Reputation Revelation: “When you’re in the hospitality business with a unique footprint you can expect your reviews to be either off the charts off their rockers!”
Sitting on the beach in Newport Oregon is the Sylvia Beach Hotel. If you live within 200 miles and have never been here then you’re missing out and that’s an understatement and unfortunately I am not a skilled enough of a writer to give the proper perspective to my claims. Let’s just say that the Harry Potter themed guest room one floor below the reading room overlooking the ocean is something you would have to drag your kids out of and maybe yourself as well.
Needless to say this is not a typical lodging environment. When I see all the cars parked at the hotels around the area it makes me laugh as if I was in a movie where only the guests could see the Sylvia Beach Hotel and everyone else thought it was a barn. It really is a “The Joke’s On Them” feeling.
Talking to Dick who knows his way around the industry and Newport, he made an interesting observation. Reviews for the Hotel come from either raving fans that recognize the value or serial complainers that just happen to land in the right place at the wrong time. In other words they are either incredibly positive or incredibly off base (forgive my bias wording). It reminds me of an important lesson, which is to say that it doesn’t matter how popular your hotel is as there is always room for increased profits and wheel barrels full of lost opportunity all around us.
Why do so many review site business profiles in the hospitality industry have little to no middle ground?
One simple answer: “Motivation”
When left to their own devices 3rd party review sites typically attract only the most motivated reviewers. You either have to be extremely pleased or extremely peeved to partake, which means that the overall tone on review site typically does not communicate the reality of the average experience. Review sites are designed to help us make an educated guess as to how other people’s experiences might apply to us as a segway to making a decision to spend our hard earned money. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the digital truth.
I’ve personally looked at the reviews for the Sylvia Beach Hotel and there are plenty to be read that certainly reflect reality and plenty that I can tell you without reservation are written by authors that couldn’t be talking about the same establishment. Luckily I’ve been here enough times to know the difference but there will be thousands that will miss the opportunity that otherwise would have been raving fans (we’ll see about that).
So what do we do about 3rd Party review sites?
This is one of the main reasons we developed the “Review Accelerator” as a part of our primary service. The Review Accelerator starts with an easily managed space for the customers of a business to write about their experience. From here the review is sent to a proprietary moderation queue that is treated in some respects like a Facebook request. The “Review Accelerator” places customers in front of the business owner BEFORE they go public on you, which by that time it may be too late and to anonymous to be fixed. At this point the review is queued for promotion, Facebook postings and the customer is offered an opportunity to share their review with strategically suggested 3rd party review sites. Less than great reviews are routed back to the business for follow up while there is still enough time left to do something about it.
The end game is a massive increase in involvement from customers, the ability to know who your best customers are before sticking a 3rd party review site sticker on you business door, a star rating that reflects reality and a full bodied, balanced online customer perspective. Oh and let’s not forget more new, repeat and referral business which leads directly to ones bottom line.
Ultimately your Google search (the search for your business name) controls your income and a controlled Google space empowers you and keeps you from being the effect of 3rd party review sites by reducing their influence (after all 3rd party review sites get their traffic from people Googling your business). With that said 3rd party review sites aren’t going away anytime soon and will always be a critical component of your online reputation score. This is why it is so important to have a solid plan for managing these sites. The right plan should be effective and yet can be operated on auto pilot without the business’s over active involvement.
Less that 1/2 of 1% of all businesses that are directly impacted by 3rd party review sites have a pr0active plan in place and 80%+ of the businesses that do have a plan are finding it to be unworkable. So if you’re looking for a way to take market share or book out the remaining 20% of your available rooms, just pair a process like “Review Accelerator” with your unique business footprint and sit back and enjoy the growth, while never having to make excuses for your review profile again.
Oh and next time you’re thinking of heading to the beach in the Newport Oregon area call ahead and book at the Sylvia Beach Hotel. You’ll be glad you did.
The Team @ Reputation Accelerator