Your Guest Experience is More Important Than Your Marketing in 2020

Marketing is sexy, your guest service, not so much. How many people these days are telling you how to market your company? Now, how many are offering advice on how to enhance your guest service experience?

How many marketing agencies do you see? Now how many customer service agencies? Discrepancy? Yeah, I'd say so.

The reason is that when people think marketing, they think money, they think bookings, they think properties and they think success. When someone thinks customer service, or in our industry, guest service, they think a call center and a bunch of cubicles, oh and getting yelled at... a lot! Not quite as attractive.

That’s changed in the new economy. In 2020, the guest service portion of your company is a MAJOR portion of your marketing, if not ALL of your marketing.

I'll be willing to be a bit controversial here and say that Google, Facebook and the OTA reviews are becoming more important than marketing funnels, your website or even your properties (whoa, right?). So that being said, before you spend money with that marketing guy that keeps calling, read this article.

Let's start this out with a question. When you're setting a reservation for Valentines day with your significant other, do you just take a shot in the dark or do you look at the Google star ratings, Yelp reviews, or even the Facebook reviews? I'm going to guess you take at least a quick gander. I can tell you that your potential guests do exactly this when they're looking where to stay.

In this day and age, a poor review could be the difference between someone clicking on your website or continuing to scroll.

Your properties may be the best in the area, but let’s take a look at why that doesn’t quite matter: In a consumer survey done by BrightLocal they found some interesting stats that could be holding you back.

• 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation
• 90% of consumers read less than 10 reviews before forming an opinion about a business
• 74% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more
• 58% of consumers say that the star rating of a business is most important

This is huge! I know for me, I’m one of those sick individuals who goes straight to the one-star reviews, and if I see too many one stars for reputable reasons, I’ll go onto the next product or service (and never check that product or service again).

Most people these days aren’t only protective of their money, they're protective of their time as well, and they won’t waste it on a subpar experience

Customer service has changed a lot in the technological era. Back, prior to Facebook, Trip Advisor, Google and these other social review sites, you could be rude and if something went “viral” it went to what, 20 friends max.

Now, people can literally review you before they’re done yelling at you with a click of a button and have thousands of people that can access that one review and you'll be blacklisted by a large subset of your demographic.

Monitoring these sites is more important for growing your business at times than a business plan.

With the increase of public complaints, your guest service and the experience you provide has become a major marketing tool for your company, and it all starts on the internet.

Here's the kicker, if this is done properly, you can earn people's trust, their business, and their loyalty faster and easier than ever. So it's worth investing in.

The key to success in this category is to respond to everything that is said about your company! Whether that be on a third party OTA, your website, Trip Advisor or any of the social outlets, like Facebook and even Google.

If you aren’t all over this, you are already losing! Make sure that you are on top of these outlets and that you are, as Jay Baer says, responding “…to EVERY Comment, on EVERY outlet, EVERY TIME.”

Take 30 minutes a day and reply to your reviews. It’s extremely simple and very effective since all of the replies are public.This is such a phenomenal tool to make you stand out.

There is nothing worse, in my opinion, than seeing a review site that doesn’t have any engagement, especially, on a SOCIAL media page.

It’s important that you don’t forget to acknowledge the positive reviews as well. Below is a good way to communicate on live review sites with a positive and negative comment. Always include a way for this person to email you back privately, so you can take the issue from public eye back into private.

Positive: Mrs. Murphy, we greatly appreciate you taking the time to write this review. It means a great deal that you feel like you’re at home when you walk into our property. When you get a chance, give us a call and ask for Ned, we would love to give you something to thank you for being apart of our Family here.

Notice that we thank the guest for their feedback and show them that we appreciate their time. We always want to restate what made them write the positive review as this is another spot for a potential guest to read what makes you so great. Finally we offer them something for being apart of the family. Simple 3 step process. Literally took me 15 seconds to write it.

Negative: Mrs. Murphy thank you very much for bringing this to my attention, there’s no question that there are times that we are busier than would be ideal here at XYZ Property Management. It sounds as though you are trying to reach us via phone and we did not attend to your issue in a timely manner, is that correct? We want to make sure you are getting the most value out of your stay here in the future, so please call and ask for Ned, we will connect and go over the steps we're currently taking to create a better experience for your next stay.

This is a perfect example directly from Jay Baer, the guru of customer service. Notice you always thank the member for their feedback again, then you are acknowledging the accuracy of the complaint, and from there you want to clarify the complaint and offer them a chance to answer with a question.

The key here is to minimize public criticism and keep it private so we can fix, what is most likely an isolated incident.

In 2020, digital marketing is sexy, I get it, but it's not as sexy as delivering the guest experience that is expected these days. Try it out, it's free (in most cases), so your ROI will be pretty solid.

“CUSTOMER SERVICE IS AN ATTITUDE, NOT A DEPARTMENT”

Until next Time

My career started in both the healthcare and fitness industries. Over that time, I've worked with some of the largest brands in fitness, focusing on digital strategy, technology adoption, automating and restructuring their internal sales processes, marketing systems, and operations. I'm currently an Account Executive for YourWelcome, a technology firm focused on enhancing the way vacation rental managers do business. I'm also the Co-Host of The #VRGX Podcast and an active Real Estate Investor. Every day I look to provide the companies I work with the tools to achieve autonomy and success through market positioning, technology adoption, and operations optimization. You can reach me at ned.arick@yourwelcome or follow me on Instagram at @NedArick