IN ASSOCIATION WITH
CASE STUDY Manorview
Manorview Hotels & Leisure Group started up in 2007 and operates six hotels in central Scotland, each with a restaurant and bar. Customers include locals, wedding parties, corporate guests and international tourists. Group services and standards manager Scott MacIntyre introduced the HowYa
at-table rating system. Staff hand the diner a tablet device along with the bill and the guest can give feedback on how they enjoyed their meal, service and so on. The restaurant manager can see the ratings and customer review in real time, and act on any concerns or negative feedback before the customer leaves. The guest can opt out of providing contact information or provide some. The tablet also captures geographical and demographic data and comments that can be posted direct to social media. “Our trial ran for three months and has been a fantastic business tool,” says MacIntyre.
“Customers have responded positively to the feedback system, with 85% choosing to rate their experience. Some 80.1% offered demographic details and 91.5% shared geographic information.” One of the biggest benefits of the system is that it highlights staff who perform
well. “It creates good-natured competition among the teams, enabling us to run bonus incentives, employee of the month based on positive feedback, or instant reward vouchers to spend in the group,” says MacIntyre. He adds that there has been a far bigger response with HowYa, which is easy to use, than with traditional comment cards and online surveys. Managers can spot trends and make adjustments to nudge ratings higher, including amending how they operate bookings to help workflow in the kitchen during peak periods. The group has also installed a kiosk version in the reception area for hotel residents.
Hotelied is a hotel booking site
that offers big discounts to guests with a large number of friends and follow- ers on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Instagram. To get the discounts, mem- bers have to link their social media profiles to Hotelied. The website uses social media to profile each member – where they go, how often they fly and so on – and hotels will offer guests a bespoke deal tailored to their social media profile.
Gen Y Your target social media audience is Genera- tion Y (typically defined as twentysomethings and those in their early 30s). Social media offers more interesting ways of reaching them and boosting your reputation. Encour- aging selfies, for instance, is a simple, cost- free way to generate content about your venue. Similarly, vlogs are a great way to show as well as tell customers what you are doing. And it showcases your brand’s personality. Some hotels are even designed with social media platforms in mind. Edition Hotels uses Instagram and Twitter to tell stories and communicate. Ovolo Hotels in Australia flags up its 1888 hotel as “only a stone’s throw from Darling Harbour in Sydney and designed with Instagrammers in mind”; guests are encouraged to get involved and become a part of the hotel experience through photo sharing. And Marriott Rennaissance offers a Selfie Package complete with a Blue- tooth-enabled selfie stick and guided spots for great selfies.
www.thecaterer.com You can also
use social media to show what the company stands for and what it supports. Gen Y tend to align with brands that reflect their own ethics or lifestyle. It is wise to keep the management of social media within your business so you can control the tone throughout and ensure that response is quick. It is worth appointing dedi- cated members of the team to do this.
Managing your reputation
When guests search an online travel agent (OTA), they often see a list of properties in a similar price range. They narrow them down by consulting review sites such as TripAdvisor. More than 160 contributions a minute are posted on TripAdvisor from travellers, and more than 85% of questions on its English- speaking forums are replied to by other travel- lers within 24 hours. For this reason, hoteliers should respond quickly to reviews – positive or negative – and follow up on comments by a guest on Facebook or Twitter. A hotel’s Twitter page should also strive to follow brands aligned with its image. A hip hotel might follow a trendy or organic goods company, for example. That way, you scoop up people you might not have reached otherwise. Address guest complaints quickly:
l By the time a negative review is
posted, you are in the arena of dam-
age control, not reputation management, and it is difficult to remove a negative review from a site once it has been posted.
l Digital tracking is not a time-consuming task for guest or staff and happens in real time.
l Only 4% of dissatisfied customers tell a brand about what was wrong, and 70% of customer defection is down to a poor experience.
l The repurchase probability for dissatisfied customers rises from 32% to 89% if you acknowledge and recover the situation, according to research from Bain.
l A brand’s advocates spend three times more than other customers and influence up to 50% of new customers. Ranters tell 16 or more people about a poor experience – and with social media their influence is even more wide-ranging.
l Gartner research shows that feedback col- lected at the point of service is 40% more accurate than that collected 24 hours later.
lA 5% reduction in customer defection can push up profit by 50%, according to Harvard Business School.
How to do it Relax. There are technologies to collate reviews, manage Twitter, collect data about guest preferences – you name it. HotelRez, ReviewPro and Reevoo are just three tech providers that can let you search social media and review sites to see what guests are saying about you.
Technology Prospectus 2016 | 47
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