Protecting a Hotel Reputation on Review Sites and Search Results
People in search of a room for a night or two have myriad choices, especially in a big city like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and most other State capitals in the US and abroad.
Reputation management services can help ensure that your hotel, bed and breakfast, or AirBnB has a top search engine hit with a clean image and positive internet reviews. Study after study has demonstrated the negative impact that bad reviews have on hotels and other businesses in the hospitality industry. To sum up these studies, in the hospitality business, negative online reviews translate to missed revenue in a major way.
The Importance of Reputation in the Lodging Industry
It’s important that hospitality business owners realize that a few negative reviews means a trashed reputation if these negative reviews appear on the first page of Google. In turn, an internet reputation that’s been trashed by negative customer reviews can have devastate your hotel hospitality business and ruin your livelihood.
It is precisely for this reason that we are seeing more and more hotels, restaurants, transportation and travel/tour companies hiring reputation management firms. That is, to alleviate the major threat posed by bad reviews and negative press surfacing (or worse yet, spreading) on the web, hospitality businesses are turning to online reputation management services, like those offered by leading online reputation management firms, such as Reputation Defender, StatusLabs and ReputationX. As a representative with one such firm recalls, “we’ve worked with restaurants, hotel/lodging chains, adventure tour companies, travel transportation agencies and car rental services, just to name a few. And,” he continued, “in recent years we’ve seen a notable increase in hospitality reputation management cases”.
How to Make Hotel Review Sites Work for You
One poor TripAdvisor review can change the future of a family-run hotel or other hospitality business forever. What makes this particularly unfair is that the review might not have anything to do with your business. Some people are hard to please, especially when a vacation attitude is making them feel entitled. A patron having a bad vacation day or a corporate traveler having a stressful company trip may take his or her frustration out on your business.
A reputation management firm can change the negative image a hotel or motel or has been saddled with by a bad review. In this way, companies with hospitality online reputation management expertise, like those mentioned above, can help hospitality establishments to a fresh, clean start without those negative reviews preventing hotels from getting patrons who will be happy to explain how wonderful your place of business is.
Hospitality and Hotel Reputation Repair
If you find your business has been targeted by a negative review and you want a clean slate, contact reputation management experts. It might be difficult to resist, but don’t try and defend yourself online. This can cause more of an argument or disagreement, and a company never looks good complaining about a patron.
A response may be in order, but never while you’re angry. When you’ve crafted a calm response, being solicitous and kind, and wait an hour before you hit send. Sometimes, anger can creep in even when you think you’ve settled down. Your response should be short and helpful. Then consider contacting a firm that’s demonstrated success in hotel and hospitality reputation management, such as Defamation Defenders, Optimize Up, ReputationDefender, or another good reputation company offering similar solutions to hospitality companies.
Hospitality Reputation 