Can I choose not to publish single reviews?
You’re probably familiar with the following situation: despite all your efforts to offer your guests an unforgettable experience, you occasionally find very bad reviews among the mostly positive feedback and constructive criticism that your satisfied customers leave on portals such as TripAdvisor, Facebook, Google or HolidayCheck. In retrospect, it’s often impossible to reconstruct the individual case and to understand what went wrong – especially if the review doesn’t criticize individual points clearly and precisely, but rather leaves a generic critical review or a low score – or if you even feel wrongly accused. The anonymity of the internet often produces rougher language, and if emotions come into play as well, things can quickly get out of hand.
Can I delete reviews?
The temptation is high to simply delete a negative review with the click of a button. A single negative review, listed rather prominently in one of the first positions, can scare off potential customers. And if you haven’t collected too many reviews on the respective portal, then a critical review like this can often destroy your hard-earned good ranking.
Luckily, the large review portals are aware of this. It’s part of their daily business to uncover and delete fraudulent or false reviews. After all, their own credibility – and therefore their economic success – depends on the authenticity of the reviews. TripAdvisor, for instance, offers the option to simply report possibly fake reviews – their customer service team takes care of everything else.
Can I choose which reviews are published?
It would be even easier – and above all less complicated – if you could read the reviews personally and only publish them if you’re happy with the feedback. After all, the term “review management” also suggests actively influencing the review process – and therefore also influencing the reviews, right?
Unfortunately, things aren’t that easy. The review portals are based on authenticity – and that applies to both sides. Just like you don’t want to see fake reviews about your business, your future customers don’t want to read pre-selected reviews that distort the objective overall impression. At Customer Alliance, we’re proud of the fact that we don’t participate in any form of manipulation. Our solution will only give you real reviews by real customers who were actually guests in your hotel. No fake reviews, no spam, no possible confusion with another company.
At the same time, all the reviews you receive from your guests will be published, without exception. Obviously there will always be special cases such as racist or defamatory reviews that we will of course treat differently and removed for you after carefully moderating them.
Can negative reviews be positive?
You should be aware of the potential of negative reviews. That’s because negative doesn’t automatically mean bad. Something that one guest dislikes might be exactly what convinces another possible customer of booking a stay in your hotel. Imagine one of your guests criticized the fixed times during which children may use the pool and wellness area as being too short. However, it might be this exact aspect that convinces a guest looking for relaxation and tranquillity to book in your hotel – and not that of your competitor.
Use the power of negative reviews to your advantage!
Many negative reviews also have a positive effect that you shouldn’t underestimate. It is therefore not in your interest to avoid publishing individual reviews. Instead you should focus on responding to these reviews more than any others. Competent review management will enable you to convince future guests of your excellent customer service and to reconcile things with past guests.
In our example with the disgruntled guest, you could address his irritation in your response to his feedback and meet him with understanding. At the same time, you emphasize positive aspects such as the free child care in your house and the large adventure playground in your neighbourhood. These offers could then convince families to book a stay in your house, who might have been discouraged from the critical feedback without your elaborate answer.
A study from researchers of the University of Southern California and Boston University produced the result that dissatisfied guests are more likely to be discouraged from writing a negative review if they know that the management will respond to it. You can use this effect to your advantage by reacting to reviews on a regular basis – and improve your ranking at the same time.
Success through review management
Good review management is one of the most important factors for your company’s success. If you’d like to find out more about that, we recommend our white paper “Can negative reviews be positive?” with many helpful tips.
But let’s return to our initial question. While you might not be able to choose which reviews are published, our solution offers you various handy features you can use to actively work with your reviews and thereby improve your online reputation.
Personalized questionnaire
You can personalize the Customer Alliance questionnaire, which you send your guests for reviews, according to your own requirements. This also contains the possibility of asking private questions where the answer isn’t published publicly but is only visible to you. If you’ve been receiving increased complaints about the breakfast, then you can use this option to find out more about your guests’ opinions on the breakfast offering. This gives you the opportunity to identify weak points and improve. At the same time, your guests might not mention the breakfast in the public part of your questionnaire anymore because you already gave them an opportunity for commenting on it.
Instant survey
Instant surveys offer an interface between your hotel’s reception and your guests. They give you the opportunity to receive personal feedback from your guests during their stay. Guests can let you know straight away if they’re dissatisfied – and you have the chance to fix possible defects straight away. This not only eliminates the risk of receiving a critical review later on, but also gives you the option of scoring points through the quality of your service.
Distribution
Our solution helps you collect and integrate reviews on your website. In addition, you have the option of distributing reviews to the leading review portals like TripAdvisor, HolidayCheck, Google and Facebook in a targeted way. So if you receive a critical review on one of these platforms, you can adjust the settings in your distribution in a way that more feedback from guests is directed to this platform. This way, the negative review will be replaced by positive ones more quickly and your good ranking will stay intact.
Widget
In the backend of your Customer Alliance account, you have the option of personally selecting especially good reviews and integrating them into your widget. These reviews only appear within the widget on your homepage and thereby display the positive guest feedback at the most prominent position.
We offer you three direct ways of displaying your positive reviews on Facebook.
First, you can use the distribution feature to send some of the reviews collected by Customer Alliance to Facebook. These will then show up on your page as classic Facebook reviews.
In addition, we offer you the option of posting single, especially good Customer Alliance reviews directly to your pinboard and thereby reaching even more users.
And finally, you can use our Customer Alliance app to create your own sub-page with personal branding on your Facebook page, displaying all your Customer Alliance reviews on Facebook as well.
If you have any questions about the review management, then please contact us via the form below! One of our employees will contact you and help you for free.