Ms. Gutman Milne

Social Media & PR

How To Generate Demand Through Outstanding Service And Reputation Cultivation

By Adele Gutman Milne, Vice President of Sales, Marketing & Revenue, HKHotels

Hospitality marketing has changed dramatically since I entered the business in the early 1980s. The Internet has actually leveled the playing field for independent and boutique hotels competing against big name chain hotels for a slice of the market. And while there are still many travelers who feel most comfortable choosing familiar brands, there is a vast and ever growing market of travelers who are more than willing to try a hotel they have never heard of, based on information on the hotel’s website and their reputation built by reviews in social media on websites such as TripAdvisor. That is why even if you have no budget for advertising, you can harness the power of social media to create phenomenal demand for your property.

There are important techniques that will not only help your online efforts, but also dramatically enhance your traditional sales efforts as well. Your sales team works very hard to bring in new accounts. But when that first traveler walks through the door, and your Front Office Manager grunts, “Yes. Can I help you?” you and your sales team will find yourself spinning your wheels, continually seeking out new customers to replace the ones who won’t return. In fact, you might have to resort to advertising to attract new guests, pay high fees to OTAs, or even negotiate lower rates to attract guests.

Conversely, if every guest you bring in is treated spectacularly, they then become a brand ambassador, helping you to attract multiple new guests, who will then, in turn, bring more guests in the future. Those guests will be attracted to your hotel based on the experience and will be willing to pay a premium to get that experience.

If you have ever felt as though you and your sales team are on a treadmill, spending day after day and year after year chasing down new accounts, now, thanks to social media and review sites like TripAdvisor, you can focus a portion of your energy every day in helping your property enhance the guest experience, and maximize your revenue instead of just replacing it.

Keep in mind that I am not saying you will never need to make sales calls or cultivate relationships again. They will always be important. What I am saying is that a “Service is Marketing” approach is a powerful, low-cost way to continually generate huge demand, while cultivating loyal repeat guests who will be dedicated brand ambassadors for your company.

The bottom line benefits of the “service is marketing” approach:

• Higher rankings on sites like TripAdvisor

• More traffic on your own website

• Greater sales conversions due to confidence in quality experiences

• High ADR from travelers who are committed to stay at your hotel

• Low or no dependence on costly advertising

• Low or no dependence on high-cost distribution channels

• Low or no dependence on deeply discounted rate channels to drive demand

• Low or no need for flash sales except the ones you create for yourself

• Guests who are driven by reputation are willing to pay more

Reputation Cultivation

It seems to me that when the topic of reputation management is broached, many hoteliers are primarily concerned with damage control. I believe this is secondary to learning how to inspire frequent, glowing, enthusiastic reviews. That’s why I prefer to focus on “reputation cultivation” as opposed to the commonly accepted term, “reputation management”.

Cultivating your hotel’s reputation requires a philosophical commitment to providing an outstanding guest experience to every guest, every day. Believe you can do it! You do not need to have the most opulent hotel in the city to have a five-star ranking on TripAdvisor. Take a look and you will see that the top 30 hotels in any city will range from economy to luxury brands. Whatever price point the traveler pays, they want to feel they received value for money, and that they were made to feel respected, appreciated, and cared for. How each hotel gets to that point is going to vary based on their clientele. That is why it is so important to listen to your guests, find out what they want, and do all you can to give it to them.

How to get started building a great reputation

At HKHotels, we focus on these keys to inspiring wonderful reviews:

• Ensure every guest feels respected, appreciated and cared for at each interaction.

• Providing value for hard-earned money is an expression of respect.

• Break down the typical stay into distinct opportunities for interaction.

• Remember that phone calls, emails, and online experiences, are included in the guest experience.

• Hire people pleasers.

• Coach your staff to “sparkle sunshine” on every guest at every interaction.

• Encourage staff to bring their pride and unique personality and skills to every interaction.

• Empower your staff with the proper training and tools to delight guests.

It is much easier to buy new bedding or new flat screen televisions than to cultivate a new corporate culture, but that is what needs to happen to create a profound and long-lasting change. It isn’t rocket science, but it does require a lot of work and a great deal of cooperation. Here are some tips to help you begin the process.

• Set a goal for your property. Write down the kind of reviews you would want to read from your guests and start to envision and plan what behaviors your team will need to adopt in order to be the kind of hotel that consistently inspires those reviews.

• Whether your title is Chief Revenue Officer, Director of Sales, or anything in between, if you are responsible for the revenue generated by your property, you need to own the guest experience. Vow to be an unrelenting advocate for 100% guest satisfaction and don’t let anyone tell you it is not your business. Making sales calls or paying for beautiful ads are important tasks, but probably not the true objective of your position. Driving long-term profits is the primary objective and a great guest experience is essential to your success.

• Enlist the full support of the owner, general manager, and executive committee. Appeal to their professional pride and recruit them as partners in your goal. Continually see ways to remind them of the power of positive reviews and financial rewards as a result of success in this endeavor.

• Recruit the support of every staff member. I know for sure that I am only a conductor of the orchestra. It is the wonderful people who serve our guests who make the music and deserve the praise. Every day, share the great reviews and appeal to their pride to do the same for every guest.

• Hire happy people who are hardwired for people pleasing. You can train anyone to perform tasks and services, but it is an upward battle to try to train character or disposition. At HKHotels, we talk about “sparkling sunshine” on the guest at every interaction. If someone doesn’t “sparkle sunshine” on you at the interview when they are trying their best to impress you, chances are they will not perform better for the guests.

• Once you have a team of people pleasers it is up to us as managers to lead, coach, and inspire them every day. Build service training into the daily routine so that everyone understands the high expectations you have set. What I have found is that if you have the right people and you train and inspire them daily, you can stand back and watch something amazing happen.

• Now that you have enthusiastic guests, send them an email after their stay thanking them for the visit and give them a link to the site where you would like them to place their review. People’s time is precious, so don’t expect them to both fill out your customer survey and write a review online. We don’t send customer surveys because we want the conversation to be online, in social media, where it can be seen by millions of people and help drive bookings to our websites.

• Every hotel has some percentage of guests that are beyond thrilled with the experience. Our challenge is to go from surprising and delighting 25% of the guests, to a goal of 100%. Read the positive reviews earnestly with your executive committee and look for clues on what behaviors your guests appreciate. Then find a way to increase the frequency of that behavior so that every guest can have that positive experience.

Dealing with negative reviews

We focus on these keys to avoiding negative reviews:

1. Look for problems before they happen.
2. Be authentic and completely expressive in describing the experience.
3. Throughout the stay, look guests in the eye and ask how everything is.
4. Deal with every issue before the guests walk out the door.
5. Better than a fruit basket, fix the root cause of the problem.
6. Forget yesterday. Take care of today’s guests so they may drown out the bad comment with a shower of fresh, positive reviews tomorrow.

Be authentic about describing the true experience of your hotel. If the experience is exaggerated or overstated on your website or other places that people may reference before deciding to book, you will have a greater likelihood of attracting the wrong guests for your establishment and disappointing them, resulting in negative reviews.

• Every negative review deserves research and a conference call with key management to determine the plan of action, implement the plan, and reply to the reviewer to share any actions that were taken.

• Read all of your old reviews and analyze the issues that have lead to negative comments. Even if an item has only been mentioned a couple of times, don’t ignore it. For every guest that does speak up, there may be many more that simply got annoyed and went elsewhere.

• Remember that your customer just told you what bothered them and if you ignore them, you do so at the peril of your future business. Put yourself in their shoes and work hard to address every issue no matter how large or small.

• Are there physical problems that need to be fixed? Get it done! We all know that there are problems that are difficult to resolve without closing the hotel for renovation. If you can’t fix it, find ways to chip away at the problem. Keep bringing the issue up in discussions so that staff members keep their eyes open for creative ideas on how to diminish the issue. Any idea that resolves the problem even for 5%-10% of the guests is a solid step in the right direction.

• When all else fails, do so much to surprise and delight every guest so that they simply can’t be bothered by those small issues that cannot be resolved.

You will also want to evaluate any policies or business practices that are irritating your guests. As hoteliers, our objective is to ensure that all guests feel respected, appreciated, and cared for. We want to ensure they see us as human beings dedicated to providing them with great service — we are people who put their needs above all else, yet within certain parameters. We also have a responsibility to protect the safety and comfort of the other guests and we have a fiscal responsibility to the owners to protect the business and the employees who serve the guests. Whenever we can be flexible for a guest, we will do so. But when the request of one guest can’t be met because it infringes on the enjoyment of the other guests or it is financially irresponsible, we simply convey to the traveler, one person to another, the reason for our business practices. We have been delighted with the results. While we would never suggest that anyone remove or modify their reviews, that is absolutely not allowed on TripAdvisor, we have had several people who did revise or remove their review after they felt assured that we did care about their needs but also understood the situation from our perspective.

Reputation cultivation is a never-ending discipline that needs to be managed every day. While it may be a lot of work, it is a very satisfying way of doing business. It feels great to see the confidence and self-respect employees develop as they strengthen their professional skills. It is also deeply rewarding for top management to feel we have succeeded in our goal of making travelers happy.

There are three hospitality marketing gurus I follow and I am pleased to recommend them to you as well. They are: Josiah Mackenzie, Hospitality Marketing Strategies, Daniel Edward Craig of The Great Reputation Road show, and Larry Mogelonsky of LMA Communications. I am sure you will find their articles full of great advice, inspiration and continued encouragement in this field.

Adele Gutman has over 30 years of experience in all areas of hospitality marketing. Adele has worked with Henry Kallan for over 12 years and oversees sales, marketing, revenue management, public relations, and new hotel concept strategies and launches at HKHotels including brand initiatives, online marketing efforts, social media, electronic distribution, and most importantly, the unique HKHotels guest experience which makes success in everything else possible. Ms. Gutman has been a featured speaker at TripAdvisor’s Master Classes and webinars as an authority on reputation management. Ms. Gutman orchestrated initiatives that resulted in the September 2010 ranking of all four HKHotels NYC properties into the top four spots on TripAdvisor, an achievement that has yet to be matched by any other hotel group. The consistent ranking for all four hotels on the top ranks on TripAdvisor over several years has had a powerful impact on demand generation for the hotels, resulting in one of the highest percentage of direct website sales in the industry. Ms. Gutman Milne can be contacted at 212-201-1153 or adele@hkhotels.com Extended Bio...

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