In this episode, Suite Spot host Ryan Embree sits down with TMG Director of Product – Respond & Resolve™, Jackie Avery, to discuss the top 5 guest sentiment trends of 2023. It has become an annual tradition to take a look back each year and analyze which guest sentiment tags were mentioned the most and what aspects of the hotel guest experience resonated with travelers.

Ryan Embree:
Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in and we check out what’s trending in hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, here for the first episode of 2024 and one of my favorite annual traditions. We’ve got the same episode, but a new face and voice that’s gonna be joining me today. Jackie Avery, Director of Product for our Respond and Resolve™, which is our review response solution for hotels. Jackie, not the first time on The Suite Spot, but this is the first time we’re going through this list together.

Jackie Avery:
Yeah, I’m so excited. I can’t wait to kind of talk through everything with you. We had a really busy year, so in slower seasons last year, I’d say our team was responding to and analyzing anywhere between 18,000 and 20,000 reviews a month. And then, yeah, once we got into the busy season, we were hitting, you know, over 26,000 reviews. So it was a great year, and I can’t wait to share some of the exciting things that we saw. I think everyone’s gonna be happy to hear that. Last year after looking at the sentiment, not only were more people traveling, but they were happy. They left positive sentiments. You know, everyone just kind of takes a sigh of relief when they hear that, and it’s really fun to think about. They were making informed decisions and then they were pleased with those. So I think we all just kinda take a second to celebrate that there was lower dissatisfaction and an increase in satisfaction among travelers all over.

Ryan Embree:
That’s amazing. And it’s a lot more fun, I would imagine, to respond to someone that’s had a really great experience at your hotel. It’s at your hotel than someone that may have not had that great experience. So we respond to both either way, but I’m always amazed, Jackie, by the sheer numbers when we talk through this episode, because it’s really incredible. You know, we talk to hoteliers that ask us, you know, are reviews becoming less relevant? Our sites like TripAdvisor, you know, really fading from the public eye and really the opposite’s true. You think about how reviews have really incorporated into our life from movies to Amazon products everywhere is a review or a rating, right? And hotels have been one of the longest industries where reviews have been relevant and people are making informed decisions, as you mentioned, based on that feedback. And that’s what this episode’s about. So if this is your first time listening to this annual episode, like I said, it’s, it’s a tradition. Now, our first time with you here, Jackie, but we review the top five sentiments in 2024. So what do I mean by that? Each review is compiled. Each review includes subjects and topics that the guest leaves either positive, neutral, or negative sentiment. So we go into those reviews and we actually tag that, that type of sentiment and organize that information and data. We share a lot of that through our industry reporting that we, that you can find on LinkedIn or our website, travelmediagroup.com. But this is just really an all, all-encompassing episode that counts down the top five. I can’t wait to hear it and I’m sure you’re ready as well, Jackie.

Jackie Avery:
Yeah, I can’t wait to share what we uncovered. So in 2023, travelers positively tagged amenities over a million times. So hoteliers know what they have to offer and they love to boast about it, right? That’s how they secure more guests. They love to talk about it, but I often hear it means they struggle with how to respond to reviews that mention that because you have what you have and it’s kind of difficult to change what you’re offering. Um, so of course the specific compliments or complaints will determine your exact approach when responding to reviews like these. But what doesn’t change is that this is your last opportunity to acknowledge what the guest has said, right? So their review is completed, their trip is over, and you know, they mentioned something about their visit that was memorable. Was it hanging out at the pool? Was it having a couple drinks at the bar? It could be good or it could be bad, but if it’s a good experience, this is your chance to validate what happened, right? You are now compounding on the positive aspects of their trip and you are building on the goodwill that you already have. So you want to acknowledge that stuff when you’re responding to them. So now let’s say somebody negatively mentions your facility amenities, and I kind of skipped over maybe some things. If you’re not overly aware with our system, or you know, what maybe encompasses a facility amenity. What does that mean? Right? It could be anything from the bed to the room, to the view to general room maintenance, right? So when you, a guest has a positive experience and you validate that your gratitude will stay with that guest, and now you’ve compounded even further on the goodwill that you’ve already built for the guests who didn’t mention the amenities in a positive way, this is your opportunity to empathize. You can clear up confusion, you can provide more information, you can make changes, right? So depending on the context, you can ease their disappointment even though they’re already gone, right? Acknowledge what they’ve said and either clear up a misunderstanding or you can provide more information. You might just apologize. You might let them know, thank you for this information. I’m gonna go ahead and I’m gonna connect with my team and we’re gonna more proactively provide this information at check-in going forward. It could be as simple as that.

Ryan Embree:
Jackie, I think you just rolled out a perfect example and answer to the question we get all the time, which is, why should I respond to my positive reviews? Right? They already had a great stay, but that compounding effect that you talked about, you know, you already have someone giving you this compliment. Why not take it a step further and promote your business online? The negative side of things, of course, it’s something we need to address, but as consumers, as travelers ourselves, one of the things we don’t like to say that we do, but we do just inherently, is we think about worst case scenario. If we were to get in that situation, what would be the solution there? Right? And if you can give a customer service oriented response, an action plan to your guest or traveler online, that is going to put you at ease when you’re going through those hypotheticals of what happens if there’s no more towels at the pool. And, and Jackie and her team have done a fantastic job of addressing that issue and calming and, and, you know, making sure that you don’t feel like that’s gonna happen to you. So I think you’ve done just a wonderful job of laying out why you should respond to reviews, which obviously is so important. Let’s move to sentiment number four.

Jackie Avery:
So for this tag, we shift out of a category that can feel a bit out of your control and into one that travelers hold hoteliers a hundred percent accountable for. And that’s cleanliness. Cleanliness was bumped off the list last year, but it was back in full force in 2023. Well, the tags were overall positive. You know, I mentioned that earlier. This is so prevalent in reviews that I’m gonna address how you should think about it when responding to a positive review or a negative review. So when you are responding to a negative review that mentions cleanliness, I want you to keep in mind these few things, right? You’re sitting down, you’re, you have a lot of feelings about what they’re gonna say. I want you to think about if they brought this to your attention while you, they were on site, how did you or your team handle it? And now that they’ve mentioned it, what have you done to prevent this future concern or reviews like this going forward? And now as you’re try starting to reply, you need to think about this is your last interaction. Maybe you need to apologize for not addressing their concerns more adequately the first time that they brought it up. Or maybe you need to thank them for praising your team for finding such a proactive solution when they brought up their concern. So it could be you just need to empathize with the fact that they felt they had inadequate experience. Or you can just focus on the things that you team is now doing. After you’ve shown that empathy, this opens the door for you to re-highlight different procedures you have in place. Maybe you wanna point out in-house, texting systems you have going on, you wanna note that room change requests are accepted whenever possible. After you show empathy, you can now go that route in your reply because you didn’t show indifference. You wanna validate the experience that someone had, right? If they had a positive experience, praise them. Thank them for taking the time to leave their thoughts. If it was a negative experience, you’re going to wanna use the questions that I just mentioned to make sure that you respond in a way that you can regain their business. You have the chance to ease their frustration and win them back.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, absolutely. Cleanliness is, everyone has a different picture of cleanliness in their head. If I were to say close your eyes and imagine a dirty room, we might have two different standards of cleanliness. So it’s so vital and critical for you to, to do what Jackie says, which is reiterate those cleaning procedures. That is huge. Recommit yourself to cleanliness and your processes because there might’ve just been a one-off. We realized that, that that happens. Travelers understand that and could say, all right, well this traveler thought their room was, was unclean, but the room next door was clean. So making sure you’re addressing that feedback is very, very important. All great tips, Jackie, but it is interesting to see cleanliness come back in because it is such a big part of the traveler’s journey and the guest experience. It’s not something a facility or amenity. Someone could walk into a hotel and not experience any of the facilities or amenities. Everyone is going to have some sort of touch with cleanliness at your property, whether it’s in the room, the lobby, common areas, parking lot. We’ve seen it all, I’m sure as you have in in those reviews. Speaking of location, let’s turn our attention to tag number three.

Jackie Avery:
Yeah. So typically when looking at this tag we see comments that are about the proximity to the place the guests wanted to go. So generally, if they’ve done their research, they know where they are in relation to their final destination or their goal for an area. Whether that’s they’re visiting a university, they’re seeing a family member, they have a stay at the hospital, you know, they wanna be by the airport. So some subcategories of this tag that you know, didn’t make it to the top five but that are associated with this can be safety, noise, and attraction. So in a positive review, you wanna thank them for sharing, you know, their kind words or their story about why they were in town. You have this personal connection to the guests. You also wanna reinforce that they made a great decision about where to stay. People love to feel validated that they made the right choice. Let them know that they did. You know, so for anyone who negatively, you know, mentioned the location, you wanna let them know that you heard them. This is your chance to share any steps that you’ve taken to mitigate concerns. If you are in the heart of a city or you’re near an airport, do you offer noise machines that they can check out? Do you provide earplugs if they want them? Do you have a pre-stay email that kind of suggests specific rooms to ask for? You know, that may be away from a specific side of the building. You can also reiterate your commitment to providing a secure environment. If someone addresses concerns about where your hotel is, right? You can’t promise you’re gonna move your hotel or make all of these changes that you can’t make. But you can still hear the guest and you can try your best to share what you and your team are doing to keep them safe and to keep them comfortable.

Ryan Embree:
This is one the most fascinating tags for me is location. And I think one that if I were a hotelier, I would try to almost build my location and set guest expectations through things like review response, social media. I mean we saw back in 2020 things like grocery stores or pharmacies like where they are in proximity to your hotel was super important. So putting that kind of, almost setting the table for what is around you location wise. If there’s a restaurant a mile away that might seem really close to some people and pretty far for other people, I think it’s important to share things like only a 20 minute walk. Or if you’re, say you’re close to the airport, are you really close to the airport? 30 minutes might not be close to the airport. So the more descriptive you can be about your location, the better. Because what you don’t wanna do have is have someone come in and that expectation not be met of, I thought I was in the heart of downtown yet I’ve gotta take a 15 minute Uber to actually get downtown. So set the table and review response feedback. And even social media and your website are great places to really build the location around your hotel. Let’s jump into number two.

Jackie Avery:
Yeah, absolutely. So in 2023, everyone had something to say about staff with 2.5 million positive sentiment tags. It’s clear that onsite teams and their services were well received. Yeah. And we love to see that. We know that our hoteliers and our teams onsite are working hard. It’s wonderful to see that come out in reviews. So these travelers, they may share their praise face-to-face, but they have gone the extra step. They may mention a specific team member by name, they’re still going outta their way, even if they don’t know the name to maybe mention who helped serve them. And you want to thank them for going that extra mile. You want to praise them for sharing it and they want to receive that. So you’re now uniquely positioned to connect with that guest on a different level. And good news travels fast, right? You’ll have earned an advocate for your property for life. So as you can probably guess, travelers don’t like to be told that they were wrong or that they misjudged a situation. You won’t recover a guest if you tell them, no, actually my team wasn’t being short. You don’t know all that they have going on. Or you misjudged the situation in the end, your guests, they wanna be heard. So in situations like these, it’s important that you take a step back and you show patience and kindness and understanding. You wanna lead with empathy, you want to hear them and then you can maybe share other aspects about what might have been going on. Or you can ask to connect with them offline. But it’s a safe rule to lead with empathy and understanding because there will be times where you have to take a firm stance and you have to back your team. And travelers wanna see that, right? We’ve all seen a review where you’re like, oh, you know, you wanna know that that property’s gonna do what it takes to keep you safe on site. And there are reviews where you don’t just wanna apologize. And you know, those situations are few and far between, but they come up. So as long as in general you’re leading with empathy and understanding, you open the door to kind of be more firm and draw the line in cases where you need to.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. You know, this has gotta be something super stressful for especially a hotelier, a person with hospitality in their heart that have maybe been in this career. And for them to see a negative review about their team, about the way that they hosted a guest. And it just has to be mentally draining. And it, and one of the benefits that we see, kind of outsourcing review response to Travel Media Group is when we did our partner survey last year was over 80%. People said that they actually are less stressed now responding to, to their reviews. And I get it, it would feel so good, I’m sure to be that, to be able to stand up for yourself on an online review site. It’s just not the platform or channel to do so, unfortunately, because again, what we do is we put ourselves in the shoes of what if this was me? And if you are raising that issue and all of a sudden seeing a guest response that’s a little combative towards the guest, you’re thinking, all right, am I gonna have to be arguing with the GM if they make a mistake? That being said, with the negative stuff, and I hate talking about it ’cause it’s, it’s just, it’s such a tough part of our industry because again, we are a people serving people. So that’s why I like talking about this part when there is that extra praise. You know, one of the best feelings that I got when I was working at the front desk was when someone would say, oh, you’re the famous Ryan that I saw on, on TripAdvisor, because they read a review that another guest wrote about. And just like we talked about that with the location of setting the table, setting guest expectations, this is one of those places you just have a comfort feeling. If I know, and I see Jackie, who has been just, guests, have been ranting and raving about Jackie at the bar and, and the drink that she makes and the conversation that she makes with travelers. And that now becomes just incorporated in that guest experience. And that’s the key to making something memorable. Right? So it’s just obviously a big spectrum when it comes to staff. Hoteliers still fighting right now, a staffing shortage. Can you give any maybe tips or tricks when it comes to like staffing shortages or maybe hoteliers that don’t have enough staff right now and and they’re just, they’re on like a skeleton crew?

Jackie Avery:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would say stay the course with keeping in mind what did you do in the moment when a guest brought their concerns to your attention? Right? Maybe you’re short staffed, you’ve done everything you can that day, you’re stressed, take a deep breath, apologize, hear them, then maybe explain what happened. Ask, these are some things that I could do. Would any of that appease you? You know, or maybe help make this right. And then if that doesn’t work and you still in the end get a negative review, you at least you know, you know that you did what you could. You still led with understanding and you can respond in your reviews. And that’s acknowledged online. You know, I’m so sorry that this impacted your stay. We did try to offer these type of love that accommodations, we still understand that we didn’t meet your expectations. This was unusual for us. Please come visit us when we’re not in peak season. You know, we have all these other great events around and we’d love to show you what it’s like when we’re not at full occupancy and we could get you the room that you really wanted. But if you just go in and you’re defensive, you close the door right then and there. Don’t have the opportunity to win ’em back.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. You are listening and watching an artist at work right there. ’cause the way that you just described that online you’re right, is very disarming and understandable. Empathetic. And if I’m reading that as a guest, I’m saying, yeah, you know what, maybe this guest was being a little unreasonable. They were offered this and declined it. But very different conversation if you’re, if you say something like, you know, we offered you this and you didn’t take it. Like, it’s just very different tone. And that’s why that voice really, really matters online. And as we read more of these reviews, we’re getting better as consumers interpreting what’s actually happening. I think that’s really important to understand now is because reviews have become such an integral part of our life, the response is we know what a good response and a bad response looks like. It’s becoming very, very clear. So here we are, we’re at the top, I’ve gotta guess, but I’ll let you reveal what the number one tag is.

Jackie Avery:
Yeah. So we made it number one, it’s got over 6.5 million mentions and close to 4 million of those were positive. So let’s talk about the accommodations tag. So guests hope to be pleasantly surprised when they walk in a room, but they are not gonna shy away from letting you know if they are pleased or extremely disappointed. This tag can encompass everything from the bed to the room size, to the view to in-room amenities and to general room maintenance. So there’s a lot that goes into it. Specifics and empathy will serve you well here. Kind of a theme overall, right? Right. So you’re uniquely positioned to thank a guest for pointing out what makes your property special. If you have interesting art on site or you just upgraded TVs and it’s somebody who stayed with you every year and they point that out, you wanna thank them for doing that, they don’t have to do it, right? You want to encourage them to continue to share that good news, maybe not just online, but with their friends and family. So if they didn’t point out the tag in a positive way, you can then use this time to take corrective action. You can thank them for their patience. You can thank them for their assistance in pointing it out to you, right? Instead of, why didn’t you tell me about that sooner? That’s the same situation. Why didn’t you tell me about that sooner? And thank you for pointing this out. I didn’t have to write you a review to point it out, right? So let’s not be mad at them in that case. We can all talk ideal scenarios, but we don’t have control over what they’re gonna say and what they aren’t gonna say. So empathy goes a long way in this sense because when you hear their concerns, you open the door to providing more information to clearing up a misunderstanding, to really just inviting them back even to change their perceptions. Travelers know that things can go wrong and they, you know, understand that not everything is in your control, but they don’t wanna be told that they should have done something different. They wish anything that inconvenienced them or frustrated them or was stressful never happened. So they felt a certain way and if they decided to bring it up, you know, it doesn’t help you to be frustrated with the sense that they brought it up. You just wanna, you know, feel for them that they did encounter a frustration. They’re not focused on the big picture like you are. They are dialed into their specific trip and what happened to them. And so you can kind of acknowledge what went on. You can focus on any positive aspects of the trip. Maybe you can say, we hope, even if they didn’t say they liked the location, if you know you have a great location, you can ask ’em. We hope, you know, we hope you like our location, but we do apologize, you know, that these things happened and you have the ability to add these things to your response if you don’t come off defensive and combative.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, I mean it’s again, goes back to voice and tone for sure. And there needs to be a clear understanding. And that’s, we do a lot of, not just upfront effort, but continuous effort and making sure that frequency is matched with your team for our hotel partners, because every hotel is different, every hotel stay is different. We can anticipate some negative things like if you are in a noisy area. Other things we can anticipate when a guest will throw their hanger on top of a sprinkler and cause an entire Florida flood, which has happened before where at a hotel that I’ve stayed at. So both the anticipated and non anticipated, you have to have a process, you have to have a really good understanding of what you’re hoping to accomplish. And I think what you said at the top of this episode, Jackie, really resonates with me. It’s the last impression that you’re sharing with that guest. Do you want it to even to just leave an even worse taste in their mouth? Or do you want it to show empathy, understanding and acceptance and accountability that you’re gonna accept what happened and try to make it better for the next time? Which is what we as hoteliers all want to do. We want to make sure everyone’s stay is a five star stay. Absolutely love this. Accommodations again, continues to rule the land when it comes to sentiment tags in 2023. Looking forward to 2024 and doing this again, if there have been any big movements, but any final thoughts before we wrap up? Yeah,

Jackie Avery:
Absolutely. I’d say I cannot stress how important it is enough that you need to take a step back and shift your mindset when you’re analyzing your reviews or when you’re responding to them. Guest feedback is a good thing to have. Learn from it. Adjust, take any actions that you can take and make sure that you are not, you know, being defensive when you read it. And don’t underestimate the power of responding to a happy guest. Somebody who has left you an amazing review and didn’t complain, does not deserve to be ignored or to be given just a generic reply just because they were pleased. These people are advocates and they will champion, you know, for your property. So make sure that you’re spending time thanking them and giving them the quality responses that they deserve.

Ryan Embree:
That’s an absolute great point. We talk about it all the the time on this podcast. And just a reminder, the top five sentiment tags that we went through today, these were nationwide, these were hotels all over the country, compiled from millions and millions of reviews. If you are looking, you have these same top five sentiment tags within your hotel, within your hotel management portfolio right now. If you’re interested in this information, we have the tools and data that we can share with you because it’s exactly what you said. You know, taking that feedback. These are the clues and blueprint to a really great guest experience at your hotel is this feedback. It needs to be said more. It is not something to be feared or hated. This guest feedback is good and it’s good for your hotel and good for your guest ultimately. So I would say if you’re interested in learning a little bit more about your hotel, your hotel management portfolio and these sentiment tags, reach out to us at Travel Media Group. Jackie, thank you so much for joining me on The Suite Spot today. You and your team do fantastic work. The numbers again are just astounding. Every single time I talk with you, that number grows more and more. So happy to see where we’re gonna be next year and hopefully, if not only us, but for our entire industry. It’s a busy, busy travel year. So Jackie, thank you for joining The Suite Spot.

Jackie Avery:
Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure.

Ryan Embree:
And thank you all for listening to The Suite Spot. We will talk to you next time to join our loyalty program. Be sure to subscribe and give us a five-star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host Ryan Embree, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.