Managing User Reviews: The Essential Task for Today's Savvy Electronic Distribution Manager
By Peter O'Connor
With over nine out of ten of people selecting a hotel now consulting user reviews prior to booking, manage a hotel's online reputation has become essential. Based on multiple years experience helping hotels develop and implement their social media strategies, this article outlines how hotels can maximize the benefit they can gain from online review sites, offering practical tips and techniques to help maintain and enhance their online reputation. **What is Social Media?** Over the past two decades, the Internet has transformed how travel is being bought and sold. Before web distribution, customers typically contacted the hotel directly for information, or relied on travel agents, tour operators or other intermediaries to help find hotels in regions with which they were not familiar. In most cases, such third parties are commercially motivated, giving rise to questions of credibility and trust. Many consumers continue to question their impartiality, worrying as to whether recommendations are based on a genuine match with their needs, or a kickback paid by the hotel for business delivered. While the growth of the Internet in the late 1990s greatly added to the quantity and quality of information available, the problem of recommender credibility remained. The rise of social media at the beginning of the 21st century helped address this issue. In particular, the growth of user-generated content such as blogs, user reviews and social networks provided consumers with access to a pool of high-quality topical and most importantly unbiased information, generated not by commercial interests but by other consumers. While difficult to define, social media sites tend to share certain characteristics; most are participatory, encouraging contributions and feedback from anyone interested, thus blurring the line between creators and audience. Most tend to be conversational, using two-way interaction between participants rather than a broadcast approach. Many are also community-focused, facilitating the interaction of people with similar interests, as well as being connected, amalgamating links and content from different sources to add synergistic value. In all cases the underlying common denominator is a kind of online democracy, with content generated by consumers for use by other consumers. This differs fundamentally from the web in general, where information is typically published by an authority - usually a business or the professional media for consumption by third parties. Thus social media is more than just a new set of channels. It represents a fundamental shift in how marketing and communication works. It enables users to interact with both content and with each other, whenever and however they like. As a result, individuals are increasingly taking clues from their peers rather than from institutional sources like corporations, the media, political bodies or even religions. While in the past, consumers looked to such authorities for information, now they are increasingly creating their own content and trusting the collective wisdom of their peers. This represents a major change in consumer attitudes, which have evolved from isolated to connected; from unaware to informed; and from passive to active. The rate of innovation is incredible, and while 'statistics' such as one blog is created every second and 100 million downloads made from YouTube every day are probably urban myths, they are indicative of the continually growing importance of social media. **Online Reviews** Travel in itself is essentially social. Travelers enjoy talking about their experiences, sharing photos and videos, discussing future plans and seeking the advice and recommendations of others. Thus the social media phenomenon discussed above has also had a dramatic effect on how travel is being planned and purchased. Social media has become a key element in the traveler's research process, with user reviews, photos, video and social networks becoming key influencers. Specialized websites have emerged that focus on compiling and disseminating consumer opinions on travel products and services. Known as user review sites, these have become important as unbiased sources of information, with users able to see both quantitative and qualitative peer evaluations at a glance, providing them with unparalleled and highly credible insights into any product being considered. Research has shown that such sites are perceived to be highly credible and to have a very high degree of influence on the customer's ultimate product choice. As a hotel already you have probably reaped the benefits, or felt the sting of, favorable or unfavorable user reviews. Thus being aware of what is being said about your hotel (and ultimately actively managing your reputation) on such sites has become essential. Within travel the most important user review site is undoubtedly TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor claims to be the world's most popular travel website, with approximately 315 million unique monthly visitors. In addition, the site's highly detailed and topical user generated content, which includes more than 200 million reviews covering more than four million hotel, restaurants and attractions, is highly ranked by Google and other search engines, with the result that a TripAdvisor listing usually appears prominently in practically any travel search result listing. Its rankings and reviews are also routinely built into other travel websites, including many OTAs where they help users differentiate between competing products. However TripAdvisor is not the only source of user generated hotel reviews. Other systems include Holidaycheck, Travelpost and VirtualTourist, and many of the major OTAs (including Expedia, Booking.com and Orbitz) also actively solicit their own reviews from their hotel clients, displaying these comments on their results listings and (to some extent) using their rankings to influence display order. User reviews can be collected in two different ways. On sites such as TripAdvisor anyone can post a review, rating their experience, entering textual comments and even photos or video. Both the number of reviews and the scores assigned by each reviewer are used to calculate the hotel's TripAdvisor Rating and their overall ranking within each destination. The fact that anyone can post a review has given rise to claims that TripAdvisor can be manipulated by posting fake reviews, either to inflate a hotel's own score or decrease that of competing properties. TripAdvisor maintains that its reviews are inspected by an anti-fraud team to identify suspect reviews, and that any hotel found to be trying to manipulate the system is severely punished. However this doubt has prompted the development of alternative systems, particularly those of the major online travel agencies, which only allow clients who have booked through their system to post reviews. Some however question the credibility of scores displayed on OTA websites, as the latter are primarily commercial in nature, leading some to claim that review scores could be “adjusted” to push sales at higher margin hotels. While both approaches suffer from criticisms, the resulting reviews are clearly being consulted by, and trusted by, consumers in their travel planning process. Today's consumer has become increasingly skeptical of much of the content available on the web, perceiving it as being too influenced by marketing messages from businesses trying to sell to them. Thus they are increasingly seeking independent sources of information to get a true sense of what a product or service is really like. Since the content of user review sites comes not from commercial companies but from other consumers, it is perceived to be unbiased and thus highly credible. **Managing User Reviews** With over nine out of ten of people searching for a hotel now check online reviews prior to booking, hoteliers that do not actively manage their online reputation on such sites will quickly find themselves losing out. Based on experience with a variety of hotel clients, both large and small, chain and independent, I have identified five critical steps in managing a hotel's online reputation. These are detailed below: **Monitor:** To effectively manage their online reputation, hotels need to be aware of their performance on both dedicated and OTA driven review sites. At a minimum this involves access each system each day, examining the performance score so that trends can be seen and examining any new reviews in detail. As the number of systems on which reviews could be featured continues to grow, doing so manually is becoming increasingly difficult. As a result automated tools, known as online reputation management systems, have evolved to help managers cope. These typically search both social media channels and the traditional web to identify each and every mention of a brand. This data is then automatically collated; analyzed; prioritized; and sometimes even evaluated, helping users more easily manage what is being said about them across a comprehensive range of channels. While generic online reputation management tools exist, few monitor travel specific user review sites or, perhaps more importantly, the reviews featured on OTA sites. Including such content in the reputation management process is vital for hotels as it is typically these reviews that most influence the customer as they appear at the point of purchase. For that reason many hotels now use industry specific tools (market leaders include Revinate, ReviewPro and TrustU) which specifically target these sites and are thus a better match for the online reputation needs of hotels. **Presence:** Most review sites allow you to add relevant content (textual descriptions; lists of services; photos; video) to your hotel's profile on their system. As such sites are now both prominent in search as well as widely consulted by consumers (many of whom may not have been to your hotel's own website), it's important that your profile on each system is comprehensive;; well illustrated with multiple photographs that display your property in an attractive fashion; and contains well written, sales orientated property and room descriptions that encourage people to stay at your hotel. You should therefore closely examine your profile page on each of the major user review sites to make sure the information included is correct, and audit this information periodically to make sure it remains accurate and up-to-date. **Reactive Presence:** Dissatisfied guests are unfortunately a fact of life. No matter how good our service, some clients will still complain. In the past, the effect of such complaints was limited, but now, thanks to user review sites, dissatisfied guests can air their grievances in front of an audience of millions of people. Luckily most customers understand that not every stay is going to be 100% perfect. Thus one or two disastrous reviews is not problematic, as most consumers look at a property's overall score rather than individual reviews when assessing a property. Most also look to see if (and how) the hotel has responded to unfavorable reviews, and what is actually said in these management responses. Thus when posting a management response, its important to remember that it serves two purposes - to respond directly to the guest's concerns and secondly, to demonstrate to the community at large that the hotel is listening and taking steps to insure good customer service and address any problems noted. In general, negative reviews can be broken down into three types, namely constructive criticism, rants and raves and troll tantrums, each of which is best dealt with differently. With constructive criticism the guest has typically had a genuinely negative experience. Their review is usually balanced and they perhaps even makes suggestions as to how such problems could be avoided in the future. When responding, you should thank them for taking the time to leave feedback; say that you are sorry that they did not enjoy their stay; address each of their issues in turn; explain what steps are being taken to avoid similar problems and invite them to return in the future. While this type of review may highlight your flaws, they are often helpful as they can help to identify service issues that need to be addressed. In contrast rants and raves are tougher to deal with and more problematic. In such cases, the guest has had a bad experience, has typically tried (and failed) to address the issue directly with someone at the hotel, and is now frustrated and angry. Thus such reviews tend to over exaggerate and be highly critical of all aspects of the stay. With their extremely low scores and dramatic text, such reviews can be very damaging to your online reputation. But remember that this type of feedback, as harsh as it may be, has a basis in a real problem. A management response is essential, particularly as its absence would look strange and uncaring. The response should have a positive vibe, again thanking the guest for the feedback, apologizing profusely and assure them that steps are being taken to correct the issue. In some cases, particularly where the complaint is merited, it can be useful to take some service recovery steps even at this late stage, to demonstrate to the community at large that you take customer feedback seriously. Troll tantrums refer to reviews left by people without any really valid reason for being upset. Although unfair, such reviews also unfortunately negatively affect your reputation. In most cases, it is counter productive to respond to trolls. Their feedback isn't really feedback at all but motivated to either bait you into an unnecessary and image-damaging fight, or to try and get something for free. As trolls tend to be unreasonable you should ignore their feedback, and when appropriate, try to get it removed whenever it appears. Where such guests try to extort you by demanding refunds or free stays, feel free to share their motivation with the community at large in a management response. Lastly, irrespective of the type of review, when responding it's important to be authentic. Cut-and-paste stock responses do more harm than good. Each response needs to be individual, genuine and refer specifically to points raised in the review in question. The cardinal rule is to stay positive. Adding more negativity to the conversation by letting yourself be drawn into a fight will only reflect poorly on your business. Also it is important to not just respond to unfavorable reviews. You should also post management responses to positive reviews (particularly highly positive ones to which you would like to draw the user's attention), thanking the customer for their business and reinforcing the message by restating what they liked about their stay. **Proactive Presence:** Rather than focusing on any single review or score, most users of user-review sites look for the overall trend - how the hotel has performed over time. Most also put higher emphasis on more recent, rather than older, reviews. Finally the number of reviews posted on a profile has a (minor) effect on the hotel's ranking within a destination. Thus encouraging reviews from satisfied guests can have a major positive effect on your scores and thus ultimately your bookings. Potential reviewers can be identified at checkout, and a follow up email sent to them asking them to post a review (TripAdvisor even provides a piece of code that deep-links them to your hotel's profile page to facilitate such reviews). The important thing is to ask them to make the review. If you ask, some may post a positive review, but if you do not ask the likelihood of them doing so spontaneously is much lower. Despite the temptation, you should never post fake reviews to try to increase your scores or “hide” bad reviews. Each system has fraud prevention systems that can easily identify false reviews of this type. Hotels that are found trying to manipulate the system are usually heavily penalised, with their ranking severely reduced and a warning to consumers that they have tried to manipulate their ratings posted on their profile page. Having unfavourable reviews and a low rating score / ranking is bad: being labelled as trying to fool customers and defraud the system is utterly disastrous. Avoid this problem at all costs by simply not doing it! **Engagement:** User review sites typically contain more than just reviews. Many serve as travel guides and allow both users and properties to post articles or other material. Hotels can exploit this by creating material for this portion of the review site. These could be information on topics of special interest, guides to a region or fun things such as “Top Ten Things To Do In Paris”. While they should be primarily editorial in content, they obviously can sell the hotel in a subtle way, and of course should contain some reference to being created by or sponsored by the hotel. Obviously each system is different, but each needs to be inspected regularly to identify opportunities to engage with the site's community beyond simply responding to user reviews. Becoming more deeply involved in the community equals more engagement equals a higher profile equals more business. User reviews and other forms of user-generated content have key important assets in the battle to acquire and retain the customer. To compete hotels must effectively manage these assets, devoting appropriate time, resources and technology to enhancing their online reputation. With near perfect information just a click away for most consumers, failure to do can be disastrous for hotels wishing to compete in today's electronic marketplace.
