As the saying goes “Nothing worth having comes easy”, there are also several challenges in collecting and using guest feedback.
As explained in the previous article of the series, guest feedback is a powerful tool for hotels to improve guest satisfaction and provide a high level of service in this competitive landscape.
However, collecting guest feedback comes with its own set of challenges in collecting it.
The article in our series “5 Smart Methods to Collect Guest Feedback Without Annoying Them” highlights the proven ways to collect feedback without annoying your guests.
This article highlights the challenges that hotels could face while collecting guest feedback and ways to tackle them.
Collecting, analyzing, and acting upon feedback is worthy only if we receive genuine feedback.
1. Low Response Rates
One of the major challenges in collecting guest feedback is engaging or encouraging guests to provide the guest feedback.
Guests, business travelers, or leisure travelers, are so busy with their routines and plans that they don’t prioritize providing feedback.
As a result, many guests frequently ignore or delay (and later forget) the request for feedback.
Additionally, the hotel cannot force any guests to provide feedback against their will.
This situation prevents the hotel from gathering sufficient insights despite having a strategy in place to act on the feedback provided.
Strategies To Overcome It
Simplify the process: Simplify the feedback process by collecting only essential hotel information, eliminating questions about overall hotel features.
Remote Feedback Options: Provide guests with remote feedback options such as email, social media, or app integrations, allowing them to provide feedback at their convenience.
For example, the Ritz-Carlton successfully boosted survey responses by 30% through personalized follow-up emails and targeted incentives, demonstrating the effectiveness of proactive engagement strategies.
2. Baised Feedback
Biased feedback occurs when the guests are influenced by any other source rather than their assessment of the hotel.
Personal opinions, emotions, or specific experiences could influence the common factors affecting the guests.
For example, Imagine a guest who had a minor issue with room service during their stay. Despite enjoying other aspects of their visit, they rate their experience negatively solely based on this incident.
This poses a significant challenge in guest feedback collection because it can affect data analysis and misrepresent the true sentiment of the guest population.
Strategies To Overcome It
Anonymous Surveys: Collecting feedback without asking for the guest’s details, such as name and area of residence, encourages them to provide genuine feedback, as they can remain anonymous.
Diversify Feedback Channels: Collecting feedback from various sources will help hotels balance out bias since they have many responses to compare with.
3. Data Overload
Using diversified feedback channels to avoid biased feedback creates another challenge of managing the abundant data which is called data overload.
Data overload refers to the overwhelming volume of data that can be difficult to manage, analyze, and interpret effectively.
This creates a situation where the hotel has abundant data then it could interrupt.
Strategy To Overcome It
Automate Data Collection: Instead of manually segregating the data the hotels can use software to gather, interpret, and segregate the data from the diverse platforms.
For example, consider a scenario where a hotel receives feedback from multiple online review sites, social media platforms, and post-stay surveys.
Without a centralized system to aggregate and analyze this feedback, the hotel may struggle to identify common issues, such as recurring complaints about housekeeping or check-in processes.
“According to industry studies, up to 70% of online reviews are influenced by emotional factors rather than objective assessments of service quality”
Source: Internet
4. Lack of context or insight
It’s important to gather feedback using specific and in-depth questions to ensure that the information collected is clear and useful.
Feedback collected with shallow and general questions would blur out the information required.
When feedback is gathered without a clear focus, it may miss important context or insights, which can limit its usefulness for making informed decisions.
Strategy To Overcome It
Structured Feedback Form: Designing a structured feedback form to collect feedback rather than having random or general feedback forms can benefit hotels more. Structured feedback forms follow a customized series of questions depending on the hotel.
Detailed and Clear Questions: Framing detailed and clear questions for the specific problems would help hotels to get clear insights about the guests’ opinions easily.
For example, instead of a general question like “How was your stay?”, ask specific questions such as “How satisfied were you with the cleanliness of your room?” and “Can you describe any issues you faced during check-in?”
“According to industry data, average response rates for guest feedback surveys hover around 15-20%, posing a significant challenge in gathering comprehensive insights.”
Source: Internet
5. Language & Communication Barriers
This is the most common problem in guest feedback collection.
Hotels serving guests from different parts of the country or the globe fail to include native languages, and sometimes the language they are using is not as understandable which undermines the quality of the feedback and it also reduces the responses.
Hence the guests skip providing feedback even if they are willing.
Strategy To Overcome It
Multilingual feedback tool: Utilize multilingual feedback tools that support multiple languages, allowing guests to provide feedback in their preferred language.
These tools can automatically translate feedback into the hotel’s primary language, ensuring that the insights are accessible and understandable to the management team.
For example, hotels like Accor use multilingual survey tools that support over 30 languages, making it easier for international guests to provide feedback comfortably.
“According to a study by Common Sense Advisory, 75% of consumers prefer to participate in a survey in their native language, and 60% rarely or never participate in English-only surveys.”
Source: Internet
Conclusion
Collecting guest feedback is essential for the continuous improvement and success of any hotel, but it is not without its challenges.
As you navigate the complexities of guest feedback, remember that every piece of feedback is an opportunity to refine your services, delight your guests, and elevate your brand in a competitive market.
“According to a 2023 study by Deloitte, hotels that effectively utilize guest feedback see a 20% increase in customer retention and a 15% boost in overall guest satisfaction.”
Source: Internet
The development of technology has also created a bad impact as much as the positive one which has left an impact in collecting feedback using technology.
Fake and mishandled reviews are the biggest challenge for hotels collecting feedback online.
Dive deeper into the complete outline of how to handle fake and mishandled reviews in our next article.