Think of your house as a hotel. Overall, it’s quite the nice place. A lovely entrance and charming lobby with friendly front desk staff. The carpets are fresh, the pool is clean and set at the perfect temperature. The rooms have been mostly renovated with flat screen TVs, spa-like bathrooms and 800 thread count sheets with modern, yet stylish décor.
People stay at your hotel and as far as you’re aware, go home having had a great time with the feeling that they got a pleasant stay for a reasonable price. Then they log onto their computers and go straight for Expedia or Trip Advisor to let the world know how horrified they were that the caulking around the tub was slightly discoloured.
Or there was an 11-minute wait at the front desk and they weren’t compensated with a bottle of champagne for their time.
Then they went to the pool and the water was insanely cold! As in 82 degrees cold. Then they stopped by the front desk and the staff were not willing to upgrade their room because the a/c unit was noisier than their threshold for hotel a/c units.
What you thought was a lovely hotel with pleasant décor, good value and an awesome pool turns out to be a pretty good hotel with Threes Company décor, over-inflated price and a pool worthy of a wet-suit.
So, you as the hotel owner, have a few choices. You can pawn all of that real, genuine feedback off as lunacy because clearly those buyers are unrealistic and out-of-touch or you can listen and respond. And sure, the opinions of 2 or 3 guests does not make a consensus. But what if 11 guests say the colours are terrible or the lobby is outdated or the daily rate is too high? At what point do you listen and respond?
Now…as a home seller, substitute your home with that hotel. What would visitors say if they were going to go back home to their computers and from behind the protective wall of their keyboard, write their real genuine thoughts?
Then, how do you respond? Are they out-of-touch or worthy of listening to? We would suggest that if you hear a theme to the feedback, it is probably time to put on your Hotel Manager shoes and sort it out.
Need help with your hotel?
Contact us anytime.
Thank-you for visiting!
THEbTEAM.
Thank-you to Rhema Kallianpur