Pssst! Keep it to yourself! How your business benefits from private feedback

Private feedback? You may already be wondering about the title of this article, as usually we promote it again and again: Collect your guest reviews and spread them! Publish the reviews on the major rating portals and climb up in the ranking. Integrate the feedback on your own website, improve your visibility on the internet, your ranking on Google and increase your direct bookings.

And now we are talking about private feedback? Well, for a good reason. The feedback from your guests has great added value for you and your company, as good reviews convince not only new, potential guests to book a stay in your hotel. At the same time, feedback from your guests will also provide you with valuable information about all areas of your hotel: from the cleanliness of the rooms to the quality of the food and service provided by your staff, offering you the opportunity to continually improve and make the guest experience even more memorable.

The critical feedback will only be visible for you

But let’s be honest. Not all of the details, especially when in the past several guests have complained about- let’s say about the breakfast selection – have to be visible for everyone on the internet forever, right?

Customer Alliance stands for real reviews of actual guests. We have a zero tolerance policy against manipulation and without exception publish all ratings – both positive and negative.

So you can not just pick the best reviews to publish and make the rest disappear. However, what you can do is to ask private questions in your guest questionnaire whose answers are not published. This feedback is only for your eyes and is solely for internal optimisation.

Which questions do you ask privately?

The more specific you ask questions, the more value you get. Let’s stick with the example of the breakfast selection, which we have already discussed above. In recent months, your guests have been increasingly critical of the breakfast.
In order to identify the actual problems and put them in the right place, your private question should not be: “How did you like the breakfast?”
With a simple “good / bad answer” you will not get much information. Ask for details instead:

• What time did you have breakfast?
• Are you satisfied with the choice of vegetarian / vegan food?
• What do you miss on our buffet?
• What did you like about our breakfast offer and what did you not like?
• Were you satisfied with the service?

So you will be able to identify the actual problems. Maybe the problem is not the breakfast itself, but the fact that too few staff members are present and your guests were annoyed about tables, that had not been cleaned and missing coffee cups. On the other hand, if you receive mostly critical feedback on the quality of the baked goods, you know that you need to change the supplier. If you have an above-average number of vegan guests, it is worthwhile to expand the offer here. Also for test phases – for example, changed breakfast times or new products – offer your guests private questions.

These can of course be transferred to all areas of your company. Whether it’s the spa, the room facilities or the service – ask private questions for the area of ​​your hotel for which you regularly receive critical or little feedback or for which you yourself see a need for change. The valuable feedback from your guests will help you to constantly improve.

More positive reviews through private feedback

The big advantage of these private questions is not just that you gain insight into potential weak aspects of your business that you might otherwise be denied. Also, be aware that the final score of your guests will be better than originally thought. With the many, detailed questions, you make your guests feel like you are there for them to listen to their concerns and take them seriously to work on improving your business. If a guest has already mentioned aspects he was not satisfied with in an answer to a private question, he will most likely not repeat himself again in the public part.
With private feedback, you will be able to better understand the needs of your guests and to sustainably improve the guest experience. At the same time, you will notice a long-term positive effect on the public ratings of your guests.

What are you waiting for? Update your guest questionnaire right away and complete it with a few individual, private questions!