In the previous article of the series “Guest Feedback 360: A Complete Guide for Modern Hoteliers”, we have delved into the efficient methods of collecting feedback without annoying your guests.

Collecting the feedback merely would be of no use until it is analyzed properly.

Feedback is the guest’s sentiment on their stay, which provides direct insights into the guest experience, highlighting areas of excellence and identifying opportunities for improvement.

Hence, proper analysis of feedback provides hotels with numerous new ideas, identifies the pain points of guests, their strengths in serving guests, and insights into guests’ expectations.

In this article, we will discuss analyzing guest feedback and how to respond to it for our benefit.

 Understanding Guest Feedback Analysis

Guest feedback analysis is the process of reviewing, interpreting, and evaluating the comments, reviews, or online surveys provided by the guests who have experienced their stay in the hotel.

This process aims to extract meaningful insights, identify patterns, and understand sentiments to make informed decisions or improvements. 

In layman’s terms, it’s like examining a report card. The school grades the child and gives the report card to the parent. The parent then looks at the report card to identify their child’s strengths and weaknesses. This helps parents address any weaknesses and guide their child towards better performance next time.

Similarly, the guests develop their opinions and give feedback to the hotel management. The management then looks at the feedback to identify their strengths and weaknesses. This helps hotels address any weaknesses and work towards improving and better performance next time.

Analysis of guests’ feedback is understanding what guests say about their experience and figuring out what it means.

Key Steps In Guest Feedback Analysis

Guest feedback analysis involves some key steps to interpret the comments, reviews, or online surveys by the guests.

The key steps are:

• Categorization

Many hotel guests do not interact with every department within the hotel, so their reviews typically only reflect the areas they have experienced. 

Therefore, it’s crucial to categorize feedback into different departments such as food and beverage, housekeeping, front desk, and complaint management. 

This allows for easier identification of strengths and weaknesses within each department and enables specific steps to be taken to address their needs. 

This approach helps hotels to better understand guest opinions about individual departments.

• Sentiment Analysis

The feedback is the experience of the guests during their stay which is generally positive, negative, or neutral.

Thus the sentiment analysis of feedback is segregating the guests’ feedback into these three criteria i.e., positive feedback, negative feedback, or neutral feedback.

The positive feedback includes the guests who are satisfied with the hotel service and had an exceptional stay. They are satisfied with the hotel and may promote positive word-of-mouth to others.

The negative feedback includes the guests who are not satisfied with the hotel service and did not have a good stay. The hotel service was not to their expectation and they were disappointed. They may not recommend the hotel to others.

The neutral feedback includes the guests’ comments that are not overtly positive or negative.

They found the hotel no different from others and their stay was satisfactory but not exceptional. Their expectations were met but not exceeded. These guests may or may not recommend the hotels to others.

Using this sentiment analysis the hotel can ensure which guests were satisfied with their service and who weren’t satisfied.

How To Act:

The hotel may address each guest personally using different approaches.

For guests with positive feedback, the hotel can send follow-up emails thanking them for their feedback and expressing their hope to serve them again.

For guests with negative feedback, the hotel can thank them for bringing the issues to their attention and apologize for any inconvenience. They can also assure them that they will work to improve the service and ensure that they have an exceptional experience during their next stay.

For guests who provide neutral feedback, the hotel should thank them for their input and assure them that they will work to improve their service. The hotel can also express their anticipation of the opportunity to serve them again and provide exceptional service.

• Trend Identification

The term trend identification refers to the process of identifying or recognizing the patterns of complaints over some time.

For example, if the majority of guests staying in the hotel complained about the slow service, the feedback means that the service system of the hotel must be changed. This also clearly says that the guests do not like the service time and hence the service time has to be decreased.

The common patterns seen in a majority of the guests’ complaints and requests that clearly show the dissatisfaction of the guests is the major importance of trend identification.

How to Act:

It is essential for hotels to correctly identify a trend and inform the relevant staff or department about the common feedback.

An actionable plan to eliminate the trend must be put into place as soon as possible to prevent further complaints. 

The hotel must then ensure that the trend is not repeated and make efforts to come up with a better approach to avoid making the same mistake again.

• Prioritization

Prioritization plays a crucial role in guest feedback analysis within hotels, helping to ensure that resources are allocated effectively and that the most impactful improvements are implemented. 

It is the systematic ranking of issues based on the frequency or the impact of complaints on both the hotel and the guests.

The issues are sorted under the categories of critical needs, high impact, low impact, operational efficiency, infrastructure needs, process improvement, etc. which vary based on the hotel.

This is a crucial step in analyzing feedback because assigning the appropriate priority to complaints ensures the timely resolution of each issue.

How to Act:

Action must be taken according to the priority set for the complaints.

The critical needs or the high-impact complaints must be dealt with first and then followed by other complaints.

This process does not mean neglecting or omitting any complaints; rather, it just tells the order in which the complaints must be resolved.

• Action Planning

Action planning in guest feedback analysis involves developing specific strategies and initiatives to address identified issues and improve overall guest satisfaction. 

This step translates insights from guest feedback into concrete strategies and initiatives for improvement.

The hotel after collecting, categorizing, and prioritizing the feedback finally prepares an executable plan known as the action plan for improving the hotel based on the feedback.

How to Act:

After the feedback is categorized, the sentiment analysis and trend identification steps are done,  and the feedback is prioritized, the action plan is laid out with a clear goal and strategy.

For example, a hotel identifies through guest feedback that the breakfast options are limited and receive mixed reviews. They develop an action plan to expand menu choices, improve food quality, and increase staff training on service delivery.

 By setting specific goals and timelines, assigning responsibilities, and monitoring feedback, they ensure effective implementation and ongoing improvement in guest satisfaction.

Conclusion

Analyzing and acting on guest feedback is not just a process; it’s a strategic imperative for hotels committed to delivering exceptional guest experiences.

By joyfully collecting guest feedback, properly analyzing and acting upon it can help hotels reach new heights of success and attract a lot of new potential customers.

Embracing guest feedback as a catalyst for positive change ensures that each guest feels heard, valued, and inspired to return, thus forging lasting relationships that define hospitality excellence.

The real action begins after analyzing, focusing on handling unsatisfied guest feedback online.

Stay in touch with us for the next guide on how to handle negative feedback in hotels.