Super Easy ways to improve Hotel Customers Attention
One of the primary challenges with the Sharing and the Disruptive economy is to capture Hotel customers attention.
A research done by Expedia showed that up to 45 days leading up to a booking, a consumer will conduct as many as 38 visits to travel sites. And as much as 55% of visitors spend less than 15 seconds on your website.
Many have jumped to the conclusion that Social Media behaviors are causing this. But the data also shows that Social Media has very little impact on reading engagement. There is an engagement relationship between customers that share content about your Hotel and their community. This relationship can result in increased traffic, leads and some customer to your website. But this doesn’t correlate into engagement with your Hotels website.
It is important to understand that Social Media is a communication channel where customers today anticipate that brands will listen to their community’s and their message.
Seek to understand
The one thing customers will do through their Social Media channels is to voice their concerns.
The first rule is that they anticipate someone will respond. It is very important to understand that once they voiced their concern their community will pay attention to your Hotels response.
If you don’t respond a new set of mechanisms will come into play. The concern has now escalated to a major problem. And the customer’s community start takes ownership of the concern. This can result in unwanted ripple effects that could have been resolved with a simple but yet powerful response.
@dominic_laurie Our apologies. Please follow and DM with HHonors number, exact hotel, dates of stay and details of concern. Thank you. -AM
— Hilton HHonors (@HiltonHHonors) March 14, 2016
Empathy, taking ownership of the concern and seek to understand is a powerful recipe to create positive attention.
Presenting solutions should be done with courage and consideration for the ideas and feelings of your customers.
Social Media is really about creative cooperation. Hospitality is still about serving your Hotel customers. The key is to build a foundation that supports both entities unique values. And at the same time also value the differences.
Delivering above expectations
Customers select your Hotel for various reasons. And you should always anticipate that will arrive with a set of expectations for their experience. Your goal should be to always exceed these expectations, or at minimum meet expectations. But we are in here to deliver extraordinary customer experiences.
The key here is that often it is the small things that make a big difference. Concerns that Hotel has no control over will happen. Weather, computers, mistakes, humans behavior are just a few of the things we can’t control. And still many tend to use these events as an excuse.
Ripple effects often come as a result of the wrong response, no response, limited response or awesome response. As you see here negative response has a 3:1 ratio over a positive response. Excuses come in the negative category. And most of the times a negative response will also multiply three times faster than a positive response.
Empathy, taking ownership of the concern and seek to understand has all the ingredients of an awesome response. Next is to follow through and take swift and proper action.
This requires both actions online and offline.
Online Social Media responses are all about awareness and simplicity. Follow the KISS principles – Keep it Simple and Smart.
My friends from The Wilshire Grand Hotel is a great example of how to open a constructive dialog with the guest.
Have you tried our live Twiter #customerservice? Reach us live. Use #WGHelp during your stay.
— Wilshire Grand Hotel (@WilshireGrandNJ) March 16, 2016
Creating a dedicated #hashtag feed is a great idea. Some simple tips that will help attract more awareness toward this #hashtag are:
- Use your Hotels Facebook Fan Page to let visitors there know they can reach your Customer Performance team through your Twitter channel using #hashtag. Many Hotels has implemented a Twitter Tab on their Facebook Page. This is a great cross-marketing strategy, but it will not serve the purpose of creating awareness for your Facebook users about your #hashtag. *NOTE* Know that not all Facebook users are on Twitter. If a concern is raised on your Hotels Facebook Fan Page then respond there.
- Make Customer Performance fun. Share images of your team response team. Maybe create a top 10 help topics list of the day. Awareness is a team effort.
- Have a #hashtag Welcome posters / board in public areas. Or use keycards or keycard holder to create awareness.
Respond with retention in mind
Proper and timely responses are the biggest missed opportunity I see with Hotels on Social Media.
Most Hotels today follow the principles of empathy, taking ownership of the concern and seek to understand when it comes to concerns voiced on Social Media.
I also encourage being proactive like my friends at The Wilshire Grand Hotel. Being proactive will help your Hotels focus on the things you can do something about. And also, when you have created more awareness around your #hashtag you can use this to inform.
But concerns are not the only information guests share on Social Media. Many guests today also share great guest performances from the Hotel team. The most common response I see here is that many Hotels tend to Retweet a positive response.
Retweeting a response is a good way to recognize a positive response. It is just not a good first response. If your Hotel has invested in a Social Media Management service I for sure hope they do more than just retweet a positive response.
The recipe for an awesome response to a positive response is not much different than to a concern. Focus on empathy, take ownership of the positive response and seek to understand.
@PatriciCastil Looks like you had an incredible meal at @FSBudapest. Thanks for dining with us.
— Four Seasons Hotels (@FourSeasons) March 16, 2016
Attention can be easy when you have simple Social Media strategies in place that focus on serving your guests and customers. When you take proper online action that is related to a concern or a positive message make sure you follow up with proper offline action.
Your Hotels guests share a reflection of their offline experience online with their Social communities. Take ownership of all stages of their experience today. That is when you get their attention.
How do your Hotel catch and retain customer attention?
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About the author
Are Morch is the founder and owner of Are Morch – Hotel Marketing Coach. Get more from Are on Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Pinterest | Instagram| Podcast
