Hotel Reputation Management: Strategies & Secrets For Success

When it comes to running a hotel, reputation is paramount. If you want to draw in plenty of customers, you need a positive image to portray to the world. Customers need places with fantastic reputations when it comes to accommodation - it‘s the most vulnerable form of hospitality for customers. The last thing they want is a ruined trip because of a sketchy hotel. Luckily, there is a proactive way to ensure your hotel’s reputation stays sparkly. Every business gets negative reviews sometimes, but you can keep a better online reputation by investing in hotel reputation management. Reputation management helps keep your online reviews clean and your customer relationships happy, boosting your brand image.

In this guide, we’ll delve into precisely what reputation management for hotels is and what strategies to use for success. By the end, you can transform your business with reputation management software and a few tips and tricks. Forget the curse of negative reviews and get ready for a hotel reputation transformation.

What Is Hotel Reputation Management?

Hotel reputation management is just how a hotel manages its reputation - how the public perceives it and ranks it in the industry. A positive reputation is essential for hotels, especially considering the rise of apps like Booking.com. These apps and websites rely on star rating systems and let customers filter out hotels based on ranking. Having an excellent reputation can literally be a make-and-break for some hotels.

Picture the hotel’s reputation as a massive bubble. The bigger it gets, the more passersby start to notice it. But you can’t let it pop, or you’ll lose the positive attention. Maintaining a positive hotel reputation requires careful and consistent efforts. Sometimes you need to de-escalate situations to defend your hotel (like responding calmly with solutions to negative online reviews). And you also need to be proactive, like offering customer surveys to redirect negative feedback from the public sphere.

You can shape a hotel’s reputation online or offline. Managing your online hotel reputation might look like promptly replying to online reviews or engaging on social media platforms. Offline, this could be customer service-focused and involve skilled conflict resolution. You can choose to manage your hotel reputation yourself or outsource the task. Many hotel owners opt for hotel reputation management software - which automates many tasks and provides analytics.

Hotel reputation is a massive collection of different factors. It encompasses reputation on multiple platforms and scenarios, varying from review sites to word-of-mouth reputation. It also involves many potential solutions, including investing in software or hiring a customer service staff member. Managing a hotel’s reputation is something that looks different for every business.

Why Use Hotel Reputation Management Services?

Using hotel reputation management services is a fabulous idea. These services just involve outsourcing the trickiest part - monitoring and responding. The service provider could be software that automates everything and gives you access to a main analytical dashboard. Or it could be a people-led service that takes on tasks like responding to reviews and managing your reputation manually. There are pros and cons to both options. People-led management services come with human error but, inevitably, a more adaptable and individualistic approach. Software tends to be cheaper with an upfront fee or simple monthly subscription and won’t need as much input.

So regardless of which you choose, why should you use these services in the first place? The first reason is that using hotel management services for your reputation saves you time. Monitoring your reputation is a full-time ordeal when done correctly. If you monitor your reviews yourself, it could take you 30 minutes a day to do so effectively. And that’s without doing the extra work like trawling sites and creating reputation-boosting initiatives. By outsourcing the basics, you can spend more time on less repetitive tasks that demand more careful attention. These services are tax deductible, so why not make your life easier? Time is a gift, so use it wisely if you can outsource.

Reputation management services are also highly effective when you correctly choose the company or software. Investing in these services will improve your hotel reputation, in turn increasing your profit turnover and customer loyalty. If you want to increase success in your hotel business, investing in management services is the top way to achieve it. Reputation makes a vast difference between a good hotel and a great hotel - so take the leap and join the winning team.

How To Choose Hotel Reputation Management Software

So, you’ve decided that outsourcing hotel reputation management is for you. What next? Choosing hotel reputation management software can be daunting and isn’t a stage you should rush or take lightly. You should already have your budget in mind, but keep it handy for these next steps. Doing your research is really important, and we’ve got some guidance on choosing the best software.

Firstly, you want to do the ‘basic’ check. Look for good reviews, strong brand history of success, and easy ways to contact them. Move on if a product looks sketchy and has just one or two reviews. Keep an eye out for fake reviews as well. These reviews might come from unrealistic-sounding names or read as slightly robotic.

Once you pass this initial screening, consider whether the software is compatible with any other products you may use. If it only syncs reviews from Instagram and you predominantly use Facebook, consider if it is best for you. Similarly, if you plan to sync it to captive portals and routers, check the compatibility.

With trustability and compatibility established, move forward by analyzing what the software actually offers. For example, you may not think an analytical dashboard is a big deal. It could be worth compromising, right? But months later, when you scramble to calculate and interpret data, you’ll probably regret rejecting a nice automated dashboard. Pay attention to strictly what parts are automated so you don’t end up with hidden tasks and time investment. And also, really consider what features are non-negotiables for you.

Once you have completed this research, think back to your budget. Do any of these options not meet your budget? Do any fit perfectly? Let your budget be the decider between any ties.

Top 5 Hotel Online Reputation Management Software

You know what to look for when finding hotel reputation management software. So let’s skip to the next step - looking at some of the best choices on the market. These are some of the best hotel online reputation management software, whether you want sentiment analysis or TikTok crawling.

  1. Brand24

Brand24 is a top-reputation software that offers excellent media monitoring and analytical tools. It trawls sites from all over the web and social media like Twitter, Instagram, and Tik Tok. If you want to learn more about your hotel reputation, Brand24 is a fab way to do it. It even offers a 14-day trial for free.

  2. Reputology

Reputology is a subscription-based reputation software that is perfect for entry-level reputation management. The best feature is its real-time alerts, which notifies you when it finds a new hotel review. Reputology also offers customer feedback solutions - a nice touch. Plus, the standard analytical dashboard.

  3. Brandwatch

Brandwatch is an excellent bit of software. Its winning feature is its beautiful dashboard, which includes a pie chart, word scramble, and more. It scans the web for any mention of your hotel and creates an insightful dashboard. Giving you all the information to act accordingly.

  4. Yext

Yext is more catered towards search engine optimization - through voice search and keywords. It also manages business listings and helps you stay at the top of significant directories. If you want something that handles the data management side of things rather than just reviews, Yext is perfect.

  5. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is another winning choice when it comes to hotel reputation software. It is steeper price-wise but still runs on a monthly subscription - you can cancel anytime. It monitors social media and all sites online for related keywords and your hotel name. It is a handy tool for tracking customer sentiment and hotel reputation and even detecting conversation tones.

How To Instantly Improve Your Hotel’s Reputation

Ready to put some of this knowledge into action? Let’s look at how to instantly improve your hotel reputation management. These strategies for success can cause long-term positive repercussions yet only take a short time to implement. You can invest in one (or all) of these strategies in less than an hour. And once you complete them, you’ll instantly improve your hotel’s reputation.

1. Add a survey to your captive portal login.

Adding a survey to your captive portal login is one of the cleverest ways to improve your reputation. Using captive portal WiFi to boost your reputation is simple and easy. You are offering a place for guests to vent. If they’d otherwise leave a negative review, this redirects that anger to a more manageable, non-public place.

2. Dedicate time to responding to and resolving negative reviews.

You should respond to and resolve every negative review in under 48 hours. At the very least, respond twice weekly - this is the minimum to keep negative reviewers happy. It also helps with damage limitation, proving you are a great business or telling your side of the story. You can wade through a massive backlog of unanswered reviews in an hour, so start now and see the benefits.

3. Sync your Facebook and Instagram pages.

Using the Meta Business Suite is one of the best ways to boost your hotel’s reputation. Why? Because you can sync your Facebook and Instagram posts. This means that you get two forms of social media marketing for the price (and effort) of one. At the same time that it would take you to post on Instagram, you’ll also post automatically on Facebook. This targets double your original audience and double the steps towards a more positive hotel reputation.

Why Investing In Hotel Reputation Management Is Worth Starting Today

Hotel reputation management is worth starting immediately. Managing your reputation as a hotel business is like an instant domino effect. The changes will instantly impact how your business is perceived - it could be as simple as resolving a negative review. Or monitoring your online reputation through trawling software so that you are more aware of your reputation. These simple adjustments can trigger a rapid increase in the positivity of your hotel’s reputation. And better yet, these are all adjustments you can make today.

Managing your hotel’s reputation is a full-time consideration. In fact, it is more a mindset shift than anything else. Rather than juggling eyes in the back of your head to monitor everything at once, we’d suggest investing in software. Reputation manager software is so helpful. The software can relieve some of the pressures of monitoring and collecting reviews. Instead, you can focus on things like marketing or general day-to-day tasks. Or even concentrate on the more ‘human’ side of reputation management, like strategy building.

Would you like some extra help with managing your hotel reputation? At Beambox, we are always happy to help businesses manage their reputations - online or offline. As experts in WiFi marketing and boosting businesses, we can aid you in your journey to success and development.

Beambox offers the best all-in-one WiFi marketing platform. We utilize a dynamic approach to connect, attract, and retain customers. Start your Beambox free trial today, and let us help you to boost your hotel’s reputation.

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