I have stayed at many hotels this month that actively asked me to leave Tripadvisor feedback for my stay. Interestingly enough some of these had severe service issues so is this a smart strategy?
It appears clear that if a guest is satisfied upon checkout it would be a good time to ask for a positive feedback on review sites.
But if a hotel asks a customer right away for such feedback it might make him overly sensitive to even small issues in service and hardware.
I find TripAdvisor a useful tool because in the overall volume of reviews you can get a pretty good impression of the property in question. It’s also relatively easy to single out obvious fake reviews or crazy rants once you click on the profile of a particular reviewer.
Hotels and whatever other providers who ask customers upfront for feedback should really have their act together or it could boomerang back as an embarrassing failure. the same goes for distributing questionnaires of all sorts if it’s clear the customer is upset.
The last one was at the Malaysia Airlines First Class lounge in Kuala Lumpur. After taking 40 minutes to prepare a pasta and forgetting my beverage order someone came and asked me to complete a feedback form and leave positive remarks. Really??
Yesterday I stayed at the Westin Grand Vancouver where little cards are being distributed to leave feedback for TripAdvisor.
During the stay someone entered my room despite ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door, smelly room service trays in the hallway were not removed hours after i asked the front desk to do just that and the refreshment counter with flavored water was missing at 7am (staff said ‘oh, it’s a little early for that’).
What do hotels expect in terms of feedback after such things?
Conclusion
Whenever I leave feedback on TripAdvisor I try to keep all emotions out of it and be objective, even it was a horrible stay.
Again, for a property that actively solicits such feedback there should be an absolutely smooth stay ahead if you get handed a card already at the time of check-in.