Companies are taking criticism head on and making necessary changes to their services and operations.
Almost three-quarters of travel companies are using online reviews to their advantage by making changes to their service that reflect feedback received, according to the results of a new survey published recently.
The figures released by TripAdvisor showed that some 73 percent of all travel and hospitality companies had taken steps to improve service as the result of an online review in the last year. Given the volume of people who now take to blogs and trusted review sites to post their opinions, it is important that companies are paying attention to what their customers are saying about their services and how it can be improved.
It comes as TripAdvisor has announced that it is now launching a good reviews writing guide that will allow customers to put their point across properly and will mean companies are receiving better structured and constructive feedback.
“Reviews have become a powerful tool; travelers around the world rely on reviews to help them plan and book their holidays. In fact, more than half will not make a booking decision without reading reviews from others,” says Barbara Messing, chief marketing officer, TripAdvisor.
“With more than 200 million reviews and opinions and growing on TripAdvisor, we wanted to provide new and seasoned reviewers with insights from our passionate community – from what motivates them to contribute, to the top tips for writing helpful reviews,” she adds.
Customers generally replied to the survey to say the main reason they wrote reviews was because they want to share useful information they have with other people (83 percent), while nearly 70 percent said they would write these reviews within two days of having traveled.
And it seems that companies really value the insights that they get from these reviews as well, with 85 per cent saying that they felt the emergence of online review sites has had a positive impact on the market. Nearly 59 percent of businesses said they check their reviews every time a new one comes in, which shows that they find them very important.