Answering phones, checking in guests, managing housekeeping – there are lots of tasks at a hotel that need to be completed at a hotel as they come in. Because of this, some items that are less urgent can be put on the back burner, such as responding to hotel reviews online. Research shows responding to reviews is essential, and your brand likely requires you to respond, but it’s difficult to make answering reviews a priority in the hustle of running a hotel.

Aside from the convenience, we believe that hiring a 3rd party to respond to your reviews online will help you to provide the best level of service both to the past guest reviewing you and also to the guests currently at your hotel, without worrying about neglecting your online reputation.

Here are the reasons you should have a third party respond to hotel reviews.

1. Keep Your Attention on the Property

As we’ve described, hotel managers have a lot on their plate and plenty of tasks to juggle. By outsourcing review responses, you can more effectively manage the day-to-day operations of your property. When finding a review response service, be sure to choose one that gives you the final approval before posting. This way, you know there will be well-written, professional responses to every review but you can adjust wording or correct the responses as you see fit. Now, go focus on the property and prevent issues that could pop up in a review later.

2. Avoid Defensiveness

A third party will be able to fully evaluate a situation and respond in the most appropriate way. Remember that reviews are not only for the guest that stayed with you, but will also be public for future travelers to use to judge you by. Hotel owners and managers can feel personally attacked when criticism is made of the property they work so hard for every day. A third party will better handle criticism, manage the situation, apologize for a bad experience, and respond appropriately, even when an owner might feel the review is unfair.

3. Respond to Every Website

Sometimes, the term “online hotel reviews” is used synonymously with TripAdvisor. However, there are so many other places travelers look for feedback. Travelers who are loyal to reserving hotels on OTAs will read reviews on websites like Expedia, Booking.com, Travelocity, Hotels.com, and Orbitz before booking. Last-minute bookers will find rooms on location-based apps like Yelp and Google Maps, which rank their listings based on user reviews. The job of tracking and responding to reviews on all of these websites can feel insurmountable when you’re running a property. You need to choose a third party response service that replies to reviews across the web or else you’ll miss out on bookings and walk-ins from other sources outside of TripAdvisor.

Choosing a Third Party Review Response Service

When selecting a third party to respond to your online hotel reviews, look for these features:

• Ability to review and approve responses before they are sent
• Professionalism and strong writing skills
• Diversity of online review platforms covered
• Commitment to responding within your desired timeframe

Travel Media Group Review Response Solutions

For our Respond and Resolve customers, Travel Media Group provides unlimited responses to hotel reviews on nine different platforms. Our review response specialists will respond to every review, good or bad. Our dashboard includes advanced sentiment analysis, the ability to track competitors, and a platform for you to approve every response before they go live. Learn more about our hotel review response service.