As a new resort property, it’s easy to fall into the trap of focusing solely on attracting new bookings. But if you’re focused on getting guests into your rooms, it’s also easy to lose focus on the guest experience after they’ve arrived.
A stellar guest experience is important for a number of reasons. First, a guest who has a bad experience is unlikely to return to your property. Repeat guests aren’t necessarily a mainstay for hotels and resorts in tourist destinations. However, repeat guests are some of your best customers. You don’t need to market to them as heavily, and you’ll likely get free press as they share their experience with friends and family.
This brings us to the next reason why the guest experience is so important; reviews. Losing one customer because of a bad experience might not have a big impact on your property’s bottom line. But if that customer leaves a poor review on a popular travel site, that poor guest experience can quickly snowball into additional losses. Research shows that 94 percent of consumers said that a negative review has convinced them to avoid a business in the past.
Whether you’re a new property or have suffered a poor review in the past, keep reading. We’re breaking down some simple ways to improve guest satisfaction, including a few ways the resort hospitality management team at Vibrant Management can help.
1. Make the Booking Process a Breeze
Putting a stop to a poor guest experience starts long before your guests arrive. One thing that you can do to make a great first impression with your guests is to make the booking process as simple as possible.
This starts with a beautiful website. This might not be a small task to take on, especially if your website is out of date. But improving your website to make it easy for guests to check out your rooms and book their stay can go a long way towards improving their overall experience. Guests are better able to compare room types and understand what they can expect from your property. This means fewer surprises when they arrive, which sets the stage for a good guest experience.
2. Anticipate What Your Guests Need
The next step in improving the guest experience at your resort is to anticipate what your guests want or need before they arrive. There are an endless number of ways that you can do this.
Small changes, like offering guests a bottle of water at check-in on a hot day or sending them a text or email on the day of check-in with any information they might need, are low cost and low effort but can have a big impact on how new guests view your property.
This strategy can also extend to bigger changes. Investing in smart technology in your rooms or digital keys on your doors shows that you care about creating an excellent guest experience.
3. Respond to Reviews
When you receive reviews on travel sites or Google, do your best to respond. Responding to reviews shows past and future guests that you care about their experience. This goes for both good and bad reviews.
Show your appreciation for good reviews, and let them know that you’re happy to hear that they had a great experience. When it comes to bad reviews, you can address any specific complaints that the guest made. But avoid arguing or getting too emotional in your response. It’s better to address their complaints and apologize, and perhaps offer solutions for how you plan to provide a better experience in the future.
4. Give Your Staff the Power to Resolve Issues
A small issue that a guest encounters during their stay can quickly escalate if they go to your staff for a solution and don’t get one. Giving your staff the power to resolve minor issues, and training them in the best ways to do so, can go a long way toward stopping a minor inconvenience from turning into a major headache.
Whether it’s a room upgrade, an early check-out, or a small discount, losing a small amount of money on resolving one issue will always be better than dealing with an angry or dissatisfied guest.
5. Ask for Feedback
One of the easiest ways that you can improve guest satisfaction at your resort is to ask for feedback. You can do this with feedback cards in the room or via an email or text at the end of their stay. Ask what guests feel would improve their stay or what they’d like to see next time. Keep track of this feedback. When you notice a trend in what your guests are asking for, put that feedback to work and implement changes to make sure that future guests don’t have the same request or complaint.
How Our Resort Hospitality Team Can Help
From responding to reviews to improving the check-in process, these are just a few of the ways that you can improve guest satisfaction at your resort.
Many of these changes are ones that you can implement right away. Others take a bit more work. That’s where the resort hospitality team at Vibrant Management comes in. Whether you need a fresh new website with a simplified booking process or a Virtual GM to make sure that the day-to-day operations in your resort are going smoothly, we can help. Schedule your free consultation today to learn more.
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