Reputation Management

Ryanair - 10 point plan for dealing with upset customers

1. Keep in touch with the social media - having people reading all time what is posted on social media regarding the brand, currently updating the social media pages the brand is on (like Facebook, Twitter, TripAdvisor). Also an eye should be kept on forums because people still use this tool. A good idea should be to use Google Alerts because this is one of the easiest ways to gather almost all the information that is circulating about your brand on the web.

2. Be quick - buzz or word of mouth spreads very quickly, more than one can imagine so this is why time is very precious and a quick response makes the damage smaller. If you do not have a solution for the problem that your brand is facing, at least let the people know that you are taking care of it, instead of ignoring and letting them think that you do not care. 

3. Respond - all or at least almost all the comments should be answered to. Ok, it is hard to answer to all that is being written on the web about your brand but a selection should be made in order to be sure that you do not miss anything important. Bad comments or reviews should be answered in the first place, but it is important to respond to positive reviews also because in this way people see that you care. Just to prioritise, maybe in the first place a brand should respond to comments posted on the main websites that are accessed by many people (Facebook, Twitter, TripAdivsor, Google+, Yelp).

4. Act human - even if they are wrong or they have done something wrong, people do not like to be reminded about it or to have this fact pointed in their faces. So even if the problem has been caused by the guest, and he has done a mistake you as a brand should try to be as empathic as possible, even if you can't give the guest what he/she asks for at least show that you understand, try to be friendly and familiar somehow in the way you speak. In the end, even if the solution wasn't the one the guest demanded, the way you spoke and handled the situation, will make the difference. In the case of Ryanair, the approach that they adopted was completely unacceptable and wrong. Instead of trying to find a way to make it up to the guest, they insulted and mocked the person in cause. In my opinion, for an approach like this they should have deserved to lose all their customers. We all understand that they are a low cost airline and they do not offer the same services like a regular airline but there is a huge difference between being a low cost airline and not carrying at all about the guests and treating them like nothing. 

5. Try to make things right - as I mentioned above, even if the mistake comes from the part of the guest, a brand should still try to do the best to make things right. This is how you win guests and make them loyal, by showing them that you are struggling to offer them the best solution. It is not important to point out the mistake because the guest should remember the way and that you fixed the problem. Again, in the case of Ryanair, instead of trying to come up with a solution they made things actually worse. 

6. Be sincere - it is important to be as sincere as possible and offer a direct and strong apology to the guest. If you do not feel like apologising or comforting or saying anything let's say nice to a person who is complaining about something, then honestly you shouldn't say anything at all! In my opinion, it is better to be perceived like a company that doesn't care about complaints than to be perceived like Ryanair who not only doesn't care about complaints, but doesn't care about anything at all and moreover insults the guests.

7. Be transparent - I think that even if you wish to have also another conversation with the guest in private it is good to keep things in the open too. If you as a brand keep the conversation only in private, the other persons don't know that you are taking care of the problem and will think that you aren't doing anything. Give updates, reply on the concerned topic to show people that you care and you create buzz in your favour. Of course, it is recommended to post comments that will generate a positive buzz not like in the case of Ryanair. 

8. Don't be in the offensive - do not search for a fight, it doesn't matter whether you are right or wrong, if you keep being in the offensive the only thing that guests will remember is that you were trying to fight them and prove them wrong, and guests really don't appreciate being told or shown that they are or were wrong.

9. Reinforce the positive aspects - a thing that a guest finds to be a problem for others is not or others have found a way to deal with a particular thing in a particular situation. Ask people for feedback, encouraging them to share their stories and put the problem in discussion into a positive light. People generally feel comforted if they see that others have been in the same situations. 

10. Involve people in the process - in my opinion, it is important to make guests feel that they are important and to make them feel comfortable. A brand should encourage guests, and in special the guest in cause that is complaining to give his/her opinion about how the situation should be handled, give ideas and try to negotiate instead of closing the subject by saying that you as a brand are just taking care of it. 

United Breaks Guitars

Question 1: What is the importance if the guitar?
Answer: The brand of the guitar was Taylor and it costed a lot of money. Also as he is a musician, the guitar represented the means through which he made money.

Question 2: Which is the brand involved?
Answer: United Airlines

Question 3: What was the problem?
Answer: The guitar of a musician was broken during a flight. The musician claims that he told the people in charge with loading the luggage to be careful but they didn't pay attention.

Question 4: How long did it take to fix the problem?
Answer: Negotiations lasted nine months but it actually took a lot more time (more than a year 1 think) from the time the incident happened and the time a compensation was given.

Reputation Management Concept - Review Pro

1. Define Reputation Management
Reputation Management is the understanding or influencing of an individual's or business reputation. It is the practice of monitoring the reputation of a brand, addressing contents which are damaging to it, and using customer feedback solutions to get feedback or early warning signals to reputation problems. 
Most of reputation management is focused on pushing down negative search results. Reputation Management may attempt to bridge the gap between a how a company perceives itself and how the others see it.


2. Services (how many sites monitored?)
There was not much information about the social sites the company monitors but there was information about the hotels they "take care" of and there are thousands of hotels in about 80 countries. 
Review Pro uses and analyses information from more than 100 social websites around the world from which we can mention Facebook, Twitter, TripAdvisor, Foursquare, Booking.com, Agoda, etc. 

3.Why is it important?
Reputation Management is important because 93% of hotel guests are influenced by reviews, and the majority of them won't book a hotel without them. Generally, a guest searches for reviews on more pages so having a good reputation will stop faster their search and guide them directly towards your hotel. 
It is also important because it helps reduce negative impacts and images that brands have in front of the clients. Nowadays, with the social medias negative opinions, reviews or problems are spread faster so a brand's image can be destroyed in just a few minutes, not so say seconds. This is why is important to use Reputation Management, to try and reduce as much as possible the negative impact and also try and foresee the problems that may arise.
Also, Cornell University studies have shown that an increase in the GRI (Global Review Index) leads to an increase in the RevPar (Revenue Per Available Room)

4. Sell "your" solutions (independent hotels)
Nowadays, things have changed a lot and even for the independent hotels it is important to have a good image of course reviews because guests care more and more about this things. As an independent hotel it can be very costly to purchase such a programme since it doesn't benefit from the budget a hotel group has but owners should see the benefits of Reputation Management and they should see that this tool can help them in the future have their hotel at full occupancy almost all year round. 

TripAdvisor Webinar

1. Key take away from the slides
The most important thing that is to be remembered is the fact that reviews are very important or better said Reputation Management as in the case of hotels, guests base their decisions (whether to choose a hotel or not) upon the comments and reviews their read online.


2. Should a hotel use TripAdvisor reviews in their sites?
In my opinion, hotels should use TA reviews in their sites as TA has become nowadays a very powerful and well known tool by almost everyone. I think that posting TA reviews along with reviews on the own website would do nothing else but increase the awareness and the confidence of the guests in the specific hotel. 


3.Should the hotel encourage customers to comment on TripAdvisor?
A hotel should encourage customers to comment on TA but this is not enough. More important would be for a hotel to actually respond to the comments and not only to the negative ones. From time to time, a thank you message for a nice comment will for sure be appreciated by the guests (former and potential ones).
Moreover, customers feel more confident with hotels that respond to the reviews. 
Encouraging a guest to post a comment on TA may mean at the same time boosting the hotel's image (if the experience was a positive one) but also deal with or event prevent a crisis (if guests have bad experiences and a certain aspect in their comments persists, it means that there really is a problem that should be dealt with). So, as every thing in life, comments on TA have positive and negative aspects - negative mostly because some comments may be malicious and not true, but yet again, this is why it is important to react, mostly to the negative comments.


4. What's your opinion? Use TripAdvisor or your own platform? 
I think that regarding this question, there is no good or bad answer, it all depends of the type of the hotel (size, whether it belongs to a chain or not, etc.). Of course, TripAdvisor is know by almost everybody and is also somehow trustworthy therefore people may directly go on TA in the first place than on a specific hotel's website. 
Posting reviews on the hotel's website or social pages would also increase the confidence of the guests which is particularly important for the small and independent hotels that do not benefit from the awareness a hotel chain has. 
I guess that an appropriate answer would be that a hotel should use both tools, it should set up a page on their website for guests to post reviews and also use TA, as it has become so powerful. Of course, it is useless to have guests post comments and not to do anything about them. 

Snap Your Stay

Are visuals the future of reviews?