By Daniel Edward Craig, Reknown.
Social media is all about managing your hotel’s online reputation, and no platform wields more influence on travel decisions than TripAdvisor. Recently, I interviewed April Robb, TripAdvisor’s Social Media Program Manager, responsible for social media outreach, brand monitoring, and blogger relations. She offered up some great advice to hoteliers for managing online reviews.
What’s new at TripAdvisor?
TripAdvisor now has 32 million unique monthly visitors, 15 million+ members, and more than 30 million reviews and opinions on over one million properties. We’re operating in 17 countries and 12 languages. One of our newest initiatives is Business Listings, which allows hotel owners the option of including direct contact details – website, phone number, and email address – on their hotel page on all TripAdvisor domains for an annual fee based on the size of property. Our goal is to put hoteliers one keystroke away from converting potential guests into paying guests.
Hotel reviews are popping up everywhere online, and there appears to be a trend toward sites sharing reviews, like on Google Maps. Where else do TripAdvisor reviews appear?
We believe that travelers should be able to find other travelers’ feedback anywhere they’re researching their trips. That’s why we’ve created our Partnerships group, and have given both hoteliers and other travel sites different ways to partner with us and post our reviews. We’ve currently got over 100 contracted content partners – including jetBlue, Walt Disney World, Westin Hotels and Resorts, Visit London, Hertz, and AOL Travel – and over 14,000 unique websites have added a self-service widget or badge.
As the world’s largest travel community, TripAdvisor truly represents the wisdom of the crowds. The sheer volume of reviews we have for an individual property allows travelers to base their decisions on the opinions of many.
What factors affect a property’s ranking in the popularity index?
The primary factors are the quantity of reviews, how well those reviews rate the property, and how current the reviews are. If we’ve discovered that a property has engaged in fraudulent activity, the penalties may very well impact their ranking for a period of time. And since I’ve been asked several times, I also want to clarify that whether or not a property opts for a business listing does not impact their popularity ranking.
What steps do you recommend hotels take to increase positive reviews?
First and foremost, take care of your guests and give them a good experience. We do encourage hoteliers to solicit reviews, as long as incentives are not used. We also recommend that hotels monitor their reviews, and take advantage of this free feedback. Hoteliers can sign up via our Owners’ Center to take advantage of free tools like email reminders, mini-review widgets, downloadable flyers, and custom reminder cards. We also offer badges, new review alerts, management response capabilities, and the ability to monitor satisfaction trends and compare performance against competitors.
Hotels should address any problems that travelers have identified so they don’t impact future guests’ stays – and reviews. They should also think about managing their entire listing, not just the reviews. Make sure the listing is as complete as possible. Travelers love photos and, as of March 1st, owners can upload an unlimited number. They can upload videos, as well. Also, the detail tab on the hotel listing page is a great place to enhance their property description.
What is TripAdvisor’s policy on hotels offering incentives or rewards to guests like upgrades, discounts or amenities for writing a positive review?
It is against our policy for properties to offer incentives for reviews; the promise of a discount or any other perk casts the unbiased nature of the review into question. This policy is clearly stated within both our Help Center and the Owners’ Center.
Whenever we find out about a property offering an incentive – and we encourage travelers to let us know – we get in touch with them. We determine if they are unaware of our policy, and made an honest mistake, or if there was an attempt to game the system. In the latter case, they are subject to a variety of penalties, and their property is no longer eligible for inclusion in our Travelers’ Choice awards and Top 10 lists. Also, reviews that are shown to have been submitted as part of the incentive program will be further verified and potentially removed.
What can a hotel do if it feels a review is fraudulent or fictitious?
Hoteliers can either make use of the Review Dispute form in the Owners’ Center or they can report the review via the “Report Inappropriate” link at the bottom of each review. While the dispute process is ongoing, we certainly encourage them to post a management response.
Content integrity is something we take really seriously, and approach in several different ways. First of all, members are asked to check a box when they submit a review in order to certify that the review is their genuine opinion, and that they have no affiliation – business or personal – with the property. By checking the box, they are also confirming that they haven’t been offered an incentive or payment for their review.
What does TripAdvisor do if it suspects a hotel has posted a fictitious review?
We have three primary methods to insure the legitimacy of reviews: submissions are systematically screened by proprietary site tools that are continually upgraded; our team of quality assurance specialists investigates any suspicious content; and our large and passionate community helps screen our reviews and reports anything suspicious. If we determine that a hotel has posted a fake review, that review is removed, the property’s other reviews are investigated, and the property incurs penalties that may impact their popularity ranking. In some cases, a red badge will be posted on their hotel page, alerting travelers that the property’s reviews are suspicious.
Do you recommend hotel managers respond to all reviews?
We strongly encourage hoteliers to address negative reviews. We often hear from travelers that how a property responds to criticism has more influence on their booking decision than the criticism itself. A management response is the hotelier’s opportunity to apologize and to let both that traveler – and all potential guests who are reading the reviews – know how they have remedied any problems. It’s an indication that an owner is invested in improving their establishment, and that they take customer service seriously.
As for positive reviews, we definitely see properties that respond and thank travelers for feedback. I think it goes a long way to creating loyal brand ambassadors.
Fantastic article! I have seen some hideous mgmt responses that send you running from the Hotel or Inn.
Nothing says hospitality more than a gracious response. You almost want to stay there just from that! A gracious response, not negating what the reviewer has said, is worth gold as a guest traveling and looking for accommodations!
Shellie at The Claiborne House B
Thanks Shellie. Agreed, responding to online reviews is a hotels chance to shine – or to come across as defensive, pompous or borderline illiterate. For more thoughts on this see:
http://www.blog.danieledwardcraig.com/2009/10/online-reviews-bane-of-hotels-existence.html
Thanks Daniel,
The more hoteliers understand about TripAdvisor the more they will start using it to their advantage – and quite whining about it.
It really is a powerful marketing tool smart hoteliers use to drive more business and develop a competitive advantage.
Always a pleasure reading your posts.
Madigan
Tripadvisor is an amazing tool for both the consumer and hotelier/innkeeper. It certainly keeps you on your toes as an operator.
I do take issue that every time they revamp the city landing pages they seem to give B&B;/Inns the short shift. Why is that? In many cases the B&B;'s/Inns have better rankings than the hotels yet in the latest "revamp' they are removed and only hotels are left in plain site
http://bit.ly/TAVictoria shows the home page for Victoria where the best hoel has a 4.5 ranking. The top 9 B&B;/Inns have a 5 score so why aren't they featured?
Our B&B; is listed on TA and we do very well out of it. However, I have very serious reservations about TA, as would anyone familiar with their "Owners Forum" which is hidden from public view.
I might listen to what TripAdvisor has to say about handling guest comments and reacting to criticism – but only once they allow open discussion and criticism of themselves on their website and start responding promptly to owner concerns.
Their inability to engage in meaningful dialogue with concerned owners is legendary among the owners' communities. The owners' forum is dotted with posts that have been censored and removed becasue TA does not like what is being said.
For a site that makes money out of publishing anonymous, unverified reviews of others, it's ironic they won't allow questions and criticism about their business practices and their lack of control over their site content. More concerned with protecting image than "the truth"?
It's common sense to react positively to negative comment – any owner worth his salt knows that. But if anyone is "defensive", it's Trip Advisor.
Great article Daniel, thank you for sharing. This brings up a real touching point for our hotel, as we do take our Trip Advisor position very seriously!
We’ve consistently been in the top 10 ranking for all downtown Chicago hotels, and we’ve really been pushing that fact to our future guests. The road to this high ranking has been very time consuming, and we’ve recently discovered a new hotel to the Chicago market with already high rankings. I have a link below that shows you the Elysian Hotel as being the number 6 hotel in all of downtown Chicago. It has a poor representation on TripAdvisor, with no front picture or star ratings. Furthermore, the hotel has only been open a couple months.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g35805-Chicago_Illinois-Hotels.html
You mentioned that quantity of reviews plays a major role in rankings, however how is it that a new hotel with 12 reviews surpasses the many hotels on Trip Advisor with over 300 reviews? This makes us wonder if there is more at play here.
Furthermore, we have yet to hear a definitive answer as to why/how this can occur from TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor is such an important, real tool for travelers, and we want to make sure the integrity of the site remains.
Can anyone help explain what's going on here, and how hotel rankings are really calculated??
What Trip Advisor do about reviews posted by drunks who bring misfortune on themselves and then blame the hotel? For example:
When Drunks Leave Reviews on TripAdvisor
It seems infair for the hotel to take the blame and suffer for the idiocy and bad behaviour of the reviewer's drunken boyfriend!
Thanks to all for your comments. TripAdvisor is clearly a hot topic, particularly in the B&B; community. (Funny, my latest novel, Murder at Graverly Manor, takes place in a B&B; and TripAdvisor has a small cameo role, though not as the victim or assassin 🙂 I've brought everyone's comments to the attention of TripAdvisor, and hopefully we will get responses to some of the issues raised. Stay tuned. DEC
Thanks to everyone for the comments. I’ve addressed the four main questions that have been raised in the paragraphs below.
We are committed to helping travelers choose the most suitable lodging for them from a wide array of options, and in an easily digestible format. We make frequent adjustments to geo pages to maximize content and presentation. There are some changes in the works right now that impact how different types of properties are displayed. Keep an eye out for those changes (if you’re a registered owner, you’ll receive an email about them) as we continue to tweak the site to deliver the best traveler experience.
We created an owners’ forum in February to provide a venue for owners to share feedback with each other. Posts do need to meet certain basic criteria, just as all of our forum posts do. For example, comments need to be on topic, productive, and respectful of others (the full TripAdvisor forum guidelines can be seen here: http://bit.ly/b22JvO). If someone opens a thread on a topic that’s already under discussion, we will redirect them to the preexisting thread to make it easier for everyone to locate the comprehensive discussion. We will also delete postings that have no relevance to the thread. One other word of advice for owners: this is designed to be a place to converse with other owners, not somewhere to get any problems with your listing solved. The best place to address changes to listings is our owners’ center; it’s monitored by many TripAdvisor staff and will receive the most immediate attention.
TripAdvisor’s proprietary popularity index incorporates traveler ratings to determine traveler satisfaction, emphasizes the most recent information, and is also based on the integrity of the content. Just like the big search engines don’t discuss the specifics of their search rankings, we can’t reveal further details about ours; we don’t want to give folks with ill intentions a roadmap to subvert the system. For properties who want to gauge their performance against competitors, we highly recommend that they take advantage of the MarketMetrix features within the owners’ center, which analyzes their customer satisfaction scores and compares them with local competitors.
Lastly, TripAdvisor reviewers come from countries across the globe and diverse personal styles and walks of life, all of which inform their travel experiences and property reviews. If, as an owner, you disagree with a guest point of view expressed in a review, speak up. Write a management response that addresses the comments, and informs your future guests of what they can expect to find at your establishment.
Thanks –
April Robb
TripAdvisor
http://twitter.com/tripadvisor
Useful article and interesting response from TALove them or hate them, online reviews do get read and will influence us – I know I always ready the reviews before booking anywhere. Sadly statistically people are more likely to be prompted to post a review if they've a bad experience than when they've had a good one. Hoteliers need to do as much as possible to redress this balance and encourage guests to post reviews, so they get the good ones as well as (hopefully only occasional) bad ones, which of course can be made easier if they've display their confidence with a link to TripAdvisor. The way a hotel responds to comments is key. Showing they appreciate the feedback (good or bad) by responding quickly to the feedback they receive. A quick thank you in acknowledgement might be all that's needed for a positive review or feedback.Negative feedback that they feel is unjustified can be frustrating, and it's easy to get defensive but the way in which it's handled this will reflect on the professionalism and reputation of the hotel. As Craig and Shellie say it's an opportunity to turn a negative into a positive, and in the same way one would deal with any complaints, hoteliers need listen to what their guest is saying and show some empathy with the customer's point of view. The least they can do is apologise (even if you're just apologising that they feel that way) and demonstrate what changes they've made if appropriate. Even if they don't agree with feedback they need to find out what has led to their perception, so you can get to the root of the problem.
Could anyone at TripAdvisor give some constructive advice to owners who know a review is false? Sure, they can leave a response, and they can tell TA that that the review is a pack of lies, but if it's one person's word against another then TA is in no position to know who is right. If the owner KNOWS it's lies, it's not surprising they get angry when their reputation is dragged through the mud but TA shrugs and effectively says "Sorry, nothing we can do".
To comment on April Robb's response, I don't feel my question was properly addressed. The root of my post was to gain insight to how a hotel with 12 reviews can jump to such a high ranking on Trip Advisor, when up against such strong hotels with hundreds of reviews. There seems to be a lack of understanding on Trip Advisor's part, and hotels that work very hard to maintain their ranking are feeling duped.
I'm very aware of the features hotels can purchase to better showcase their listing, and a few hotels are concerned that purchasing these features will be the only way to secure a successful ranking.
In response to your suggestion to compare our hotel to our competitors using the owners center, I've done just that. Kindly explain how our hotel has mroe than 4 times the number of reviews since the Elysian hotel has opened, and our average CSI ranking of nearly 2 points over the Elysian hotel, yet they are since my post they have jumped another spot towards the top. You also mentioned the recent posts also play a factor, and in our situation we've received 4 times the number of reviews for April and we currently have a CSI ranking of over 15 points over the Elysian.
I look forward to a response.
In response to recent comments about false and negative reviews, as hoteliers I think we need to accept that none of these platforms are perfect. The democratic nature of social media means everyone gets a voice, including people who may have ulterior motives. I think we need to respond to all negative reviews in a non-defensive and professional manner, then move on. If we focus our energies on providing an exceptional experience, the great reviews will far outweigh the bad and eventually we'll rise to the top.
All this rhetoric about Trip Advisor's philosophy and what hoteliers need to do on this site is quite hypocritical.
The facts are:
*Trip Advisor does not allow uncensored hotel responses (especially those that question the validity of the review or reviewer)
*Trip Advisor has admitted to posting MANY fake reviews
*Trip Advisor is sending out numerous emails to its users suggesting destinations, flights, hotels (isn't this called spamming?)
*Trip Advisor is owned by Expedia and has a vested interest in businesses that have contracts & links with Expedia (would a business who is getting poor reviews generate any clicks throughs to Expedia, resulting in bookings on Expedia?)
*Trip Advisor has removed valid positive reviews for businesses who have actively challenged TA
*Reviews are posted immediately, but business' replies take weeks (if at all) to just be addessed by TA
*Businesses who have a paid listing are not identified on the site (as a paid contributor)
*Trip Advisor uses unverified reviews to make a rating system which is therefore flawed
*Trip Advisor uses the flawed rating system to create "Lists" which they then promote to the public (who has no idea how they are created)
*Trip Advisor does not verify or validate users, and promotes "anonymity" which fosters misuse & abuse of the internet. (when they start posting real names, I will post mine)
*Trip Advisor allowed a fake business listing (Shrute Farm B&B;) and allowed 600+ fake reviews
*Trip Advisor has changed its logo & slogan so it no longer uses the world "REAL" because the contrary has been proven.
*Hotels will only respond to a review if it is a bonified guest who authored it and not a competitor or disgruntled employee.
*Many "leech" businesses have been created that hire reviewers and pay them per review.
Just the fact that you are writing about your interview with Trip Advisor, proves the point that Trip Advisor is desperate to make themselves appear to be a positive marketing tool that they are marketing to the hospitality industry. I, for one, am not buying it!
TA's marketing plan has ultimately been to become an online booking agent and all methods, employed up to this point, are to that end. So let's stop the charade!
Hm, I get the feeling "Anonymous" doesn't like TripAdvisor. I'd hazard a guess you're a hotelier who's been the subject of some nasty reviews. TripAdvisor isn't flawless, but it does provide a great service to travelers, taking a lot of the guesswork out of travel decisions. And unlike most of the OTAs, TripAdvisor allows hotels to post responses. For the record, I approached TripAdvisor for this interview. Our mutual objective was to help hoteliers manage reviews.
Hi Daniel. One aspect of Tripadvisor that many hotels overlook is the potential to gain new guests by looking at your competitors bad reviews. You can send the reviewer a message CLEARLY identifying yourself as being from another hotel and explain that you would be glad to have them stay at your property the next time they are in town.
One aspect of Tripadvisor that many hotels overlook is the potential to gain new guests by looking at your competitors bad reviews.