What is Hotel Guest Feedback? Importance and Solutions
December 18, 2024

What is Hotel Guest Feedback? Importance and Solutions

11 min read

When guests feel valued, your hotel thrives and will likely bring in new customers. Guest feedback is crucial to the hotel experience. After all, your services are built around customer satisfaction, and their feedback provides the best insights into how well your business is doing.

This article covers how to collect guest feedback, its importance, and how to use it to improve your hotel operations. Ready to boost guest satisfaction? Let’s dive in.

hotel feedback system

Key Takeaways

  • Hotel guest feedback is an important part of the hospitality industry. It directly influences client reviews and ratings on platforms like TripAdvisor and Google. Positive reviews can significantly boost a hotel's visibility and reputation.
  • Hotel guest feedback optimizes customer satisfaction, which is equally important.
  • Hoteliers can improve service quality by acting on guest feedback. Implementing feedback-driven changes enhances the guest experience and demonstrates a commitment to customer care, fostering trust and loyalty.
  • A hotel guest feedback system allows you to actively seek and respond to guest feedback. Your hotel can differentiate itself in a competitive market, leading to increased bookings and occupancy rates.

What is Guest Feedback?

Guest feedback consists of the responses you gather from guests after their experience with your hotel business. It can range from complaints and suggestions to recognition and praise. This feedback is often collected through email surveys, anonymous suggestions, online reviews, and more.

While gathering guest feedback is essential, acting on that feedback is equally crucial. Hoteliers need to take these insights seriously to make meaningful improvements that reflect what their guests are asking for.

Why Guest Feedback is Crucial for Hotels

What truly drives your hotel’s success? Is it luxurious facilities or a prime location? While these factors are essential, the key often lies in how well you listen to your guests.

Guest feedback is considered more than just a review, especially in the hotel business. It’s a roadmap to improving your services and ensuring long-term loyalty. Customers who feel heard and valued don’t just return; they bring others with them too.

In fact, positive customer reviews can increase the likelihood of attracting new guests by 72%. The more guest feedback you receive, the greater the growth potential, as satisfied guests not only return but also draw new business to your doorstep.

Receiving feedback from guests, constructive or not, is a vital aspect of any hotel business. These insights allow you to understand and evaluate your hotel’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s an effective strategy for enhancing your reputation in the hospitality industry and achieving top-tier success.

Methods for Collecting Guest Feedback

Hotel guest feedback comes in various forms and can be gathered through multiple channels. It’s all about giving customers the opportunity to communicate their true feelings about their experience in your hotel.

Feedback Forms

When customers check out, you can hand them a hard copy of a guest feedback form and ask them to share their reviews. This is a more traditional method of collecting guest feedback.

Nowadays, many hotels offer electronic surveys and forms accessible on any device after checkout.

Online Reviews

Customers often rely on hotel feedback platforms like TripAdvisor, Google Reviews, or Yelp. Encouraging customers to leave reviews on these sites can give you a competitive edge in attracting new guests. As trusted sources of first-hand experiences, such hotel feedback platforms are popular among travelers and can significantly impact your business.

Social Media

The world increasingly favors social media influencers, so encouraging your guests to leave reviews on social media platforms can be beneficial. Ask them to tag your hotel in their posts to boost your visibility and engagement on social media.

In-Room Tablets

You can also provide electronic tablets in your hotel rooms to collect guest feedback. This way, guests can easily share their concerns and compliments in real-time, ensuring that all their feedback is captured as it happens.

Face-to-Face Interactions

Naturally, direct interactions between customers and staff also provide insights into the guest experience. You can gain meaningful guest feedback through face-to-face interactions with the concierge and other hotel personnel.

Email Surveys

After a guest's stay, you can send them an email requesting their guest feedback. They may feel more comfortable completing the survey on their personal devices after they've left the hotel.

Smart TV Solutions for Feedback Collection

At HotelSmarters, we offer simple yet powerful solutions tailored to meet the specific needs of the hospitality industry. With a smart TV management platform, you can easily display a hotel guest feedback form or a multiple-choice questionnaire for guests as they check out, streamlining the entire feedback-gathering process.

Having smart TVs in hotel rooms is now essential, as guests increasingly expect access to streaming services like Netflix, Prime TV, Apple TV, Hulu, Disney+, and more. Embracing the latest technology shows your customers that you're committed to providing a modern, premium experience—something your guest feedback will show.

So, how do smart TVs serve as an efficient tool for collecting valuable guest insights? Let’s say a customer expresses interest in an activity. Through your in-room smart TVs, you can send them relevant notifications.

Guests can also conveniently submit complaints or feedback via a hotel’s guest feedback app on their smart TV without needing to contact staff directly. After checkout, their feedback and any concerns can be seamlessly collected through the system.

Using these hospitality TV solutions makes guests feel valued. It shows that you're investing in their experience and staying ahead of industry trends. You don’t even need guest survey software—you can easily gather feedback via your hotel’s smart TVs and integrate it into your services to ensure continuous improvement and satisfaction.

It’s time to get all these benefits. Contact HotelSmarters to learn more.

Encouraging Guests to Leave Feedback

Getting guests to provide feedback can be challenging. They’re focused on enjoying their stay, so filling out surveys isn’t at the top of their to-do list. However, gathering guest feedback is essential for improving your hotel's services. Here are some effective strategies to encourage customers to share their experiences:

Provide Incentives

One of the most effective ways to gather hotel guest feedback is by offering incentives. People love discounts or freebies! You could let guests know that completing a guest feedback survey could earn them a discount or a complimentary gift from your gift shop.

For those who leave detailed reviews on a guest feedback platform, your hotel could offer entry into a lucky draw with a valuable prize. These incentives motivate guests to provide detailed feedback, with an added element of excitement.

Make it Easy

Remove any barriers that could prevent guests from completing your guest feedback survey. Keep it short and straightforward, letting guests know it will only take a few minutes. A user-friendly format encourages participation, and positive messaging, like thanking them for their time, can boost response rates.

Offer Flexible Options

Giving guests flexibility increases their likelihood of leaving feedback. Offer several methods for completing a hotel guest feedback survey, such as through their smart TV, a mobile app, or a quick link via email. This allows guests to choose the option that suits them best, making them more likely to engage.

Send Follow-Up Emails

After checkout, sending a polite follow-up email thanking guests for their stay can also serve as a gentle reminder to leave feedback. Include a clear call to action inviting them to share their hotel guest feedback. This strategy supports your hotel's growth and improvement.

Analyzing and Acting on Guest Feedback

Analyzing and Acting on Guest Feedback Once you’ve collected guest feedback, you can organize and analyze it using a hotel feedback management system. Responding to feedback is crucial, as it shows guests you take their input seriously. Here are five steps to effectively harness customer insights:

  1. Start by categorizing the feedback into key themes, such as amenities, service quality, and cleanliness. This helps identify which areas need immediate attention and which are performing well. Repeated complaints in specific categories signal where improvements are most needed.
  2. Engage your guests by letting them know that their feedback is valued and that necessary steps are being taken to improve the quality of service.
  3. Implement changes based on the insights gathered from your hotel feedback system. Listening alone isn't enough—ensure complaints are addressed promptly to maintain high customer satisfaction.
  4. Track the effectiveness of these changes by monitoring guest satisfaction. A decrease in complaints indicates you're moving in the right direction, but continue fine-tuning based on ongoing guest feedback.
  5. Identify your strengths and weaknesses and cater to them accordingly. And most importantly, don’t hesitate to follow up with guests to ask about their recent experiences, as this can provide further valuable insights.

Integration with Hotel Management Systems

Hotel guest feedback can be seamlessly integrated into hotel management systems (HMS), which oversee a hotel's daily operations and processes. By incorporating feedback with your HMS, you can ensure smoother operations, enhance efficiency, and minimize disruptions.

When utilizing hotel guest feedback surveys, businesses demonstrate their commitment to customer-centricity by asking questions that prioritize guest experiences and needs. But how can you get your guests to share their insights?

By integrating your chosen guest survey software with a powerful hotel middleware system. This can enhance your performance as a hotelier and give you a competitive edge.

Benefit: Combining your HMS with a guest feedback system gives you deeper insights into your customers' needs, allowing you to adapt and improve more effectively. This integration helps you stay ahead in the evolving hospitality industry.

4 Best Hotel Guest Feedback Tools

You might be wondering if this blog has solely focused on the benefits of hotel guest feedback without offering any specific hotel survey software or solutions. Well, look no further. Here are the top four best hotel guest feedback tools:

HotelSmarters

As an industry leader, HotelSmarters offers more than just hotel survey software—it’s an all-in-one hotel management platform designed to enhance the guest experience while simplifying hotel operations. As an intuitive solution, HotelSmarters allows you to gather feedback directly through a fully customized smart TV management platform connected to your guest room TVs.

Get Your Smart TV Management Platform Now

Customer Alliance

Customer Alliance is another robust hotel feedback management system that deals with the collection, consolidation, and analysis of reviews left by guests. This hotel survey software also helps identify strengths and weaknesses with real-time tracking of the metrics.

GuestRevu

GuestRevu is a guest feedback platform designed for the hospitality industry. It gathers data and analyzes guest feedback by asking dynamic survey questions through various online platforms.

Flexkeeping

Flexkeeping is responsible for streamlining daily tasks to improve guest satisfaction and optimize financial performance. It allows staff to prioritize tasks based on guest feedback and address any issues immediately. This easy-to-use hotel feedback platform can help you achieve great heights in the hospitality industry.

Conclusion

Maintaining your hotel's rankings and reputation is essential, as every hotelier’s goal is to provide guests with a seamless, exceptional experience. Guest feedback is a powerful tool that enables hoteliers to fine-tune their services and enhance their unique selling points.

When guests see that their feedback is valued and that their needs are prioritized, they are more likely to return and recommend your hotel to others.

FAQs

What do hotels need guest feedback for?

To understand what’s right and wrong in your hotel operations, you need to know what your guests think. Knowing this helps you improve guest experience, maintain service quality, resolve issues quickly, and build a reputation that attracts new and returning customers.

How to gather guest feedback?

You can gather guest feedback through surveys, mobile apps, in-room devices, social media, and review platforms. Guest feedback will help you learn their preferences and improve your services.

Is it hard to get guest feedback?

Getting guest feedback isn't necessarily hard, but it does require the right timing, tools, and approach. Keep the process simple and convenient. Send short surveys via SMS or email to increase response rates.

Blog author avatar

Founder / CEO

Hi, I'm Andranik, the CEO and Co-Founder of inoRain OTT, as well as the Co-Founder of HotelSmarters. I'm passionate about driving innovation in the streaming industry and bringing smart solutions to the Hospitality sector. Let's connect and discuss how to enhance digital content distribution, optimize monetization strategies, and revolutionize hospitality management with data-driven solutions.

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