Every guest experience is unique. A traveler's path through a hotel creates an individual footprint comprised of product and service interactions that make lasting impressions and provide opportunities to secure (or lose) a loyal customer.
Let's look at the paths traveled by three sample customers. The first is a business traveler: His stay is going well until he has a poor experience printing a document in the business services center. The second customer is traveling for fun, has great F&B experiences in the café, and really enjoys the in-room Jacuzzi! The third customer is traveling with her husband. They experience poor dinner service followed by a frustrating morning at the pool with rowdy kids splashing in the lap lane.
Unfortunately, this hotel is relying on simple surveys to gauge guest satisfaction. Simple surveys don't sync up with guest experiences – and miss key points of feedback. They aren't designed to ask detailed questions that link to unique guest experiences. Without this connection, hoteliers don't hear about the critical moments that affect a guest experience. So they can't direct recovery, track progress, or even manage follow-up communication with the guest.
In these sample situations, the staff misses opportunities to flag problems and recover an unhappy guest. The hotel also misses the opportunity to ask for a positive review from a happy guest, and therefore cannot send a follow-up promotion to return to the property as an elite loyalty club member. They also fail to catch the two bad experiences the couple encountered, and find out about it only after they post a terrible review on Expedia.
Asking the right questions opens possibilities. If these guests had been given a tailored, dynamic survey that mapped to their unique guest experiences, it would create an open dialogue with the hotel throughout the entire guest stay. It would allow the hotel to respond immediately to comments, requests, and complaints by automatically assigning tasks. Surveys with these capabilities help hoteliers take the right action to fix the negative and capitalize on the positive.
By asking, sharing, and acting, hotels can increase satisfaction and use positive experiences to build reputation.
By Bob Fitzpatrick is a senior business consultant with Market Metrix.
