A company is nothing without the people behind it, and one of the people behind the world-class and award-winning support that GuestRevu offers is Tersia Luies.
From support member to management, Tersia has grown with GuestRevu, and helped us to grow in return over the past four years. She is the familiar, always-friendly voice that clients come across when they have any questions, queries or qualms about their guest feedback and online reputation management solutions. Sales guru, Amy Branford, chatted to her recently about her role at GuestRevu, the importance of monitoring and managing your feedback, what makes us stand out from the crowd, and more.
Video transcript:
Hi guys. Today we're going to be chatting to Tersia who's head of our amazing support team, and we're going to be finding out a little bit more about her and her role in GuestRevu. So, Tersia, if you could tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you got into GuestRevu in the beginning?
Yeah, sure. So, I work in the South African office and I've been here for about four years now, absolutely love the company. I found out about the job online. I was job hunting at the time, and as soon as I saw it, I knew this was exactly the thing for me, and I went for it, and here I am.
And it's quite a few years later, isn't it? You've been here four now?
Yeah — four. Four years, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Love it, and I couldn't imagine myself anywhere else.
And we couldn't imagine being without you. So, Tersia, what is your favorite bit about GuestRevu? 'Cause we know there's lots to love, but there must be something that, you know, makes your day.
My favorite bit about GuestRevu is the people and the culture, honestly. Just, like, people like yourself, you know. Everyone makes the day so much easier, when you get into the office and you know everyone is just wonderful, and we all treat each other a bit like a family.
No, I totally agree with you there. And what's your favorite support moment? You must have had a few over the last few years with GuestRevu growing.
Yeah, I've had a lot of moments. I honestly can't think of any one in particular right now, but at the end of the day, just making a client's day easier, making their job easier, is what keeps me going through the day and really makes it all worth it in support.
“Everyone makes the day so much easier, when you get into the office and you know everyone is just wonderful, and we all treat each other a bit like a family.”
And, you know, you're speaking to clients all the time that are using the system on a daily basis. What is the most frequently asked question that you get?
My most frequently asked question is, "How should I respond to my reviews?" If you had a negative review, "What should I say?" You know, from my experience, my suggestion there is to talk to the guests, and just understand what was actually wrong, and hopefully even try and fix the problem. If you just leave them, and you don't respond, or you don't do anything, then there's no chance in them ever coming back. They're just going to think that you don't care about them. That's why I think it's particularly important to always be monitoring and managing your feedback. Continuously. Day by day if you can. Because it really makes a huge difference to your hotel and how people perceive your hotel.
No, I definitely agree with you there, Tersia. So, if you could tell us a little bit more about the TripAdvisor Platinum Partnership that we have at GuestRevu and how that assists the hoteliers.
So our TripAdvisor integration actually works great for our clients. From what we've found, it has a 200 to 300 percent increase actually for the number of reviews that you end of getting online, and that makes a big difference in your ranking especially, and hopefully they'll push more people to the book button with your hotel. We've got Platinum Partnership, which we're all very proud of, and it just makes it very easy for guests to leave reviews on the TripAdvisor page.
Yeah, we generally see a higher bubble rating in those reviews as well, don't we, Tersia?
Yeah. Actually that's true. We also see a better average review rating that gets pushed through onto TripAdvisor. What we find why that is, is because we ask every one of your guests, so you end up getting a bigger amount of people leaving reviews online, instead of before, where it was only the very happy guests, or the unhappy guests that went online. That's how we just ensure that you get a much better average review rating online.
“I think it's particularly important to always be monitoring and managing your feedback. Continuously. Day by day if you can.”
What do you think makes us stand out from our competitors?
I think one of the biggest things that makes us stand out from our competitors is our customer support, and the way that we just speak to our clients and help them with their problems. It's not just about getting them onboarded and, you know, just them using GuestRevu. It's about helping them and making sure that the product is actually delivering them value and making a difference in their lives. And, apart from that, there's other reasons, like the contracts — we don't have a binding contract — and also we don't charge for our support. It's free of charge. We don't charge for training, so if you ever needed training on the application, you can just pop the support team an email, and we'll schedule it with you without any costs involved. I think that just really makes us stand out from our competitors, because we really care about our customers and your success.
So we've been hearing rumours around office about our amazing update that's coming soon. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and give us an inside scoop?
Yeah, sure. I'll give you some small details that we can give. So it's very exciting. Our development team, and everyone, has been working incredibly hard to get this out to our clients. We've made massive improvements with our usability, our mobile friendliness, and also some cool things that we've added that you should look out for is service tickets, and multiple questionnaires, and also multi-language. But that's just some small things. There's lots more to come, and just keep an eye out for it.
“It's about helping them and making sure that the product is actually delivering them value and making a difference in their lives… I think that just really makes us stand out from our competitors, because we really care about our customers and your success.”
Service tickets sounds interesting. Can you give us a little bit more on service tickets?
Service tickets is basically a bit like a task manager. It lets you keep on top of the things that you need to fix at the hotel, or do at the hotel. Like, if the guest has given you a little suggestion, or anything along those lines, you can create a task and give it to one of your staff members to follow up on. And then that's just a very good way to communicate with your team.
Tersia, thanks for your time. I know that support is really busy and you've got a lot of tickets to go and see. So, I hope you have a fantastic afternoon, and thank you for looking after our clients as well as you do.
Thank you, Amy, for the time.
