How To Improve Guest Satisfaction In Hotels

Guest satisfaction in hotels is an important metric hoteliers use to help maximize revenue and create repeat guests. Properties with high guest satisfaction scores  attract loyal customers more easily, who become the venue’s most effective and vocal brand ambassadors.

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So how does one begin to improve guest customer satisfaction in hotels? Keep reading for seven hotel guest satisfaction ideas and how you can leverage technology for better guest satisfaction management.

What Is Guest Satisfaction in the Hospitality Industry And Why Does It Matter?

Hotel guest satisfaction is a concrete metric the hospitality industry uses to measure the overall guest experience. Every interaction a guest has, from discovering the property and booking a room through checkout and departure contributes to the guest experience. Combining and measuring happiness throughout the stay provides a holistic, measurable metric you can use to optimize your processes across all touchpoints. The higher your hotel guest satisfaction score, the higher the likelihood of turning guests into repeat visitors. Loyal customers underscore the importance of guest satisfaction in the hotel industry because they’re your best chances for  positive word-of-mouth advertising and glowing online reviews.

How To Improve Guest Satisfaction in Hotels By Personalizing the Guest Experience

One of the best ways to improve guest satisfaction is to provide more personalized guest experiences. However, this can seem daunting when you need to do this for hundreds of different guests at the same time. Have no fear, today we’ll take a look at ways to improve guest satisfaction in the hospitality industry hotels using simple tips and tricks that get you the most bang for your buck.

 
• Go above and beyond the basics. Clean, comfortable rooms and efficient service are major parts of ensuring strong guest satisfaction, but the modern traveler will expect more than just the basics. Go above and beyond by understanding what would truly satisfy the guests at your property. Everyone certainly enjoys a little extra effort on behalf of their comfort, but small luxurious touches (e.g., hot towel warmers in guest rooms) are likely to go farther at a property where they are unexpected. On the other hand, if your property is known for delivering a luxury experience it's important to drill down on what that specifically means to your guests and make sure the hotel is properly delivering on those expectations.
 
• Consider the guest types you are trying to satisfy. Who is your typical guest? Having an adaptable, customizable approach to satisfying each individual guest will pay dividends down the road.

Let the guest curate their own experiences and let smart hotel technology solutions help you. For instance, Mobile Check-In enables guests to go straight to their rooms and unwind right when they set foot on a property. Offering several options for check-in to your guests helps to ensure they get exactly the experience they want, which helps increase guest satisfaction in hotels.

 
• Communicate! Communicate! Communicate! No matter how much you read, understand and study up on hotel guest satisfaction, no one will be able to tell you exactly what the guests want more than the guests themselves. Implementing a simple and efficient solution to communicate with your guests is crucially important to understanding and satisfying guest needs in real time. Guest Messaging software, like that offered by Canary Technologies, can help hotel staff communicate effectively and efficiently with direct, broadcast and automated messaging to guests’ existing messaging apps (SMS, WhatsApp, etc.).
 
• Resolve complaints efficiently. One key distinction between guest satisfaction in hotels and the guest experience is the chance to get it right. If you can quickly and efficiently address a guest’s complaint, as well as offer a small token to make amends, you’ll help ensure they leave the property satisfied with their stay and your staff, hopefully enough to return again.
 
• Promote front-of-house and back-of-house communication to unlock guest satisfaction enhancements. Does a guest mention at check-in they have an early flight tomorrow? The front desk should immediately alert your culinary team to see if an early breakfast would help the guest before departure. Small, simple touches go a long way towards making your guests feel taken care of during their stay, ultimately leading to improved guest satisfaction in hotels. To keep your staff friendly with each other, encourage regular meetings that align the teams on guest expectations and forge proper work relationships.
 
• Incentivize employees to boost performance. It takes money to make money. And motivated employees perform better. Take what you’d spend on pizza parties and corporate freebies and implement monetary incentives that are proven ways to make measurable improvements in your employee performance and self-ownership. Encourage guests to compensate staff for a job well done with Canary’s Digital Tipping tool.
 
• Satisfy the person booking your rooms, even if they’re not the one staying with you. Sometimes, the person who stays at your property is not the one who booked the room. Your booking customer needs attention, too — for example, the corporations and travel grounds. Streamlined booking processes, such as secure credit card authorizations should be easy to process and require minimal paperwork. Substitute insecure paper/PDF authorization forms with a simple PCI-compliant online solution like Canary’s Digital Authorizations, which helps hotels reduce fraud and chargebacks by up to 90%.

More Ways Technology Can Boost Guest Satisfaction In Hotels

All travelers whether for business or pleasure hold their personal tech as an extension of themselves. Any opportunity a guest has to control their experience from the convenience of their own device creates a feeling of familiarity that goes a long way towards making them feel satisfied and creating a relaxed and serene mindset.

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Below are a fewtips for how to improve guest satisfaction using modern technology.

Enable Guests To Digitally Purchase Upsells & Amenities

Personalization is one of the most effective tools to boost guest satisfaction in the hotel industry. Upon booking a hotel room, let guests add services and other packages to their stay. Everything from larger rooms to spa packages and early check-ins can be presented to guests for an additional fee easily with technology — and Canary’s Upsells solution enables hotel operators to do just that.

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With just a few clicks on their personal mobile device, guests can curate their on-property experience and select which amenities and upgrades they would like to purchase. But offering the ability for guests to choose their own on-property adventure is just the first step in ensuring guest satisfaction.

Implement a Post-Stay Guest Satisfaction Survey

Direct customer feedback can help you find repeat issues or blind spots that represent new ways to optimize your processes. Send customized surveys to guests at departure using Canary’s Contactless Checkout so you can source valuable feedback from the people who matter most. Plus, Canary will prompt those who provided positive feedback to leave an additional review on Google and TripAdvisor, which is a surefire way to boost online reviews across the web.

Assessing Current Guest Satisfaction Levels: Key Metrics and Indicators

Part of brainstorming how to increase guest satisfaction is understanding how to measure it. For example, fully booked rooms and a high repeat customer rate are indicators of guest satisfaction in the hotel industry, but there are other hotel metrics you use to gauge your performance. Here are a few data points to include in your hotel reporting to ensure guest satisfaction.

Guest Satisfaction Metrics

When tracking guest happiness, it makes sense to start with the basics. Gathering customer satisfaction data, particularly your Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT), helps you see how well your hotel meets and exceeds expectations. On a scale of 1 to 5, a score of 4 or higher is typically a good indicator of positive guest sentiment. Study the following to evaluate CSAT:

 
• Customer surveys
 
• Online reviews and reputation
 
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
 
• Guest retention
 
• Rate of repeat customers

General Performance Metrics

Your financial performance is also a good indicator of guest satisfaction. Here are a few performance-based metrics to keep an eye on when gauging your customer satisfaction:

 
• Occupancy rate
 
• Market Penetration Index (MPI)
 
• Customer churn rate
 
• Average Length of Stay (ALOS)
 
• Average guest spend

Conclusion

Guest Satisfaction in hotels is an important metric to which all hotel operators should pay close attention. By addressing various aspects of guest experience, hotel operations, and modern technology solutions, guests can feel that they are important and independent yet well taken care of. Higher guest satisfaction directly correlates to repeat hotel guests, positive word-of-mouth advertisement, better social media reviews and increased revenue.