The Evolution of the Hotel Guest Satisfaction Survey
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The post-stay hotel survey is here to stay, but mobile makes it possible to gather guests' thoughts more instantaneously on things like a property's restaurant or keyless entry, and hotels also place increasingly greater stock in reviews on property sites as direct bookings become more desirable.
Those emails hotels send their guests asking for feedback and satisfaction levels may continue pouring into travelers' inboxes for the time being, but the big chains have indicated these surveys are hardly the most important way of gauging guest satisfaction.
Social media is one obvious intermediary between hotels wanting to pick guests' brains and guests either begrudgingly or eagerly offering thoughts on what they liked and disliked about their stay.
And we can't pass over TripAdvisor which has a product called Reviews Express designed for independent hotels to craft post-stay surveys and tabulate feedback. Many guests think of TripAdvisor first when thinking to leave a hotel review and Reviews Express also gathers all TripAdvisor reviews for a property and sends them to the management team.
But leaving reviews directly on brands' sites is a strategy hotels like Starwood and IHG have pushed more aggressively over the past few years.
For Starwood, guest reviews reverberating with the good, bad, and everything in between about a stay make it onto properties' websites, provided a guest doesn't use profanity or name a particular staff member. Allowing negative reviews on a site may be a risky move but then again transparency is now a hotel's currency and Starwood said being open has so far paid off.
General managers responding to negative reviews has led to increased conversion across all Starwood brands, said Matt Valenti, a spokesperson for guest experience intelligence who helps design Starwood's brand surveys.
Glancing over the Westin Times Square's site revi
