Chapter 40. How to make surveys work for you. You've reached the final chapter in series three, marketing your hospitality property success. Congratulations. Okay, take a breath. Let's get started.
In this chapter, I am going to be talking about service. Why do we need service? I know what my guests like. I would like to say I've never heard that before. But you might be shocked at the number of times hospitality property owners I have met has said just that or something similar. I'm going to give you four important reasons why your hospitality property should be conducting surveys to find out what's going on.
If your customers are given a non threatening method, they will tell you what's important to them. To a survey can shed light on items or problems that you might not have been aware of that could be a symptom of a larger problem. Three, when making decisions about your property Do not always have to go with your gut feelings, but instead make your choices with sound data driven information for surveys provide you with a snapshot of your target guests and their attitudes. This will help you establish a baseline from which you can compare other times and determine whether problems are getting better or worse. What are some categories of surveys and sample questions? market research, how well positioned is my property or service?
But I increased my market share if I changed an aspect of my property or service. How do visitors see my website? product development? Will our new idea work? goal or target population be excited about our new idea? What does our target population need?
Employee performance evaluation to guess thank our staff is courteous and helpful to our guests think of the service they received from our employees what type of service Can I use? I'm going to highlight four different types of surveys with the advantages, disadvantages and when to use web survey advantages very low cost extremely fast. Complex questioning assures better data. Disadvantages, responded completion rates lower for longer surveys. Random respondents may apply if the survey appears on your webpage, when to use when the desired target population consists mainly of internet users. Male survey advantages great for Social Research.
Low cost almost 75% less than personal interviews eliminates potential bias, disadvantages low response rate time he need to wait at least several weeks for all the responses to arrive. When to use to target a specific group telephone service advantages. Reach 96% of all homes can be a streamlined process. interviewers can ask for clarification on responses and additional detail. Disadvantages research calls are often thought of as telemarketers. Typical calling window interrupts respondents personal time, call screening is common.
No visual support, when to use post a follow ups if you have specific questions for specific guests during state or checkout survey advantages, frequently used to gauge behavior, very good response rates. Longer surveys are tolerated. You have a captive audience disadvantages sometimes guests feel pressured, respond to completion rates lower for longer surveys, when to use short surveys when guests are checking out and longer during the state. Sometimes with an incentive How can you ask your guests for feedback? Many hospitality property owners are nervous about asking guests for feedback as it could look pushy or rude. This could be true, so you have to make sure it's done correctly.
At checkout, ask your guests if they would mind filling out a short survey, you can tell them that it is your goal to deliver the best possible experience for your guests. And by filling out this quick survey, you can find out if you're doing things right and where there's room for improvement. Posting. If your guests have a takeaway postage paid survey, or you offer surveys online, send your guests an email to thank them for their visit, and remind them for the feedback. This can drastically increase your survey responses. How to Improve your property survey.
Here are a few things to think about to get the highest possible completion rate. The length of your survey, stay under 25 questions and easy to read. It should not take longer than 10 to 15 minutes to complete. attention grabbing. Ask interesting questions at the beginning of the survey to grab guests attention flow to your questions. Most of our minds work in a logical fashion.
So your survey should as well follow the process your guests would have taken from reservation to check out and group the questions accordingly. impartiality, your goal is to get honest answers from your guests. So when asking questions, stay away from the ones that offer only yes or no answers. For example, did you like our checkout procedure? Instead, you could ask, How do you feel about the checkout procedure? Stay away from industry terminology.
Instead of saying, co ta for example, use third party reservation site or online travel agency. Your guests might find travel terminology confusing. ask one question at a time. For example, don't ask about both the front desk and the room service in the same Question. The guests could make a statement that could be a both the front desk or both the room service and you would not be sure. Ask update questions.
If you would like specific information about a certain aspect of your property, make sure to ask the question. For example, what do you think of the new renovations or asked their opinions on possible new changes? Check to report because there are certain questions that quite often do not get answered. ask why. Maybe they are unclear or something your guests do not care about. Remember, you need to use this feedback.
Ask yourself about the importance of each question. If you receive a comment about it, you can act on it because there's nothing you can do about it. Then it's invaluable so don't ask. There are other ways to consider getting feedback through surveys. Another great source of feedback that cannot be ignored is online reviews. online reviews are providing independent hotel resort in embed Breakfast owners with amazing data about their customer satisfaction.
They're useful because their freeform structure enables guests to talk about the services and amenities that have impact Thursday. Another reason is that positive public guest feedback can have a huge impact on your new bookings. Trip barometer survey states that 93% of travelers worldwide say online reviews have an impact on their booking decisions. If you're a hospitality, property owner or manager and do not like the idea of reviews for your property being shared publicly, I'm sorry to tell you, it's too late. The reality is your guests are already writing and reading online reviews, as well as tweeting and posting about their state. You might as well accept the transparency and use it to drive your customer trust.
Connect with your guests and respond to all comments both positive and negative, as we talked about in chapter 13, improve your customers service. don't respond when you're angry and tell them how you're going to improve things for the better. online reviews can give you the ability to check on your competitors. The data you gathered from your guests surveys and online reviews will quickly help you understand whether you're winning or losing in your customers eyes. I have attached samples of both long and short surveys for you to look at and to use as you see fit. They can be found on the resource page at Keystone hospitality development.com slash resources for you has resources number four, why oh, you Next is series number four.
How do you see your property and that will include the following topics. How does your property compare? How to become your own guest? Is your hospitality property accessible? Is your restaurant meeting its potential. How do you get endless reviews?
Negative reviews are good for business. What is the future of the hospitality property industry?