According to Microsoft, 90% of people view customer service as a factor for deciding whether or not to purchase from a company (winks into the camera). This is one of the many reasons businesses are increasingly focusing on how to ask for feedback from their customers. They know the answers are like gold dust.
In the hospitality business, customer feedback has an extra edge because so much of that feedback is made public on websites like TripAdvisor and OpenTable.
The presence of these platforms is enough to give hoteliers and restaurateurs nightmares, but the simple fact remains that customer feedback is a vital and powerful marketing tool.
The good news is that you can manage your venue’s online reputation. You simply need to get in there first, starting with the drive of your customer service team.
To do this effectively, you need a great template, and in today’s guide, we’ll show you how to create one that’ll help draw out the most beneficial responses you can imagine.
The Difference Between CSAT and NPS Scores
Before we begin, it’s important to get your head around two of the most common methods to collect customer feedback and measure it.
They’re known as CSATs and NPS. Here are the definitions:
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Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is measured by surveying customers on how happy they are and calculating the percentage of the sum total of ’satisfied’ responses and dividing them by the total responses received.
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Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures long-term happiness and customer loyalty by asking them to rate their happiness from 1-10 (10 being the happiest).
We should note that these are complementary measures for analyzing customer satisfaction. Indeed, most customer satisfaction surveys you send out will feature CSAT and NPS measurement elements.
Both methods aim to reveal a number that can be attributed to overall customer satisfaction. The most significant difference is that CSAT usually measures short-term satisfaction, while NPS focuses on showing long-term brand loyalty.
Making the Distinction Between Direct and Public Feedback
It’s a fact of life that around 36% of consumers will openly share their experience of dealing with a brand, whether it’s good or bad. This is why it’s important to distinguish between public and direct feedback. The former is something over which you have limited control, but to which you must proactively respond. Asking your customers for online reviews will boost your business reputation. Direct feedback is entirely within your control and primarily kept private unless you choose to share it (more on that later).
Both ways to collect feedback are very important if you want to continue growing your business and improving the service you offer.
Now we’ve nailed down the different types of customer feedback you can seek, let’s consider eight essentials for any feedback form template.
The following will be relevant to any business operating within the hospitality industry, whether you’re running a hotel, restaurant, small cafe, or multi-property enterprise.
The items below will help you build the customer survey questions. Use these tips to elicit a wide response from your audience.
1. Demographics
Discovering the exact makeup of your customers is vitally important if you want to conduct targeted marketing campaigns in the future. It’ll also reveal exactly what demographic you’re most - and least - popular with.
Consider asking these demographic questions in your customer satisfaction survey:
- How old are you?
- Where do you live?
- What’s your employment status?
- What’s your profession?
- What’s your relationship status?
Make sure the answers are optional, but you’ll be surprised by how many people answer every single question.
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2. Statistics
Surveys are brilliant for drawing out fascinating statistics about your customers. This is why some of your customer feedback questions should focus on drawing out percentages, trends and other insightful numbers.
For instance, you could ask how often they visit your venue, or how important specific amenities are to them.
The more statistical information you can get from your customer base, the more you can align your business with the big numbers. Now you can write content that quotes your customers’ feedback questionnaire and attracts plenty of attention online. This is great for brand recognition and attention. Compare your findings to your business plan to ensure you are staying on track.
3. Open-text Responses
Multiple-choice answers are great for building the statistical information we mentioned above, but it’s important not to narrow down the options too much for the respondent.
They may have more to say, or you may not have given them an option that aligns with what they want to say. To ensure you don’t lose their interest, make sure most, if not all, of your survey questions, feature an open-text response.
For a comment form template, you could prompt an open-text answer. For instance, if the question is “what impressed you the most about your stay with us,” it might be more insightful to encourage completely unique, unguided answers.
4. Customer Experience Questions
This is where your CSAT and NPS questions come into play with your user feedback form template.
An example of a CSAT question would be: “How satisfied were you with the quality of the food you ate today?” and provide a sliding scale from ‘not happy’ to ‘very satisfied.’
An NPS question would be like: “how likely would you be to recommend our hotel to a friend?” followed by a 0-10 scale of likelihood.
Keep your customer experience questions short and few. With your feedback form templates, make sure you hone in on the stuff that matters to you in terms of driving the business forward and providing the best possible customer experience.
5. Operational Compliance Questions
Hospitality staffing solutions are the main priority for companies that want to retain a positive customer experience. You’ll also want to use the right restaurant interview questions to ensure you are completing your team with employees that can deal with pressue and feel comfortable wih the tip pooling policy in the US. Operational compliance questions will help you determine the effectiveness of your staff training and general approach to industry compliance.
Examples include:
- “Was your table clean on arrival?”
- “Did you find it easy to pay for our services?”
- “Did your home delivery arrive on time?”
- “Were you invited to join our loyalty program?”
Arguably, we’re living in a world where many compliance questions will - and should - center on cleanliness, but make sure you use this part of your survey to highlight where you’re falling short.
6. Discovery Questions
This is an exciting part of the feedback questionnaire template because the answers should give you some great insight into how your customers discover you and where your strategy is paying off.
For instance, you might ask where they heard about you. Providing common options for the answer (such as ‘word-of-mouth,’ ‘Google,’ and ‘advertisement’) will reveal how well your marketing strategies are performing. Hiring marketing staff in hospitality with either in-house or outsourced work is vital for a successful marketing campaign.
You can also use this part of the survey to discover what’s missing from your offering. Was the menu inclusive enough? Did the room offer the amenities the guest expected?
Again, make sure you keep the questions short and to the point.
7. Conversational Language
Answering a survey should feel like a conversation with someone. That way, you’re far more likely to complete the entire survey and provide genuine answers.
To encourage this from your respondents, ask the questions in a natural, conversational manner. Avoid any kind of industry jargon, abbreviations or sales talk. Write as you would speak.
8. An Incentive
It’s important to note at this juncture that the idea isn’t to offer an incentive for good feedback - that’s completely wrong.
Instead, consider how to make the survey worth your customers’ time. Indicate how long it’ll take to answer (five minutes is a good duration to aim for) and include some form of incentive for doing so.
The trick, as always, is to use something of high value to them but relatively low cost to you. A 10% discount, free room upgrade, or loyalty points reward are great examples.
What To Do With Great Customer Feedback
Once the feedback starts rolling in, there are three things you can do with it:
- share it with staff (both negative and positive - the former will make them feel rewarded, while the latter will give them something on which to base their development)
- highlight the best responses you get on your website and your social media channels
- approach the most enthusiastic advocates of your brand and ask if they’d like to provide a more in-depth testimonial via video or in writing
Our last advice is to continually revisit your customer feedback form to ensure it’s relevant and in tune with your growing business - this isn’t a document that should be created once and left to gather dust. Now that you are ready to create your new client feedback questionnaire template, what about templates for influencer collaborations? Here are 6 message templates for influencer invites and collaborations to kickstart your next marketing campaign.
You can also read more tips, advice, and guides to boost your hospitality service reviews and improve client experience. If you want to take your marketing capabilities to the next level, a guest WiFi solution can customize the best solution for your business. Take advantage of a solution like Beambox to customize your Wi-Fi platform and receive analytic insights into your customer base. Start your thirty-day free trial and turn your free WiFi into a machine for growth!
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