Online customer reviews posses a strong influence on potential brand customers. The Internet is a hub of opinions. Embracing sources that share individual’s thoughts about products and services can increase the perception of trustworthiness in a business. For many brands, there is no sales tool stronger than positive online customer reviews.
This is specifically true of the hospitality industry. In their study “The Impact of Social Media on Lodging Performance“, researchers at Cornell University recognized “one of the more intriguing aspects of social media is their potential to move markets by driving consumers’ purchasing patterns and influencing lodging performance.” The online review study produced some interesting conclusions:
- The percentage of consumers consulting reviews at TripAdvisor prior to booking a hotel room has steadily increased over time, as has the number of reviews they are reading prior to making their hotel choice.
- Transactional data from Travelocity illustrate that if a hotel increases its review scores by 1 point on a 5-point scale (e.g., from 3.3 to 4.3), the hotel can increase its price by 11.2% and still maintain the same occupancy or market share.
- Regression analysis finds that a 1% increase in a hotel’s online reputation score leads up to a 0.89% increase in price as measured by the hotel’s average daily rate (ADR).
- This 1% increase in reputation also leads to an occupancy increase of up to 0.54%.
- This 1% reputation improvement leads up to a 1.42% increase in revenue per available room (RevPAR).
TripAdvisor Review Express to Get More Traveler Reviews
In order to enable their partners success in collecting customer reviews, TripAdvisor Review Express service was launched today. According to their website “TripAdvisor Review Express is a free marketing tool that makes it easy to invite recent visitors to write a review on TripAdvisor. In just minutes, you can create and send a customized, professional-looking email to up to 1,000 recent guests.” Features include customizable email templates, bulk uploads, and message translation in 21 different languages.
TripAdvisor receives over 200 Million visitors each month, searching to find information about potential travel destinations. But the introduction of TripAdvisor Review Express will just keep them ahead of the competition, according to Cathrine Shu at Techcrunch.com:
“TripAdvisor already has more than 100 million reviews on its sites, but it needs even more in order to continue competing against rivals like Yelp and Foursquare. Review Express, a service the travel Web site launched today, is meant to help TripAdvisor grow its roster of reviews by making it easy for venues to request them from customers.”
TripAdvisor Review Express is not the only customer review tool is the company is implementing. According to Shu “Other features TripAdvisor has recently launched to bulk up its reviews include EasyToBook.com, which allows users to share travel reviews with friends, and the Rave Review widget, which allows site owners to display photos with positive reviews.”
TripAdvisor Review Express Video
The Rewards of Online Customer Reviews
The rewards of consumer feedback are significantly positive to all aspects of businesses. Online customer reviews will improve your company’s reputation and increase sales. Additionally, applied online feedback helps to improve operations, rectify shortcomings, and provide insight for delivering outstanding products and customer service. Today more than ever before, it’s essential to enable your customers to share opinions online.
