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90% of customers say a positive guest comment influences their purchase decision.

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Why do only 4% of negative reviews on TripAdvisor get a response?
Does the fact that reviews are often anonymous and directed at travelers rather than hotels let us off the hook?
Or are hoteliers even paying attention? Listen, consumers certainly are!

How to respond to TripAdvisor reviews.

What can a hotel do if it feels a TripAdvisor review is fraudulent or fictitious?


Hoteliers can either make use of the Review Dispute form in the Owners’ Center or they can report the review via the “Report Inappropriate” link at the bottom of each review. While the dispute process is ongoing, post a management response.

Content integrity is something we take really seriously, and approach in several different ways. First of all, members are asked to check a box when they submit a review in order to certify that the review is their genuine opinion, and that they have no affiliation – business or personal – with the property. By checking the box, they are also confirming that they haven’t been offered an incentive or payment for their review.

Tips from TripAdvisor on managing online hotel reviews

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38 Must Reads on Online Reputation Management

100 tips, tools and resources to protect your online reputation

Beating Negative Hotel Reviews: An Action Plan for Proactive Reputation Management

Bedbug Registry

Dealing with negative guest feedback

TripAdvisor upgrades property owner page

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These FREE tracking tools can help you stay on top of both praise and criticism.

For Google: Google Alerts (email or RSS updates of the latest Google search results)
For Blog posts: Technorati (the largest blog search engine)
For Blog comments: Backtype (what people say about you in response to blog posts)
For Message Boards: BoardTracker (often overlooked)
For Reviews: OpenList.com (Searches reviews)
For Twitter: Twitter Search (monitor real time feedback)
For other social media: FriendFeed search, a social aggregator that combines YouTube, Delicious, Flickr and more.
                                  

Click here for 8 easy ways to track your property's online reputation.

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Online Reputation Management

AvalonReport.com, tracks influential guest feedback results from the top travel related sites, charting market share of guest satisfaction, competitive set value positioning, user generated feedback and photos.
ChatterGuard.com, an online social media monitoring and reputation mgmt system.
FeedBackemonitor.com, monitors all the major travel & social media websites then sends you e-mail alerts when new reviews are posted. (Free Trial)
HotelProtect.com, a brand protection and travel review monitoring service.
ReviewAnalyst.com, lets hotels take a proactive approach to user-generated hotel reviews, blogs, videos & images.
ReviewPro.com, quickly monitor all major review sites and social media networks.
Serph.com -  covers blog search engines such as technorati but also looks into Youtube (this has been very beneficial), Digg and Delicious.
SocialMention is a good website for tracking chatter about your brand on social media sites.  
Trackur.com, online reputation monitoring & social media monitoring tools. 

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UpTake searches 5000 travel sites and collates guest reviews with each property search.  It is a great time saver!

Responding to Reviews 
  • 2.Thank the reviewer for their feedback. 
  • Respond to any positive comments.
  • 3.Apologize for any legitimate negative experience.
  • 4.Explain the steps you’ll take to prevent that from happening again.
  • Allow the guest to contact you offline, if follow-up discussion is needed.
  • To conclude the response, use any elements of the customer’s comments that are constructive (e.g. great hotel location, comfortable rooms, etc.) to put a positive spin on a negative review.

 
Avoid:  
  • Angry, abusive responses... or any type of personal attack.
  • Questioning the reviewer’s legitimacy.
  • Only replying with a discount or coupon. (indirectly encourages abuse)