Webinar: Using Guest Feedback Data To Make Better Decisions

Ok, everybody. Hello, everybody. Welcome to today’s webinar. We are going live in just about twenty seconds. Ok, I think we are live right now.

So, welcome everybody to Booking Ninja’s webinar. Today we are going to be talking about a very important subject, extremely important, but it’s like one of those things that everyone knows it’s really important but doesn’t necessarily put it at the top of their priority list, not because they don’t want to, it's just because, for whatever reason, it didn’t make it to the top.

So, the topic is “using guest feedback to make better decisions”, and we all want better decisions, we all want for decisions to be made for us in many cases as well. But, yes, decisions are sometimes hard to make and sometimes lead to stagnation. So, in order to combat, you know, kind of just staying in limbo on certain topics, on certain areas, where you know there’s a possibility to improve the business, we have to look at these things and figure out how to use guest feedback to constantly be iterating our decision-making process, making decisions based on real, real hunches, data, information we could use to improve our business, to improve our growth potential, to free up on time and to overall be better off.

So, let’s get into the content, guys. Let’s get to it. So, we are going to share some slides and we’re going to be looking a little bit to the right. Let’s see if I could… set it up a little better now.

Ok, so, using guest feedback to make better decisions.

Ok, so, first of all, my name is David, I am the CEO of Booking Ninjas. Booking Ninjas is an application that encompasses PMS, a booking engine, channel manager, guest management, rate management, yield management, mobile apps and data analytics.

Ok, today what will be discussed is: explore the benefits of guest feedback, figure out how to use the analysis of the feedback that you get, how to capture it in every possible way… And the webinar is catered toward people who are in hospitality, travel tourism business, people who are just general enthusiasts about smart technology, making the most out of data…

Alright, so, first let’s start with the basics. Ok, guest feedback, let’s read it… Ok, so, negative feedback, although we don’t want to get negative feedback in general… Negative feedback, actually, we could look at it as a positive, because when someone has the courage and the boldness to give you negative feedback maybe is constructive, maybe you could use this feedback to improve the service, improve the business.

So, although we want to keep things positive all the time, negative feedback just gives us a reminder and an indication of what we might be missing, what we can do better. So, we have to capture this feedback and…

So, we could ask our internal staff, we could make hunches from our own mind, we can do a lot of things to take the next initiative on our businesses, but I think the most important thing that we can do is just listen, listen to the guest, listen to, also, employee feedback, partner feedback, general market feedback. Any kind of feedback is good feedback because those are the indications that we should use to drive the growth of our businesses.

Ok, so, the benefits: understand your customer better, make the customer feel heard, increase customer satisfaction, improve products and services, boost loyalty, gain new customers, make informed business decisions and enhance the customer experience. So, the benefits are clear.

So, capturing it’s one aspect of the process but having the intention behind every single question that you ask, every single touch point that you make, there needs to be a bigger intention, there needs to be a bigger strategy, a bigger plan, because, you know, the data here and there if it’s not processed in the right way, you know, it’s nice to know, but it’s not something that could be actionable.

Alright, so we could get instant feedback, social media feedback, exploratory customer interviews… This is something that people maybe should rate a little bit higher, maybe just, you know, offering an incentive to get a customer interview about the experience, about the situation because, you know, maybe the customers not always incline their inner rush, they don’t want to leave feedback, they just want to keep moving on. So, this could be a good option. And, of course, you know, all the standard forms, feedback surveys, impersonate questions that could be recorded on a later time.

Ok, so you have the feedback. Now, what? Centralizing and organizing guest feedback data. So, a lot of the hotel industry and travel hospitality industries are directing feedback from many sources, maybe they have another provider for their booking engines, another provider for their restaurants, another provider for another system and another system…

You know, the data is also maybe on social, on LinkedIn, on Instagram forms, and where all this data is going to be deposited because, you know, those different apps are basically going to be staying in those apps, that data, with that data, then needs to move to somewhere else, where there’s an engine behind it. And the engine is the thing that is going to process the data, use machine learning, use AI, use recording features, create dashboards, do visualizations, send emails to somebody else about the data, inform another colleague about it, take an action about it, maybe improve something on the website because of that.

So, all these things need to go somewhere, it needs a central hub, where it gets parted, queued up, gets analyzed, and then it gets processed into something that is useful. And that’s where, you know, a company like ours could come in, because we could be the deposit of the data, analyze the data, send you back what you need or where it needs to go, how it needs to be treated… And analyzing the data is important too, thinking about the strategy behind this, ok?

So, with the new resources, the new capabilities of the system that could process, analyze, update and send, then you can plan a strategy. And these things, is amazing because now you have new superpowers. So, non-insightful data is everything that’s old news to you. Something that you already knew was an issue. For example, 20% of customers talk about price. This is not necessarily insightful because it is common.

So, we need to separate those common things, that maybe it sounds good to talk about it in a conversation but it’s not something that will really affect the numbers and the optimization of the business.

Ok, so, we’re looking for… We’re on a hunt for insightful data, we’re on a hunt for creating that insightful data. And we need a processing methodology, we need a processing formula.

Alright, so insight, adaptation, action. Insight, adaptation, action. Umm… So, yeah, that’s where the business stakeholders come in, they think about what is… They look at their business and they think about ways that they could make more meaningful use out of it, out of the data.

Insight, rethink strategy… Insight, no action required. Insight, rethink strategy. So, maybe it’s going well and we want to see more insights for the next month, maybe it’s growth over growth. So…

If your guests are saying that your competitor have better quality services that is a key insight that you can action. By asking for feedback through a follow-up survey, you can gather more information about why your guests feel this way.

So guys, let’s read it together. It’s important to know that we can increase bookings, we can increase satisfaction, we can increase revenues, we can increase opportunities and all these things can be analyzed and measured precisely right now. In these days, it’s amazing, you could have it come and, you know, be delivered exactly how you want, what insight you want and when, it’s all in real time.

Ok, so, we are going to close the webinar today with a fact. And this fact is that customer stay loyal when they are getting their needs met. I personally am loyal to brands and to stores that I do business with, getting my needs met, getting a fair value, no hassle, no extra time on my part, save me time on my experience dealing with them, everything is easy, everything is efficient, everything is accurate, I’m going to stay loyal, I’m going to stay loyal, even though I don’t think of it like staying loyal, I think of it as that’s a good supplier for me, and have no problem with that, so I’m going to stay like this.

So, that’s how the rationale is most of the time, so we can now enjoy this insight, we can enjoy knowing that we’re meeting our customer’s needs exactly because we’re constantly getting that feedback loop, that flywheel, we’re getting that flywheel, guys, you know, it’s just the feedback is coming in, we’re improving the service, guests are experiencing great value and enjoying, telling their friends, more people coming in the loop, then the loop comes back to more feedback because we change things, we are optimizing more, then we optimize more, we bring it back… More guests, more hotels, more rooms, more growth and it’s a win-win.

So, let’s close at that, guys. And have a great weekend. And we’re going to see you more often now, see you next week on… On next week's webinar. Have a great time, guys. Cheers.

Check out our other hospitality webinars.