there any data available that is focused on the limited service or economy hotel sectors? A lot of the studies discussing the relationship between online reputation management and property performance seem to focus on the luxury segment.
While the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research study showed a direct relationship between revenue per available room and online reputation scores, the report did not include the economy segment. Nevertheless, the study showed that revenue grew by chain scale from the top down: A 1% boost in reputation led to a .49% increase in RevPAR at luxury hotels, .74% at upper upscale, .83% at upscale, 1.13% at upper midscale and 1.42% at midscale. Moreover, about 20% of our 15,000+ customer base fall into this limited service segment and firmly believe that online reputation is equally, if not more important, in the category.
Thanks to everyone who joined us for our webinar yesterday. We hope you enjoyed our discussion of how social media, mobile applications, a strong web presence, SEO and display retargeting are foundations of success for hotels today. If you missed the event, please feel free to review a recording by clicking on the following link Digital Genius 2013.
The Rewards of being a Genius
In this webinar we showed that excellence in social, mobile, and web functionality clearly increases revenue. In the 22 hotel brands where revenue was tracked, there was a strong correlation between higher digital IQ and increased RevPAR. Hotels that excelled at marketing in the digital space experienced a 5 to 15% increase in Revenue Per Available Room between 2010 and 2011. Many hotels with less focus on digital experienced stagnant growth in RevPAR over the same period. This proves that investment in social media, mobile applications, and web clearly pays dividends.
Topics in Depth
First Click Attribution - There were a few questions about first click vs. last click attribution during the event. We wanted to provide some valuable resources to those who wish to learn more. In a recent report entitled “Why Marketers aren’t giving Social the Credit it Deserves” Adobe discusses the variance in ROI attribution when a first click vs. a last click model is used.
Google Keyword Finder - You can access the Google Keyword Finder here to get a sense of how much search traffic that certain keywords generate each month. Remember, global results show worldwide searches and local results show all searches from the US. It is possible to changes your primary market to another country for our overseas attendees.
Display Retargeting – For those with questions about retargeting, check out this article from Digital Day entitled “Why Retargeting is the Hottest Area in Ad Tech”. The article covers types of retargeting, expected conversion rates, and how Intercontinental uses retargeting.
Again thank you for joining this webinar. Please comment, below, if you have any further questions. Consider joining us on February 19th for our next webinar, Reviews and Online Reputation Management 101. To learn about all our upcoming events please visit www.revinate.com.
During today's Social Media 101 webinar, we promised a follow-up that offered a few useful exercises that will help you craft unique social media messages for your brand or hotel property. This process begins by determining your hotel brand's extrinsic values – anything that is of interest to your customer outside of your core product. In order to do this, you must first determine your social media values by asking yourself these questions:
What do customers want to
know about our hotel?
What delights our customers?
What questions do our best customers ask when we interface with them?
What makes our hotel unique?
By considering these questions, you can begin to consider what your social media strategy will look like. The following three exercises will specifically guide you through this process, from understanding your brand's social media worth to growing your social audience.
Exercise 1:
Exercise 2:
Exercise 3:
Credit: These exercises are largely repurposed from Dave Kerpen's book, Likeable Social Media.
During the webinar, we received a lot of great feedback and questions from the audience. One specific question that deserves a detailed response regarded which review sites allowed management responses. At Revinate, we're always paying very close attention to the ever-evolving policies for each travel review site - which sites allow public management responses, which sites allow private ones, and so forth. While not every review site's procedure for review replies is as user-friendly or intuitive as it could be, we'll always make sure that we make it as easy as possible for you to respond within Revinate.
As a Revinate customer, you have the ability within the dashboard to take action on incoming reviews and create some form of review response. In order to use this reply function in Revinate, you will first need to claim and create your Business Owner profile with each site. Once you have obtained your login credentials from the sites, you can start responding to your reviews with the help of our Review Response Assistant!
But what does this process look like for each review site, and how do you go about obtaining said credentials? Rest assured, our rockstar Client Services & Support team is here to answer these questions:
TripAdvisorallows public management responses. Next to each review on Revinate you'll find the "Reply at Tripadvisor" link to respond to the review. To start replying, you must register as an owner at http://www.tripadvisor.com/Owners. Note that TripAdvisor also allows you to send a reviewer a private message which will be only sent directly to the review contributor.
Yelpallows hoteliers to post a public Owner Comment. Revinate provides a deep link next to each Yelp review. To start replying, you need to register at Yelp Business Owners first. Note that, like TripAdvisor, Yelp also allows private messaging to reviewers.
Booking.comallows hoteliers to only contact the author directly. The response is not public. These responses are private. Revinate provides a deep link next to each Booking.com review. You must register as a Partner to start replying at their Partner Center.
Google+ Local (replaced Google Places) allows for public management responses. The response is public and Revinate provides a link, "Reply at Google", that will take you to the review page in your Google+ Local listing. In order to reply, you will first need to Claim Your Listing. If you are having trouble verifying your Google+ Local listing, note that Google is now providing phone support for verification issues.
Travelocityhas a "Comment" button located at the bottom of each review to allow for management replies. This functionality also allows hoteliers to add photos and videos to the response. Use the "reply" link in Revinate to begin your public management response.
OpenTablereviews have a "Contact Author" link that restaurateurs can use to access their OpenTable management portal and contact the author directly. This is not a public response, but rather a private message that you can send to the author of the review. To set up your restaurant profile, go to the Open Table Restaurant Center.
Rakutenallows for public management responses on the Japanese site. Revinate provides a link that will lead you to respond. Before you start replying, a hotelier needs to set up an Owner Profile.
Trivagoallows for public management responses. Revinate provides a reply link and will capture the responses. To set up your hotel profile, please register on their Hotel Owner Page.
HolidayCheckallows for public management responses on their site. Revinate provides a "reply to review" link that will lead you to respond. To set up your hotel profile, please register at the Hotel Manager Page.
Zooverallows public management responses. Revinate provides a "reply at Zoover" link that will take you directly to the section to start responding. Before you can start to respond, you need to register as an owner on their Accommodation Owners Page.
HRSallows for public management responses. Revinate provides a "reply at HRS Portal" link and will capture the responses. To set up your hotel profile, please fill out an Application form with HRS.
Qypeallows for public management responses. Revinate provides a "reply at Qype/My Business" link which will take you to the Business Owners page to login. If you have not yet created an owners profile to begin responding, you can register on the Business Owners Page.
Wotifallows hoteliers to reply publicly to a review. Revinate provides a "reply at Wotif" link which will redirect you to the Suppliers Extranet page to login. If you have not yet registered as a supplier, you can register on the Supplier's Registration Request form.
Today we hosted a webinar on how leveraging online reviews and social media can help hotel operators capture more information about customers than ever before and use that information to improve hotel operations. For those of you who missed the session, we have a recording ready and waiting for you, as well as some key pointers and takeaways below. To watch the webinar at your convenience, please click here.
Why is Online Review Data Critical for Operations?
Hotels and restaurants that sign up with Revinate have taken the first step towards managing their online
reputations. But the real benefit is using the data that Revinate's technology solution provides to make operational improvements and base critical decisions on.
Online review data is critical for operations for four reasons. First, it is the best source of free, readily
accessible, real time data about your property. Second, the data's public nature means that it influences other peoples' purchase decisions so offering services and amenities that guests love and write
about will drive sales as more and more people visit online review sites to validate decisions prior to booking. Third, with sentiment analysis you can pinpoint what guests love and don't love about your property and identify where you
might need to dedicate more resources. Finally, the close analysis of online
reviews allows you to make better decisions because it’s based on voice of
the customer data, making guest satisfaction decisions from large capital improvements to small service-level changes easier for you to determine.
Why is Sentiment Analysis More Effective Than Traditional Satisfaction Surveys?
Many of you might think that the benefits listed above sound very similar to those of traditional guest satisfaction surveys. While we definitely see value in soliciting
guests for feedback, we think that online review analysis is the
next generation of guest satisfaction for a few reason.
First, closed-ended questions, such as
“please rate your satisfaction with the amenities in your room on a
scale of 1
to 10,” will not yield specific data about what a customer liked or disliked
about his room-based amenities. With traditional surveys, only a small number of
questions can be asked of each customer in order to keep response rates
high, which is inherently constricting. Moreover, survey questions only focus on areas hotels feel need to be measured, which can lead to missed topics that are actually more important to customers. Finally, in a "please tell us if we met your expectations" closed-ended survey scenario, a hotel that you have already stayed at and you know offers incredible
levels of service may score lower (e.g. they might "meet your expectation" - you expected great service and received it) than a hotel you had never stayed in and delivered amazing service (e.g. they "exceeded your expectations" - you had no expectations and were delighted). In an open-ended online review survey, this problem is averted, as the guest would attest to the amazing service regardless and have room to offer more detailed, specific feedback.
Online review feedback can be analyzed and measured through sentiment analysis technology, giving hotel managers a variety of ways to track customer preferences. A
major advantage to online review analysis is that you can delve into the data
of a sentiment analysis tool any time, rather than having to craft a question
on a survey and then wait for a response. For example, a traditional
survey question about guest room amenities may provide a level of satisfaction
from 1 to 10. But an analysis of customer sentiment about guest room amenities
becomes a great way to learn highly specific preference information. For example, Revinate’s
sentiment analysis tool can show sentiment about amenities in over ten detailed categories, allowing you to precisely identify what guests love and whether there are issues that might need immediate attention.
Management does not have to look far to identify hot button customer issues when looking at sentiment analysis data. For example, if a
property finds a room odor problem through analysis of reviews and then invests
in a new carpet cleaning service, they will want to measure a return. Depending on the frequency of reviews, they may see improvement in room
sentiment scores in as little as a few days to a week. Revinate’s sentiment analysis tool provides search
capability for words like “odor” and “carpets” to read specific reviews that
mention these terms. With
traditional guest satisfaction surveys, it would be necessary to change the survey, add an odor
question, test it, wait for sufficient responses, and then report the
results. The issue with asking such a detailed question on a survey is
that you may introduce question bias as customers think hard about the smell in
the room, when they might not have flagged it as an issue to begin with. If they were only slightly dissatisfied with odor they might answer that it was
a big issue because the question brought it to their attention. With
sentiment analysis, you only see the results of reviews where guests brought
the odor issue into the discussion, so their insights are more genuine.
Sentiment analysis can also help hoteliers identify trends
across time. A recent Revinate customer began highlighting sentiment
analysis information about staff service levels in their property-wide staff
meetings. By having detailed information about service levels by
department and sharing that information with the staff, they were able to see
significant gains in customer satisfaction. By showing increases in guest
satisfaction with staff month by month, the management was able to see the
trend continue as more employees could see the outcome of their increased
satisfaction focus. This customer moved their service sentiment scores
from 73% to 82% positive satisfaction and received a healthy bump in positive
reviews as well.
How Can Online Reputation Data Incentivize Better Staff Performance?
Using sentiment analysis to determine
compensation for hotel managers is another way to improve operations. Sentiment information can yield very specific details about service elements
and can improve the influence that performance plans have on management. Unlike
surveys, data is available quickly and inputs from customers are open-ended and
unbiased. Compensation structures can focus on monthly or quarterly
results and ensure positive attention to service issues more quickly. In
addition, because sentiment information is so specific, plans can be designed
to measure areas of weakness in a manager’s otherwise strong departmental
performance. Tying compensation plans to reviews is not a new trend and
reflects the importance of reputation management for hotels today. However, the level of detail provided by sentiment analysis means that every
service department from housekeeping to food and beverage can now be
incentivized individually.
The Bottom Line
Contained in public reviews and social media is a goldmine
of information about your hotel, your competitors, and your customers. One of the biggest benefits is a solid understanding of what will delight your
customers and this can translate into more profit. A Revinate client in
Mexico used sentiment analysis and reviews to learn what amenities would sell
the best at their hotel. Rather than engage in time-consuming and
expensive trial and error, they were able to comb reviews for suggested service
enhancements. These amenities led to more incremental revenue, more
positive reviews, and greater popularity. Simply put, social media and review data through sentiment analysis can show management the best places to allocate investment
resources to have the largest impact on guest satisfaction. Smarter
spending leads to greater profits.
To watch the entire recording of our webinar at your convenience, please click here.
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