Understanding guest experience with GuestRevu

What do your guests experience when they visit your property?

Every hotelier likes to think that they have in-depth insight into the value that they offer, what their guests want and look for in a stay, and how they are able to meet those expectations. But without being able to experience a stay at your own property as an unbiased customer, it is nearly impossible for any hotelier to truly understand what a stay at your property feels like for a real guest.

This is where feedback becomes invaluable for garnering insight into your guests’ experiences, their expectations, and where your property may be falling short or sky-rocketing.

Bridging the gap between what guests expect and what they experience

All too often, there is a disconnect between what guests want and expect from a stay, and what they actually get. The reasons for this disconnect, or gap as it is often referred to, can be broken down into four different areas of friction:

• Hoteliers don’t always realise what guests want
• Hoteliers can’t always succeed in providing what guests want
• Human error often gets in the way of hoteliers being able to reach guests’ high expectations
• A hotel’s marketing image often doesn’t reflect what an average stay with them will be like, skewing guests’ expectations

And these areas of friction are hardly isolated, which can often result in a disconnect that is made up of a combination of all of these factors, where the gap between what a guest expects and what they actually experience grows exponentially.

This is why properties around the globe have found it essential to use GuestRevu’s award-winning direct feedback and online reputation management solutions to bridge these gaps and ensure a guest experience that their patrons will want to return for again and again.

Guest feedback can help you realise what your guests want

The first step to providing an excellent guest experience is to realise what it is that your guests are hoping to experience. Hoteliers like to think that they know what guests are looking for from a stay at their property, whether it’s luxury, relaxation, comfort, convenience, or a combination of these and other aspects of a stay. But without hearing from their guests, they can only make assumptions based on what they would want to experience and extrapolate from there. While this may find them catering to guests like themselves, it will not necessarily help them to cater to the wide array of guests who may end up staying at the property.

So how does GuestRevu help properties to realise what their guests want? See what Portmeirion Village, VISIONAPARTMENTS, Stenden South Africa’s MyPond Hotel and Queensway Group’s Point A Hotels discovered through their guest feedback in the slideshare below:

Guest feedback can help you to provide the experience that your guests want

Knowing what your guests are looking for from a stay, and providing the kind of guest experience that they are hoping for may go hand-in-hand, but often the experience still falls short of the expectation, even when hoteliers realise what it is that their patrons are hoping to get from a stay.

Once again, getting regular input from their guests through GuestRevu’s feedback surveys helps properties to not only learn what guests expect, but also reach those expectations, in a number of ways:

Gain an understanding of where you are falling short of expectations and putting that understanding into effect

Falling short of expectations can occur on a wide scale. Sometimes it isn’t the big problems that impact a stay, but the smallest disappointments that turn a great experience into merely a mediocre one. Whether the shortfalls are big or small, it is essential to keep track of precisely when an experience can be redeemed. GuestRevu is the perfect tool for pinpointing areas that can be improved upon – before they result in the property missing the mark altogether for their guests.

It helps you allocate your budget and resources to the areas that make the most difference to guest experience

It’s not just where to focus and improve your efforts that GuestRevu’s feedback can help with either. Guest opinions, particularly when shared by a number of guests, can help you to allocate your budget and make operational changes at group or property level.

Oceana Beach and Wildlife Reserve, Cotswold House, Breaffy House Resort, Providence Hospitality, VISIONAPARTMENTS, Murrayshall Country House Hotel, Shannon Springs Hotel and Stenden South Africa’s MyPond Hotel tell us how GuestRevu helps them to meet their guests’ high expectations and deliver on the experiences that they are looking for in the slideshare below:

Guest feedback can help you to boost your human resources and highlight their impact on guest experience

No property is going to get guest experience right every single time. There are too many human factors involved. But it’s also this human factor that can truly make or break a guest’s experience at your property. Guest feedback can help you to not only identify where human error may be occurring and where you should focus your training efforts, but also boost morale, inspire friendly competition, and ignite a sense of camaraderie and a willingness to go above and beyond to make guests happy.

We asked Tara Lodge, Stenden South Africa’s MyPond Hotel, Portmeirion Village, Murrayshall Country House Hotel, Breaffy House Resort and the Crazy Bear Group to let us know how they use the feedback that they get from GuestRevu to boost morale and promote teamwork — see their responses in the slideshare below:

Guest feedback can impact and refine your marketing image

It’s natural to want to show off your best room, with the most incredible view, and all the luxury that you’re able to provide. But when your honeymoon suite is only booked once a month, compared to the Double Room that is booked every day, you’re not really showing potential guests what they can expect to experience when they come to visit. If you’re highlighting only your top-end services, your guests will arrive expecting to receive that treatment, and leave disappointed when their experience doesn’t quite match up.

So how do you show off the best features that guests can actually expect to experience and manage expectations while still encouraging bookings? Here’s what Oceana Beach and Wildlife Reserve, Portmeirion Village, Queensway Group’s Point A Hotels, Good Hotel London, Tara Lodge and VISIONAPARTMENTS had to say:

How can hotels get all this valuable guest feedback?

Guest feedback can add immeasurable value to any property in understanding the experience that their guests have, and how they can be improved in ways both big and small. But we’re often asked how best to encourage guests to provide that essential feedback. We asked Stenden South Africa’s MyPond Hotel, Tara Lodge, Good Hotel London, Oceana Beach and Wildlife Reserve, Portmeirion Village and the Crazy Bear Group how GuestRevu helps them to get the feedback that they need. See their responses in the slideshare below:

Guest experience is the cornerstone of the hospitality industry, and when guest feedback is not only gathered, but thoroughly analysed and put into effect, it can have an invaluable impact on the experience any property is able to provide. GuestRevu can help you gather feedback, manage your online reputation, and provide memorable and meaningful experiences to your guests.