98 – Travel Media Group Celebrates 1 Million Guest Reviews Responded To

Join host Ryan Embree and our extremely own React & Resolve™ Product Manager, Jackie Avery as they celebrate reaching the 1 million visitor reviews responded to milestone! This episode information the journey to 1 million, points out how hoteliers can get involved in the next milestone, offers a minimal sneak peek at a model new impending Reply & Resolve™ upgrade, and so considerably extra! This episode is jammed-packed with enjoyable information for hoteliers all over the world.

Episode Transcript

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Ryan Embree:
Welcome to Suite Spot exactly where hoteliers check in and we check out what’s trending in resort internet marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Hello there every person. And welcome to a different episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you all for listening. We have bought a incredibly celebratory episode, very excited to share with you. Episode 98, we are counting down to episode 100. So again, thank you all for listening, anywhere you’re listening from. And these days of the 98 episodes that we’ve performed so far, we’ve got a to start with time guest. So it is my pleasure to introduce Jackie Avery. She’s our product supervisor for our TMG respond and resolve, which is our overview reaction remedy for our lodges. Jackie, welcome to the Suite Location.

Jackie Avery:
Thank you. Pleased to be here.

Ryan Embree:
And I am happy that you are listed here because we are celebrating some incredible humongous information for you and your group have strike the 1 million mark when it comes to visitor evaluations responded to on the internet. This is great. Congratulations.

Jackie Avery:
Thank you. Yeah, we’re so fired up in excess of right here. It was a enormous milestone. Unquestionably experience fantastic about it.

Ryan Embree:
Definitely. 1 million visitor reviews. It’s seriously difficult to fathom to believe about that. I know we’ve been maintaining individuals up to date on this podcast as we discuss about evaluation response and how crucial it is on the figures, but now we’ve strike that remarkable milestone. 1 million. Now this is your initial time on below. So why do not you go forward and kind of talk about your part as product supervisor for this actually significant resolution for resorts?

Jackie Avery:
Of training course. So I oversee all of our writers and supervisor working day to working day operations. When a new customer will come on, I assistance work with our other departments to ensure a seamless start out and a seriously vital section of my job is keeping up to date with marketplace trends and updates to platforms to make certain that everybody on my workforce is informed and is up to date as we can be.

Ryan Embree:
And you have to, right. I indicate, you, you and your workforce respond to so numerous on the internet web-sites across the sector from OTAs, trip advisor, Google, even some social media as effectively. You have strike a million, that is a good deal, I’m confident you know, you have arrive throughout your beneficial and your adverse types that you reply to. What would you say is your most loved component about responding to assessments?

Jackie Avery:
I like acquiring to notify the other aspect of the tale, specifically when our shoppers really associated in this problem, they express what transpired to us. And then I get to acquire that information and facts and present it in a way that their potential attendees can realize and relate to. And lots of hoteliers struggle responding to something, specially when they truly feel frustrated. And I just truly delight in encouraging ’em with that part.

Ryan Embree:
Totally. This is a massive emotional toll and cost that it usually takes to respond to these testimonials, specially if it is a negative 1 soon after possibly an eight hour, twelve hour change that you have performed. And someone’s effectively calling you out publicly on the net. So it’s not just challenging for, for inns, but any person to seriously keep a serene intellect when you are responding to these assessments. You have obtained not just oneself, Jackie, but an overall team of writers, specialist writers centered proper right here in Maitland, Florida at vacation media team headquarters. So I imagine we get this issue a good deal from hoteliers with so quite a few various forms of hotels, significant and tiny, models and independents. How do you make certain that the reaction matches the hotel’s voice if you are not bodily on the house, if you are here in Maitland responding to possibly a resort on the west coast?

Jackie Avery:
Yeah, so we have acquired an really person friendly platform that lets our shoppers to update notes in authentic time. So for illustration, if an elevator goes out, they can share with us that it’s damaged and question us to consider an apologetic tone and give us an believed fix date. If they have common issues, they can detail the situation for us and present us with how they’d like it addressed in reviews going forward. For instance, let’s say your visitors usually complain about the price tag of seashore chairs, but you know, that these seashore chairs are basically a private company. It’s not your home. You have no command in excess of it. You can give us that details and, and enable us know, you know, acquire an empathetic solution or truly, you know, we told them about this at check out in, be sure to acquire a make a difference of reality solution. And then we can use that voice and that data to make guaranteed that we’re responding the exact way that the hotelier would if they were being performing it them selves.

Ryan Embree:
Certainly. I assume which is a terrific case in point that you talked about appropriate there, Jackie, of an empathetic vs . a issue of fact tactic. I really don’t know if a lot of hoteliers that sit powering the keyboard when they’re responding to the critiques, they’re just responding to so considerably that there is an art sort to it. It truly is a talent. And that’s a little something that you and your workforce with undertaking a million visitor opinions on the internet have seriously kind of honed in on that craft and realized that it is truly a two way road with our resort companions when it will come to overview response primarily based on the facts that they want to express, not to the, just the visitor that has left the overview, but upcoming travelers that are also wanting and looking at these responses. Now, alongside with these guest responses, hoteliers definitely can attain a large amount of amazing insights and important information from the sentiment that your team uncovers in doing a review reaction. Can you explain to us a little bit additional about that?

Jackie Avery:
Certainly. So when our team’s responding to critiques, we’re not only crafting a response, but also auditing sentiment tags on every one review. We have received all of this info saved in a convenient, quick to use system so that our shoppers can deep dive into analytics or promptly pop in and test their top rated favourable and destructive tags. So probably you are looking at a transform and you can see the attendees have been not happy with the loos. You wanna make positive that you’re building the correct alternatives. So you go in advance and look and see precisely what individuals have been complaining about, about the bathroom. Is it the sink? Is it the cupboards? Is it the size or let’s say you’ve produced a transform to your housekeeping insurance policies. So you can go in and see in the previous 30 times, have your cleanliness tags, have they been trending positively or negatively? So our system compiles all of this and demonstrates it in a actually simple to examine sensible structure.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. It’s difficult to get that info when you are just responding kind of sparingly to critiques across different platforms, to know, to uncover these styles and tendencies. If it is not genuinely organized and collected in a way that’s meaningful to the hotelier. Now, one particular of the factors we listen to all the time is all ideal, you are offsite. I can give you notes about my lodge, but I still wanna be included in this system. And, and we’re 1 of the handful of critique response businesses for inns that basically have a approval system. What kind of procedures concerned with that for respond and solve in your workforce?

Jackie Avery:
Yeah. So when it comes to approving responses, our customers have choices. They get a notification. As shortly as the reaction is drafted from the electronic mail, they can click on approve or make edits suitable there on the place. The moment a house feels confident that we have captured their hotel voice, they can also pick to have their responses automobile authorised. And even in this, they can customize it more. They could opt for to vehicle approve their 4 and five star reviews and then even now examine the a single, two and a few stars. So variety of, they have selections as they even remain in the plan extended. It’s not you created your determination and now that’s what it is. You know, you could modify it soon after six months or immediately after a year, as you experience comfy. And in particular if you’re acquiring staff members alter on site, if you have anyone new appear on, they may possibly want distinct options and we can make that alter rapidly. If a hotelier is sent a response and they get no action, then our technique is gonna go forward and approve it following 24 hours to make sure that we are still conference all of our time ambitions.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, that’s a, that’s a wonderful position. And a great deal of our hoteliers it’s possible even some that are listening suitable now, once they get to know the truly feel and the information that our skilled writers are basically putting out there and communicating to attendees, they promptly swap about to that car approval since that can also assist with the speed of getting the post up there. But you make a excellent issue. The sector has been infamous for turnover, but specially a person that’s been responding to your critiques, they arrive in, they want to get a superior really feel of the property of the vibe of the voice. This is a great way to do that by obtaining on these approvals. So that’s a terrific position there. Now, a million evaluations responded to does not come about overnight and we’ve experienced, and, and genuinely perfected this method and this alternative dependent on suggestions from hoteliers, just like yourselves listening for a amount of many years now. I’m normally curious to see, we speak about it all the time, with social media on this podcast about how which is genuinely advanced. How do you experience personally that review response has evolved due to the fact, you know, possibly the late 2010s, when we initially begun this answer?

Jackie Avery:
When we first started overview reaction, it was definitely the pattern in the sector to not perspective a assessment as an possibility to hook up or reconnect with the purchaser, but far more as a box that necessary to be checked to prevent a brand price. But now accommodations see the great importance of earning the connection article keep, constructing the information on the internet about their home and demonstrating likely company the amount of company that they can be expecting. So there’s certainly been a shift from an obligation and systematic method to an opportunity.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. It’s the hoteliers that are getting benefit of that prospect ideal now that are leveraging that it it’s giving you an additional way to connect, control visitor expectations, which I know is a huge component of assessment response, since if you’re not environment all those anticipations and factors like your responses, then you could fall short to meet a guest’s expectations when they physically appear on residence. A million testimonials, we’ve bought hundreds of companions throughout the nation, some intercontinental companions as very well. I’m sure you have listened to some suggestions. What type of feedback do you get from hoteliers? Because a whole lot of this option was developed on feed-back from our lodge associates.

Jackie Avery:
Yeah. So not to brag, but we undoubtedly get a great deal of praise about, you know, issues you could not anticipate. We get a great deal of thanks for our patience. So when an individual has been really involved in responding to critiques, they often have a tough time letting go and they wanna be quite included offering extra facts about just about every critique that will come in. So our staff can take the info that they’ve presented us. We edit the primary response. And then we also go forward and update our notes so that we have pointers that we can use as responses of a similar nature. Occur up again. So of course, it can be a bit cumbersome in the commencing, on our conclusion, but we’re pleased to do that mainly because it’s what we’ve promised, we wanna hear from them. And we want their opinions. It is actually assisted us variety of update our conversations with purchasers and to make sure that, you know, we’re offering them what they have to have and they are in a position to give it again to us in the least difficult way possible.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. And what Jackie just explained proper there. I would say we, we persuade our hoteliers to do that. An concerned companion is, is a excellent husband or wife in our eyes. So, yeah, if you’re listening to this and you are partnering with our respond resolve, and are one of the million on-line responses that we have responded to and you haven’t carried out anything, like update your notes or arrive at out to us, experience no cost to do so simply because that stuff seriously assists our writers. Which is what sets us apart from some of the other response businesses out there and not to place you on the place, Jackie, but I did wanna kind of check with you that, what do you consider this is? This is gonna give you an opportunity to brag right here. What do you imagine sets your evaluate reaction crew and, and reply and solve aside from other alternatives that could be performing evaluation response right now?

Jackie Avery:
I’d have to say our expectations they’re large and they’re not going to be lowered as brand name and traveler anticipations boost. We do not compromise. In its place we establish innovate and make certain effectiveness on our stop. All of our departments do the job with each other to assure that we’re shopper centric and we’re concentrated on top quality. So clientele know that they can depend on us, not only appropriate when they signal up, but as they keep on to remain with us and we keep on to serve them, they can have confidence in that we are heading to be performing everything we can in an at any time transforming business.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. It is a good issue. It unquestionably is ever modifying. And I appreciate that what you talked about with the advancement and in that spirit, I’m not gonna permit you off the hook here due to the fact, every one time we get a solution manager from a remedy, we know that you are normally doing work on anything to test to enhance, make that remedy greater. Any probably consequently you can give us for what’s coming next with respond and solve?

Jackie Avery:
Nicely, we’ve had a blast celebrating this milestone, but I’d be lying if I did not admit we’re by now looking forward due to the fact there’s surely some thrilling items to appear. So as travel’s picked up, we’ve observed an maximize in overseas language reviews still left for our motels. So we’re generating chances for our shoppers to make the connections that I was conversing about before with the visitor in their indigenous language, which will raise the personalization and just aid us make it less complicated for our hoteliers to have meaningful interactions with their visitors.

Ryan Embree:
Which is amazing. You’re right, as we see the return of the worldwide traveler, we’re gonna be getting more and much more of these reviews possibly in unique languages. So which is so exciting that you men are previously searching toward the potential and planning for that for the subsequent massive point. So, awesome. Very well, yet again, congratulations on this huge, huge milestone for you and your staff, Jackie, any ultimate ideas on today’s episode or just critique reaction in normal?

Jackie Avery:
I just actually wanna thank you for possessing me on below. And I just, you know, wanna say to anyone, unquestionably retain your eyes on us. We have acquired a good deal coming and you know, this is just a stepping stone to the place we’re heading.

Ryan Embree:
Absolutely. And if you’re a hotelier or resort group out there listening to this and have in no way regarded as evaluation response right before, this may possibly be the great time to do so. We are ideal now in the middle of the summer months, pick up the cell phone, give us a phone. We’d adore to explain to you what our assessment response answer for resorts is carrying out for other resort associates throughout the place and hope that possibly you can be a component of this upcoming million critiques that Jackie and her crew reply to. So, Jackie, thank you so substantially for leaping on the Suite Location now.

Jackie Avery:
Brilliant. Many thanks so significantly for having me, see you following time.

Ryan Embree:
And thank you so a great deal for listening. We’ll speak to you following time on the Suite Spot. To be a part of our loyalty software, be confident to subscribe and give us a five star ranking on iTunes. Suite Location is manufactured by Travel Media Group with deal with art by Barry Gordon. I’m your host, Ryan Embree, and we hope you relished your keep.