There are many factors affecting the guests willingness to respond to post stay surveys, and response rates vary between different hotels. These are common ways that have been proved to affect response rate in a positive manner.
The response rates are mostly affected by the willingness to respond to the survey.
- Make sure the email to the guest is entered into the PMS. Guests without email cannot receive the survey and is commonly the biggest problem for receiving feedback at the hotel.
- Make sure it is the correct actual email that is entered into the PMS and avoid temporary emails provided by booking systems - ask the guest for their email during check in and enter it into the PMS.
- Kindly inform the guest that the email is coming and ask the guest to provide feedback through the survey you will send, thus showing that you actually care about it.
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Show that you listen and care about the feedback by either showing it on your website or referring to it in other manners during the stay.
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Keep the survey short and concise: avoid nice-to-know questions or questions about topics the guests do not really care about.
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Send the survey right away - as soon as the guest checks out and have their stay fresh in mind. Every hour that passes from the check out makes it less urgent for the guest to respond. If you are using manual publishing of surveys, make sure you publish often. If you are using automated publishing from the PMS, make sure the transfers to Loopon are done at least once a day.
- Clear communication and sender - Make sure any logo, name or picture in the email is something that the guest will recognise. Sometimes guests stay at many hotels within a short time frame. Not knowing what hotel sent the survey will keep response rates low.
- Send emails straight from Loopon - Loopon allows for sending surveys through third party systems. Doing so will hinder the use of sending reminders to the guests.