Sunday, November 2, 2008

Travel review sites

When you mention to travel businesses, sites such as Trip Advisor, most small businesses haven't give too much thought about the review site - or if they have they have a negative perception.

One of the best things that any travel business can do is encourage feedback.

However if you intend to do nothing with the feedback then don't bother.

The reasons to seek feedback are:

  • Find out what things are working well
  • What things are not working well
  • Identify possible new services you could provide
  • Give you a good basis to assess how your are meeting your business expectations for service and quality.
What to do with feedback:
  • Collate it into a database
  • Look for the good points and bad points
  • If you have contact details for the feedback thank the guest for the feedback.
  • If the guest provides negative feedback acknowledge this, thank them for the information and that you intend to fix the issue. 
  • If you promise to fix the issue make sure you do!
Should you encourage feedback on online forums:

YES

Simply put you want to encourage feedback on the various online forums as the more feedback the better. Ideally you want to encourage guests to comment to you directly on any negative issues and to put their general feedback on line. If you do get negative criticism on a website, review the comments and if you are able feel free to add a comment. Just don't be defensive, rather be open and if there is a real issue acknowledge and state what you are doing to fix it.

If you want assistance on managing review sites why not contact us as we can assist you with a full audit of your web presence and give you some simple tools on how to manage your wider web presence.