In the hospitality industry, it is extremely important to understand exactly what reputation management is and why it is so important. Reputation management is the understanding or influencing of an individual’s or business’s reputation. Originally coined as public relations, the advancements in computing, the Internet, and social media, have made it primarily an issue of search results. Some parts of reputation management are often associated with ethical grey areas, such as sponsored review sites, censoring negative complaints, or using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tactics to buck the system and influence results. There are also many frequently used ethical forms of reputation management, such as responding to customer complaints, asking sites to take down incorrect information, and using online feedback to influence product development.

Online reputation management is essential because it serves as a defense to negative and inflammatory content against your business. Every day, more and more businesses are participating in online market strategies in the hopes of protecting their reputation. The information they read online directly correlates with the opinions they form, often, the purchases they make. Individuals in the hospitality industry must understand listings that damage your online reputation hurt your credibility and they will make you lose potential business every day, especially if these listings mention you or your company’s name specifically.

Within the category of reputation management, there are many different sub-categories like creating a brand image, and customer recovery. A brand image is the impression a consumer has towards a brand’s total personality, whether good or bad. Brand images develop over time, mainly through ads and customer reviews. There are three main ways that a business can improve their brand image if it is suffering: reveal your unique value and develop a competitive advantage within your market set, improve your consumer’s experience by going the extra mile, and increase awareness and brand loyalty.

However, one thing is certain, no matter how hard you try, one or two things just slip by. Customer Recovery Policies, or strategies, are used to regain former customers who have stopped doing business with the company due to a bad experience. Often times, this provides you with an excellent opportunity to turn a setback into a comeback. Customer Recovery practices are based on the notion that previous demand implies the probability for future demand, and that marketing to repeat guests can yield greater sales

REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

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increases than marketing to new customers. This can go back to the old rule of thumb, 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers. A guest who has been turned around may not only be loyal to you in the future, but the “buzz” marketing about your great service may open up a referral source as well.

Inside the giant box of Customer Recovery is Online Market Recovery and Social Media. Online Marketing is a huge part of the day-to-day brand marketing and is very helpful in the customer recovery process, as most of the online sources have review areas where guests can review their visit to your property. Customers accept that mistakes happen; the problem begins when there is no strategy in place to rectify the situation easily. It is a natural inclination to look up a business and see its rating before pursuing it as an option. Any guest that has a memorable visit—good or bad—is most likely to leave a review on one of the social media websites. When a guest leaves a review, it is very important that a staff member at the property respond back to the review within 48 hours. This will give all future guests the impression that you really care about one’s opinion of your business and the service you are providing.

If a guest takes the time to post a positive review online, your business and services must have made a good impression. When responding to the positive review, it is important to thank the guest for taking time to post the review. In addition to thanking them, it is also important to mention the areas that were positive in the comment. Unfortunately, there will be times that a business will get a negative review. While the business may not be able to recapture the guest who has left the negative review, how the manager/owner responds to the review may help capture new guests. When responding to a negative review, address the response to the general public and not to the individual writing the review. Make sure to apologize for the bad experience and give a brief description of how the problem will be fixed. For example, if a guest leaves a post about a bad experience with an employee, the manager/owner might want to say, “Thank you; at the (brand name), we have ongoing training for all personal. We as a company will make sure to address this issue.” The response does not mention the specifics of the issue. It is important to remember that repeating something makes it more memorable, and you do not want to make negative issues more memorable for the reader.

Service recovery is about maintaining customer loyalty by converting an angry customer into a happy customer, when the customer is right in front of you. This is a huge challenge that can be daunting if you are not prepared. Service recovery is how you pull a customer from hell to heaven in 60 seconds or less. It is necessary and important to apologize, solve the problem, and then compensate with something of value. You must create a service recovery process within your organization, train all employees in the procedures and monitor the process carefully to ensure it is successful.

In short, Reputation Management is the practice of monitoring the reputation of a brand, addressing damaging contents/comments and using customer feedback solutions to get feedback or early warning signals about potential reputation problems. Most of reputation management focuses on pushing down negative search results. Reputation management may attempt to bridge the gap between how a company perceives itself and how others view it.

8737 E. Via de Commercio, Suite 110 Scottsdale Arizona 85258

www.hmbookstore.com

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CEO Tristar Hotel Group & HMBookstore CEO of Tristar Hotel Group turns decades of Hotel experience into an eLearning program

Ken Edwards, CEO of Tristar Hotel Group, has been putting his 25 plus years of building, developing and hotel management experience to good use; developing eLearning for hotels. The HMBookstore.com product was designed to provide education and training materials and to help those looking to enter the hospitality industry, as well as those already working in it.

HMBookstore has over 95 eBooks courses used for training to include 11 in Spanish and 9 in Mandarin. The eLearning courses range in educational content from line level employees through management positions up to the General Manager, and includes training for hotel management companies. HMBookstore is currently supporting hospitality training in 22 colleges and universities, such as UNLV, University of San Francisco, Northern Arizona University and both individual hotel owners and Management Companies.

8737 E. Via de Commercio, Suite 110 Scottsdale Arizona 85258

www.hmbookstore.com