With endless travel booking options, enticing social media posts, and countless online reviews, guests have the pick of the litter and, therefore, increasingly high expectations of lodging providers. Focusing on offering next-level service and boosting your property’s online reputation is your key to standing out from your competitors and maintaining customer loyalty.

1. Gather and Monitor Online Reviews

You need to know what your guests say about you and where they say it. Tracking down all reviews and content posted about your property across the Internet may sound impossible, but thankfully, many tech options automate this job. For example, you can set up a Google Alert (for free) that will email you when someone mentions your hotel’s name online. Some paid solutions integrate with your property management system (PMS) to automatically request guest feedback as well as monitor various review sites, OTA listings, and social media, then organize and analyze the data so hoteliers can listen to and act on customer feedback.

2. Respond to Online Reviews

Now that you have access to reviews and feedback about your property, it’s time to respond to both the positive and the negative content. Responding to online reviews effectively improves guest satisfaction and your online reputation. Your responses show that you care about improving your guests’ experiences and value their feedback, even after they check out. How you respond to criticism can mitigate and remedy negative reviews, encouraging prospective guests to feel positively towards your business and past customers to give you another chance.

3. Act on Customer Feedback

Publicly responding to positive and negative reviews online shows you’re willing to listen to your guests’ feedback; acting on it takes your reputation to the next level. Use what your guests are saying to guide improvements to your property.

Also, leverage positive comments about your property in your marketing to boost business. Consumers trust user-generated content much more than traditional marketing materials, so make sure you mine this free marketing gold! Include their testimonials on your webpage or social media accounts and engage with positive posts by liking or resharing them.

4. Manage Guest Expectations

Let your guests know what to expect so they aren’t disappointed. Assess your online reviews and guest feedback to identify what your guests love or are unsatisfied with. For example, if your rooms are on the smaller side, lean into the fact that they’re small, and brand them as “cozy.” Transparency ensures guests know what they’re getting, minimizing the risk of disappointment and the fallout of poor online reviews.

Try not to compare your property to others; recognize and celebrate it for exactly what it is. Guests want unique, personalized travel experiences. If you’re honest and upfront about what your property offers, the right demographic will appreciate it.

5. Personalize Your Brand

Showing guests extra care and personalization increases satisfaction and the chance they’ll return and leave a glowing review. When possible, small things like free room upgrades, handwritten notes, creatively folded towels, cookies and chocolates, and late check-outs add a touch of surprise and delight to the stay experience. Some of these special offerings are also great photo ops for guests to share on social media, spreading positive word of mouth about your property online.

6. Guest Communications

Communicating with your guests before, during, and after their stay is critical to increasing guest satisfaction and loyalty. Cloud PMS like WebRezPro allow hoteliers to set up automated, customized email templates and integrate with more immediate forms of guest messaging like SMS and chatbots.

Promptly and efficiently solving guest requests and criticisms can turn a potentially negative stay experience (and online review) into a positive one. Automated guest messaging applications help staff communicate with guests more efficiently, tracking complaints and requests in real time.

7. Responsible Tourism

Most of today’s travelers value going green, and many guests are willing to undergo some inconvenience to travel responsibly. By promoting your property’s environmentally friendly practices on your website and social media accounts, you will attract customers while fostering a positive online image.

8. Seamless Operations Make a Seamless Guest Experience

Finally, using a cloud PMS (like WebRezPro!) ties everything together to facilitate a smooth, personalized, and sustainable guest experience, from online bookings to detailed guest profiles that help you get to know guests on an individual level.

Staff can answer and fulfill guest requests more efficiently using a fully integrated, automated PMS to access and update room availability, billing, housekeeping reports, and more! Self-service options, including online check-in, make the guest experience smoother and more sustainable by reducing wait times, printouts, and plastic keycards.

A positive online reputation is crucial for attracting guests in this digital age. Using the above tools and strategies, hoteliers can manage and elevate guest satisfaction and their online persona and, in turn, boost bookings.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published August 2014 and last updated April 2024.