Providence Hospitality
The reports and statistics that Providence Hospitality get from GuestRevu give their team the confidence that they need when engaging with guests
The Company
With a portfolio that covers 16 properties across the United Kingdom and South Africa, Providence Hospitality’s management believe that it shouldn’t matter which of their locations their guests choose to stay at. “Whether it’s a two- or three-star in Newquay, or a four- or five- star in the Lake District of Keswick, I think it’s value for money and exceeding expectations that our guests come to us for,” explains UK Operations Manager, Anja Bosken. It was this need to understand their guests’ expectations that led the group to GuestRevu.
GuestRevu helps Providence Hospitality’s management to collect the guest feedback that the group needs so that they can understand guest expectations, and maintain their high standard of guest experience across their range of properties.
The Challenges
Sporadic feedback, acting on online review insights, motivating employees, and keeping track of trends in experience
• Looking after their people
“Providence stands for integrity,” says Anja, “looking after its people (including our guests, obviously), and service excellence.” But group management was finding it difficult to know where their attention was needed – with intermittent feedback across multiple properties, it was proving difficult to highlight staff performance, or pinpoint areas where training may be needed.
• Not getting consistent feedback from guests
“We were gathering feedback sporadically to say the least,” explains Anja. And without consistent feedback, group management were not getting the insights that they needed to understand their guests’ experiences. “We’d try to speak to guests as much as possible, but there was never anything documented," Anja continues. “We couldn’t identify any real trends. We had some guest comment cards in some hotels, and relied on what people were putting on TripAdvisor or on the other online platforms.”
• Online feedback as a manual and time-consuming process
Despite each property being part of the greater group, when it came to online feedback, each general manager was responsible for monitoring and responding to their own property’s reviews and mentions. This manual and time-consuming process sometimes caused a delay before small recurring inconveniences or maintenance issues were noticed and resolved by management.
The Solution
An easy to use direct guest feedback and online reputation management solution which provides instant alerts, valuable insights and group reporting
Thanks to GuestRevu’s intuitive, easy-to-use software, Providence Hospitality have access to group-wide reporting and insights that let them:
- Identify trends in direct feedback and online reviews
- Fast-track maintenance across their properties
- Monitor and motivate staff
- Understand, and continually improve on, their guest experience
It's really not complicated, so even if you're a technophobe [when] you go with GuestRevu, there's nothing that you would shy away from, and the valuable and almost instant feedback that we're getting from our guests – I think that would have convinced [anyone].
The competitors set is invaluable, since it gives us feedback, where we normally would have just gone, "Well, we think this is what the competitors are doing."
The support has been phenomenal. I was pleasantly surprised at the product, and the absolute enthusiasm with which the portfolio was handled, and also the back up from people. So it's been a phenomenal experience.
The Results
More insights, faster reactions, employees who embrace feedback and tracking review trends
“GuestRevu helps us continuously,” says Anja. “It’s about looking at our guest experience actively, and constantly improving what we’re doing, and bettering ourselves… I couldn't imagine now going back into a hotel that doesn't have GuestRevu.”
• Seeing more, and more detailed, feedback
“The one thing that you want to do is engage with your guests,” explains Anja, and since implementing GuestRevu, that kind of engagement has become part of Providence Hospitality’s routine. Feedback surveys can be sent to guests days after they leave with ease, and they encourage guests to not only engage with the group directly, but leave online reviews as well.
• Getting insights from online reviews automatically
With reviews from TripAdvisor, Booking.com, Facebook, Google, and more being pulled into one dashboard, Providence Hospitality are keeping track of online feedback with no extra time or effort required. Better still, with the options to get notifications of reviews instantly, or on a daily or weekly basis, together with alerts as soon as low-rated reviews come in, small problems and maintenance issues can be dealt with before other guests experience them. As Anja explains, “if a guest points out there’s something in the room that isn’t up to standard, we can go in there immediately and sort it out… It’s obviously a huge advantage, because then the next person coming in, he doesn’t have the same experience.”
• Using feedback to engage with staff
As a group that focuses on looking after their people, the feedback that Providence Hospitality get from their surveys helps them to see where staff are thriving, and where more guidance may be needed. “I think that the team has embraced the technology,” says Anja. “I think they see the value in it… it also gives us views on staff that are performing really well, or staff that are maybe not performing as well, and training needs that come up through guests’ comments.”
• Tracking trends in feedback and guest experience
With the help of drill-down questions in their surveys and the detailed insights that they get from the regular feedback they are now receiving, Providence Hospitality are able to better understand their guest experience. “I read the month-end reports religiously,” says Anja, “and you can really identify some of the trends and what the issues are… This gives us a little bit more clout, because now we’ve got reporting and statistics obviously as well.”