A group of four family-friendly properties in the Canary Islands, HD Hotels & Resorts, recognizes the critical role that guest surveys and online reviews play in driving guest satisfaction and revenue.

As part of our customer support strategy, ReviewPro contacts clients periodically to offer a check-up. In December 2017, customer success coach Isabel Picón got in touch with HD Hotels to share ways to improve the completion rate (also called conversion) of guest surveys. Over the coming months, the company implemented Isabel’s recommendations in two phases:

Phase One

Convincing guests to open, read and take action on email survey requests is vital to increasing completion rates. Isabel provided two key recommendations:

• Change email language. Through integration with the hotel’s PMS, ReviewPro’s GSS solution can be configured to detect the survey recipient’s native language and deliver the survey in that language.
• Move the TripAdvisor collection widget. Rather than ask for a TripAdvisor review in the survey, hotels achieve better results when the request is included in the thank you message automatically displayed after completion of the survey.

Results

• The survey conversion rate increased from 24.4% to 30.8%, an improvement of 6.4%.
• The conversion of TripAdvisor reviews more than doubled, from 8% to 18.7%.

Phase Two

Following the initial success, Isabel worked with HD Hotels & Resorts on the email request and the survey itself. The following improvements were implemented:

• Request Email
⇒ The subject line, content and design were optimized.
⇒ In recognition of the large number of guests from Holland, a Dutch-language version of the survey was added.
⇒ The manager’s name was included as a salutation at the end of the email.
⇒ A reminder email was added. This email is sent five days after the initial request email if a guest has not clicked through to the survey.

• Survey Design
⇒ The logos were simplified, and the design and formatting were made visually cleaner and brought up to date with colors that change as the survey respondent scrolls over them.

• Survey Questions
⇒ The wording of the first question was changed from ‘Overall score’ to ‘How would you rate your overall experience at our hotel?”.
⇒ The questions were reordered by department.
⇒ The questions were changed to reflect the services and amenities offered by each property (for example, one property has a spa while the others do not).
⇒ Questions that solicited information already available in the PMS were deleted (for example, demographic information).
⇒ The question logic was changed from open field to multiple choice (if the answer was 3/5 or under). This helped to gather much more specific feedback about where improvements could be made.

Results

After the second phase of changes, the following results were achieved:

• The conversion rate increased from 30.8% to 35.7%.
• The overall satisfaction score rose from 3.8/5 to 4.4/5.
• The NPS score went up from 18.8 to 35.6.

Furthermore, the changes allowed HD Hotels & Resorts to gain deeper insights into areas where they could make operational and service improvements to enhance the guest experience. The result? A 2.5% improvement in the Global Review Index™, which means a significant boost in revenue.

“Isabel has helped us tremendously improving our Guest Satisfaction Survey, increasing the conversion rate and the quality of the feedback we are now getting, which ultimately help us to better understand our guests’ expectations and make the necessary improvements in the required areas,” said Armando Rodríguez, Marketing Director at HD Hotels & Resorts.