What is the best answer an hotelier can make to a negative review?

Very inspiring night today! I am back to share with you my views on the following article. It deals about the potential threat online reviews represent for an hotel reputation and the possible ways to face the criticisms.

Websites like TripAdvisors, allowing people to share their good or bad experiences in an hotel, are more and more popular and develop rapidly, with an impressive number of joiners each year. Today, most of the travelers use these kinds of sites to decide which hotel to chose for their holidays. It is then needless to repeat how powerful they are...and the danger they may represent in case of a comments! In his article, the author proposes to think about the best defense to adopt in such a case.

The author starts his articles by stressing the importance the issue has taken and taking the example of hoteliers suing TripAdvisors and its reviewers for defamation. Extreme isn't it? Fear to lose their good image leads the hospitality professionals to react very agressively but, even if it is understandable in some case (the author reminds us of the risks of unfair or worse, fake comments) is it the clevest way to fix a problem? According to the author, certainly not.

He admits hoteliers have no control on what is posted on the web and that it is very destabilizing. All they can do is receive the "flowers" and the "bombs" as they arrive. Still, if there is nothing they can do before, they can chose the way they react after reading the bad reviews and that is what will make all the difference for their image. Should they attack the guests in return? Should they accept the criticisms without a word on the basis "the guest is always right"? Should they launch the dialogue with the unhappy guests? You guessed it: an open discussion is the key for preserving their reputation or at least, limiting the damage.

Why and how is it possible? Today, websites like TripAdvisors are more and more "hoteliers friendly" and they represent a good opportunity for the professionals to answer the guests as soon as they post their reviews. More and more hoteliers realised the potential of this method to manage their brand reputation and they are more and more to use it as a real marketing tool. Besides, the author highlights that internauts are more and more familiar with these online reviews and that most of them understand it is not a 100% reliable source. This article gives a very interesting comment on this reliability issue, using TriAdvisor as an example.

On the contrary, blocking or censoring these websites would be a bad strategy. Indeed, would it be worthy losing the positive impact the good comments would make on your hotel image to protect you against a few bad comments? Once again: of course not. As the author says, people want transparancy and a responsible hotel should accept all the comments, whatever their nature. It is its duty to listen to its guests and to turn the bad into good, instead of losing its time and energy in a battle where it will risk of damaging its reputation even more...

I totally agree with the author on that matter. I think comments should be considered as gifts from the guests. If they are positive, they will improve the morale of the teams and if they are negative, unfair or fake, they will enable the hoteliers to offer solutions, realise their mistakes and improve what needs to be for the next time or give them a chance to establish the truth.Besides, I worked in a few hotels in the F&B department and each week, my managers printed the online comments to make the teams realise what was positive and negative about our service. I believe a guest will forgive you for failing and trying to do better but not for ignoring his complaints. If you answer the bad reviews, you still have a chance to turn an unhappy guest into a loyal customer. What do you think?