Fenton comments: “At the individual prop- erty level, we can uncover the specific senti- ment about the quality of our hospitality, value for money, food quality, services provided, cleanliness, WiFi, etc. At the brand-wide level, we can compare our restaurants against each other for any topic or the overall sentiment. We can also compare our sentiment scores from the same time period between different years.” Machine learning has become critical in order to extract actionable feedback, says Dorfman. “It’s also clear that labelling a review as only ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ is often not an accurate representation of what the reviewer thinks. For instance, a review might say in a sentence: ‘The room was delightful and well- appointed but I had a less than ideal check-in.’ Within that single sentence there is both posi- tive and negative feedback and the best solu- tions are able to extract those as unique points and categorise them appropriately.” Further software features include KPI report- ing, such as response rates. Many hoteliers are required to respond to a certain percentage of reviews as this is considered best practice. KPI reports can be directly downloaded from the hotel’s account or automatically scheduled via email. Competitor benchmarking also comes with most packages.
“Only ask questions which the business can act on. Why ask a customer if they were pleased with the location when there is no way you can
move the hotel?” Louise Newman, Critiquie
TIME TO LISTEN
In addition to listening and replying to online reviews, operators need to gather their own direct feedback. Software solutions, such as those offered by Trust You and Revinate, include sending out surveys which, once completed, are then pushed to the review sites to boost review volume, thus closing the virtuous circle. Some see closed, confidential surveys as
the most effective way of gathering meaning- ful, actionable feedback, but getting enough responses can be a challenge. In the con- tract catering sector, Ruston Toms, founding director at Blue Apple, says he would not be happy with less than a 50% response rate at any given site. “Food and service are very sub- jective,” he says. “With data, you’re trying to turn it into something more objective. Oth- erwise, you could find you’re chopping and
56 | Technology Prospectus 2020
changing your catering offer all the time at a whim and you might be changing it for the minority, not the majority.” Blue Apple uses pop-up iPad terminals at the entrance and exit of workplace dining areas. The element of surprise improves response rates. “We have survey templates that can be customised for the client with any particular questions they want to know,” says Toms. The software is sophisticated enough to change questions based on the previous answer. Louise Newman, co-founder at Critiquie,
advises businesses to keep surveys as brief as possible and not offer incentives as custom- ers will often just fill out the survey blindly in order to receive the ‘freebie.’ Such false data will be no help to the business and could even lead it to making the wrong decisions. “Only ask questions which the business can act on and the customer can then see that their feedback has been welcomed,” she says. “Why ask a customer if they were pleased with the location when there is no way you can move the hotel?”
www.thecaterer.com
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