The way you treat your hotel guests is critical for your success. So much so to where 84% of people in a survey stated customer service is a key factor in determining whether or not they will support your business.

But many hospitality businesses struggle with this scenario — you train your staff well and aim to give customers the best experience, only to still have disgruntled guests. The solution? Customer surveys.

When surveying past guests, you’ll learn more about their experience and any pain points that you can improve. Here’s why surveying your past guests is vital to your hotel or any hospitality business.

Why Surveying Guests Is Important

The hotel and hospitality industry is only becoming more competitive.

While more people are traveling, opening up the lines of revenue for your business, world travelers have more lodging options. From Airbnb to hostels and even crashing on couches, nomads will do what they can to save a buck and will get the best travel experience.

Not only that, but the COVID-19 pandemic put a damper on the hospitality industry. So much so to where the pandemic set the hotel industry back 10 years.

What’s an effective way to remain competitive and increase your revenue? Not only focusing on customer service but improving the lines of communication between you and your customers.

You’ll know what your past guests thought of their experience and you can make changes to improve the experience for future guests. In addition, this may even lead to better customer retention. Overall, offering a survey can lead to more loyalty, less churn, and more sales.

How to Survey Guests Using Vertical Response

Now that you know why satisfaction surveys are integral for your hospitality business, it’s time to make the best surveys and send them out. But how do you do this? Fortunately, Vertical Response offers a convenient solution.

They offer a free platform to create the best surveys for your business. You can choose from 11 question types, split your survey across multiple pages, and you can even make written responses optional. From here, you can distribute these surveys to your customers via email.

The best part? No coding experience is required. These surveys are easy to create and only require a few clicks to design the best survey for your hotel or hospitality business.

Best Practices When Creating Your Survey

While Vertical Response makes it simple to create the perfect survey, there are some best practices that you should know. Here’s what we recommend.

Ask Questions That Relate to Your End Goal

When compiling your survey questions, it can be difficult to know what to ask. You’ll first want to identify your goals and only ask questions that pertain to that goal.

For example, let’s say your goal is knowing your guest’s experience staying at your hotel. If that’s the case, you may not want to ask how they found your business.

But Don’t Make Them Biased

Another problem that businesses have when creating their surveys is they focus too much on accomplishing their end goal, making their survey completely biased.

This may annoy your surveyors, causing abandonment. And if your survey questions are too direct, you may not receive an honest answer.

Instead, ask open-ended questions that pertain to your end goal. Starting a question with a phrase like “what do you think of…” is neutral but also a better way to lead into a question.

Keep It Short

With that being said, keep your survey as short as possible. If your survey is clear and concise, your past guests will be more likely to fill it out. If you’re sending a lengthy survey, your abandonment rates will likely increase.

Add Text Fields When Necessary

Text fields can offer the most insightful information. At the same time, they can also be intimidating. Offer them whenever appropriate.

Most businesses will offer a few multiple-choice questions before including the text box. Others will only make the text box optional.

When you do offer the text box, include an open-ended question. Something like, “how did you feel when staying at our hotel” will encourage customers to provide a more detailed answer.

Make Ratings Consistent

Instead of offering textboxes or even multiple-choice questions, many businesses only include a star rating for simplicity. While this is convenient, it’s important to make star ratings consistent. For example, stick with the basic format: 1 star is poor and 5 stars mean excellent.

If you make 1 star the best, this will confuse your surveyors and you won’t receive accurate responses.

Avoid Assumptions and Nichey Language

Sure, you and your staff develop nichey language to benefit your business processes. However, don’t assume your customers will understand what this means. Avoid niche language in your surveys.

Make your surveys clear and concise so anyone can understand them. Avoid acronyms, industry jargon, and references to competitors.

In addition, don’t assume your guests know the ins and outs of the hospitality industry. Instead, make your survey about their experience.

Use Yes/No Answers

Simple answers are key to surveys. And what simpler answer can someone provide than yes or no? Yes/no responses are easier for your customers to evaluate and answer. Yes/no responses will also cut out more complex answers, such as “highly agree” and “not valued,” responses that can easily confuse your customers.

How do you do this? Vertical Response offers a drop-down option where you can input yes/no answers to your questions.

Vertical Response Makes Surveying Customers Easy

One of the best ways to improve your hotel or hospitality business is by surveying past customers. You can easily get started with any of Vertical Response’s products.

While we offer a free survey creator, we also have many email marketing tools that can convert more leads and retain customers. You can send an email at the perfect time, create beautiful marketing emails, create a custom landing page, and monitor your campaign performance all in one place.

Sign up here to start your free trial.

© 2021, Chris Duncan. All rights reserved.