Get Great Guest Reviews

Reputation Cultivation isn't essential only for hotels, restaurants, and supporting industries; it is mission-critical for all service professionals. Our businesses grow as we build relationships that are based on integrity, authenticity, trust, and of course, as we create those wow moments that inspire beautiful experiences, memories, and stories to be shared.

No one is a finer expert in designing wow moments and building trusted relationships than my gust this week, Nick Faitos, Senior Partner of Starbright Floral Design, the premier florist for the hospitality industry in New York City and beyond.

Welcome to Get Great Guest Reviews, the Podcast.

For lots of free resources, including the show notes to this episode and more, please visit https://www.adelegutman.com/getgreatreviews

Welcome to Get Great Guest Reviews! If you are a hotel manager, owner, or hospitality professional who would love to see a sunshower of 5-Star reviews coming your way every day, year after year, do yourself a favor and subscribe to this podcast! The next 20 minutes are going to be packed with the truth about what it takes to top the charts on Tripadvisor and other review sites. Lots of people give advice but have never actually led a hotel to the top of the charts. I have, many times, and so has my featured guest today, Sally Beck. I was inspired to re-edit and reshare the story of Sally Beck, so more hoteliers can quickly benefit from her philosophy. You'll soon discover why Sally was recently honored with the Julian Star, a global distinguished service award in the hospitality industry presented by the International Hospitality Institute. What's more, Tripadvisor has just announced their 2022 Best of the Best Travelers Choice Awards. Under Sally's stewardship, the Royal Lancaster London rose from #272 in London, to the #3 Hotel in the entire United Kingdom in the 2022 Tripadvisor Best of the Best Travelers Choice Awards. Her story is a masterclass in Reputation Cultivation. The process she describes illuminates a philosophy that is very consistent with hoteliers around the world, who like the hotels I personally worked with, have been able to completely break away from the trend of hotels with high employee turnover and 75%-85% guest satisfaction if they are lucky. The hotels that top the charts on Tripadvisor and earn true loyalty from their guests instead embrace a daily discipline of continuous improvement to inspire a flood of solid gold, five-bubble scores on Tripadvisor. For lots of free resources including the complete show notes to this episode and more, visit https://www.adelegutman.com/getgreatreviews Hospitality stars, no matter where you are with your reviews now, there is a path to constantly great reviews! Listen and learn, and if you need help, don't hesitate to contact me to help you through it. https://www.adelegutman.com/ Tripadvisor Best of the Best: https://www.tripadvisor.com/TravelersChoice-Hotels-cTop-g186216 Follow Sally on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sally-beck-mi-fih-20218a62/ Learn about the Hoteliers Charter: https://hotelierscharter.org.uk/

Nearly everyone in the business today understands that a company's reputation and customer reviews have a direct impact on revenue results. That's especially true in the hotel business where we are selling experiences and there's a lot of competition. Delivering five-star review-worthy stays is a great way to stand out from the crowd and elevate the perceived value of a visit to your hotel, resort, restaurant, or attraction.

But here's the rub. While many hotels around the world have some level of Reputation Management program in place, many are wondering why it isn't having more of an impact on its revenue or even its review scores. Is all this work for nothing except to "check the box" on a to-do list?

This week, I address this question and explain the life-changing difference between Reputation Management which can be time-consuming but show minimal results, vs Reputation Cultivation, a simple yet powerful way to elevate your competitive advantage, your employee engagement, guest satisfaction, and loyalty, along with your ADR, RevPar, and Profitability.

Please listen to the podcast to hear my answers to these questions.

You may also like to check out the extended blogpost, which is a companion to the podcast and covers some additional aspects of the following questions that I have received recently regarding hospitality reputation management.

• Why isn't my Reputation Management program elevating my revenue significantly?
• What's the difference between Reputation Management and Reputation Cultivation?
• Is it ever okay to use an outside company, a PR company, or a mid-management or junior employee, to respond to reviews for us? Is it ever okay to use a template or boilerplate for management responses?
• Is asking for good reviews an organic way to improve your online reputation? What's the best way to ask for reviews?
• When should you direct people to a survey and when should you direct them to a review site link?

Read the rest here:

https://www.adelegutman.com/post/why-isnt-my-reputation-management-program-making-impact

Last year, in 2021, I cherished a few conversations of my podcast conversations so much, that I have to revisit them. I feel this conversation is a timeless gift, whether you are an experienced hospitality leader, a brand new general manager or if you aspire to be a great general manager someday. If you are looking for a truly extraordinary leader to follow, listen to Craig Poole, President of Reading Hospitality and a recent recipient of Global Hospitality's Julian Star Award, presented by the International Hospitality Institute. My fellow podcaster friends, Kyle Allison and Greg Fregoso of Hospitality MD made a documentary about how Craig Poole transformed a community in the second poorest city in the country by launching the DoubleTree by Hilton in Reading Pennsylvania. Craig's hospitality leadership philosophy is called, Follow me and I will be Behind You. The film of the same name was a contest winner at the Reading Film Festival, and I encourage everyone to watch it and be inspired. I dare you not to shed a tear or two! Not only did the hotel change the trajectory of the lives of the people who worked there, but the hotel is also very profitable and one of the top-rated hotels on Tripadvisor in all of Pennsylvania.

I hope you will listen and have a new view of the beauty and power of what Craig calls, "authentic hospitality".

For lots of free resources, including the complete show notes to this episode and more, please visit www.adelegutman.com

Follow Craig Poole: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crpoole/

Follow Adele Gutman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adelegutman/

Watch the film, Follow me and I will be behind you. https://www.reelhouse.org/hospitalitymd/followme/

Do you have any questions about how to inspire 5-Star reviews? Please send them to [email protected] and we will answer them directly with you or in a future episode of Get Great Guest Reviews, the podcast!

Thank you for listening!

Watch the Documentary, Follow Me and I Will Be Behind You: https://www.reelhouse.org/hospitalitymd/followme/

One of the best ways to cultivate enthusiastic 5-Star reviews is to create a culture of enthusiasm for hospitality and collaborative, creative problem-solving at your hotel.

I'm excited to speak today with Hotel General Manager, James Ferguson, who is the author of the new book, The Confetti Culture Playbook: How to Boost Your Team's Contribution and Impact.

With the level of stress and frustration at hotels today, I truly believe that there is nothing more important right now for the future success of our industry than shifting to this people-centric mindset.

So do yourself a favor and check out The Confetti Culture Playbook for yourself and gift it to your team members.

For additional resources including highlights and complete show notes from this interview, please visit adelegutman.com/getgreatreviews/

Links:

Let's Connect! If your hotel could benefit from more five-star reviews (and honestly, couldn't we all?), please contact us at [email protected], and let's see how we can put you on a reputation optimization plan to meet your needs and support your goals. Follow and connect with James Ferguson: Website: https://theconfetticultureplaybook.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-ferguson-08361384/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Confetti-Culture-Playbook-101771741967490/ 4 Other Authors and Books Mentioned: Christine Trippi: Yes is the Answer Horst Schultze: Excellence Wins! Dan Cockerell: How's the Culture in Your Kingdom Charles Ryan Minton Thanks for Coming in Today! Follow and connect with Adele Gutman: Website: Adele Gutman LinkedIn: Adele Gutman Adele's Speaker & Consulting Sheet Facebook: InspireFiveStars with Adele Gutman Instagram: InspireFiveStars with Adele Gutman Twitter: Adele Gutman Youtube: Get Great Guest Reviews with Adele Gutman If you found value in this discussion, it would mean the world to us to have you as a subscriber and shared this with anyone you know who might benefit from this conversation! If you have any questions about how to inspire five-star reviews, please send your message or comment to [email protected] and we will be sure to answer them on an upcoming episode and/or directly with you.

Thank you, in advance for subscribing, and sharing your heartfelt reviews. It means the world to us when we hear that you find the content helpful, and what's more, it helps others find our content too.

Let's Connect! Follow and connect with James Ferguson: Website: https://theconfetticultureplaybook.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-ferguson-08361384/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Confetti-Culture-Playbook-101771741967490/ Other Authors and Books Mentioned: Christine Trippi: Yes is the Answer Horst Schultze: Excellence Wins! Dan Cockerell: How's the Culture in Your Kingdom Charles Ryan Minton Thanks for Coming in Today! Follow and connect with Adele Gutman: Website: Adele Gutman LinkedIn: Adele Gutman Adele's Speaker & Consulting Sheet Facebook: InspireFiveStars with Adele Gutman Instagram: InspireFiveStars with Adele Gutman Twitter: Adele Gutman Youtube: Get Great Guest Reviews with Adele Gutman Thank you for listening! Have a great week and reach for the stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Adele

Welcome to Get Great Guest Reviews! In our last episode, I invited a hotel owner, Robert Rauch to share with me his perspective on what general managers and hotel owners can do to support their teams and lead them through this transition as we as an industry work to recover from the repercussions of COVID. Today, we are going to examine the issue from a different perspective. Seeing that our teams are dealing with a high degree of stress that is impacting their quality of life as well as our ability to deliver great experiences for our guests, I've invited a phenomenal guest to share her expertise with us. Cheryl C. Jones is the owner of Simply the Best Results and the author of Emotional Self Mastery and we are going to discuss tips on how we can create a culture where our associates can be inspired, thrive, and feel successful at making guests happy. If you want some ideas on how to ease frustration and burnout while elevating positive feelings of confidence and success, have a listen and see if you can find some ways you can work into your life to enhance the experience for your team and your guests, along with your profitability.

For lots of free resources including the complete show notes for this episode and so much more, visit AdeleGutman.com/GetGreatReviews/

Let's Connect: If your hotel or business could benefit from more five-star reviews (and honestly, couldn't we all?), please contact us at [email protected], and let's see how we can put you on a reputation optimization plan to meet your needs and support your goals.

Follow and connect with Cheryl C. Jones: Website: Simply The Best Results LinkedIn: Cheryl C. Jones Motivation Expert Facebook: Simply The Best Results Instagram: Cheryl C. Jones Twitter: Cheryl C. Jones Youtube: Simply The Best Results Follow and connect with Adele Gutman: Website: Adele Gutman LinkedIn: Adele Gutman Facebook: InspireFiveStars with Adele Gutman Instagram: InspireFiveStars with Adele Gutman Twitter: Adele Gutman Youtube: Get Great Guest Reviews with Adele Gutman

As the hospitality industry is still dealing with supply issues, staffing issues, as well as heightened inflation, inflated guest expectations, and emotional stress. In this episode, Adele Gutman speaks with the Hotel Guru, Robert Rauch talk about how hotel owners and general managers can use culture and experiences to lead their teams through recovery and continued change.

Everyone wants a great culture and great guest reviews, but sometimes it's challenging to know where to begin. From my perspective as a former VP of Sales, Marketing, and Revenue, I suggest starting by asking your team for their insights and looking at your guest reviews to know what your guests love and where you can do better. I wanted to hear from a hotel owner to see how he uses culture to drive success.

I hope you enjoy listening to the conversation to see how the Hotel Guru, Robert Rauch applies guest-centric culture to his operations.

Connect with Robert Rauch:

linkedin.com/in/robertrauch/

hotelguru.com/

Follow and connect with Adele Gutman:

Website: Adele Gutman

LinkedIn: Adele Gutman

Facebook: InspireFiveStars with Adele Gutman

Instagram: InspireFiveStars with Adele Gutman

Twitter: Adele Gutman

Youtube: Get Great Guest Reviews with Adele Gutman

For lots of free resources including the complete show notes for this episode and so much more, visit AdeleGutman.com/GetGreatReviews/

If your hotel or business could benefit from more five-star reviews (and honestly, couldn't we all?), please contact us at [email protected], and let's see how we can put you on a reputation optimization plan to meet your needs and support your goals.

Sarah Dandashy is the hospitality industry's Golden Girl, so smart, funny, exceptionally hard-working, elegant, relentlessly kind and helpful, and full of love for our industry. It is no wonder that her new book is titled, Hospitality From Within, and is filled with heartfelt and unpretentious wit and wisdom that our industry really needs to hear right now.

I had the great honor of interviewing Sarah as one of my earliest guests in January of 2021 for last year's season of the show, which was formerly called Hospitality Reputation Marketing, the podcast. Sarah recently released Hospitality from Within in early 2022. Needless to say, I loved it, so I thought it would be the perfect time to repost our previous conversation.

For lots of free resources including the complete show notes for this episode and so much more, visit AdeleGutman.com/GetGreatReviews/

If your hotel or business could benefit from more five-star reviews (and honestly, couldn't we all?), please contact us at [email protected], and let's see how we can put you on a reputation optimization plan to meet your needs and support your goals.

The success of Hotel Directors of Sales and Sales Managers is highly impacted by reputation, including word of mouth, online reviews, and other social media user-generated content. In episode 8 of Get Great Guest Reviews, the Podcast, Hospitality Sales expert, Amy Infante, Founder, and CEO of GitGo talks with Adele Gutman about the role reputation plays in maximizing sales, and the role sales professionals play as advocates and leaders in creating a stellar reputation that enhances profitability.

Your Reputation Proceeds You:

Amy shared a statistic from Gartner that only 17% of the sales journey involves a salesperson. According to Gartner, 45% of their buying journey is spent on research, 27% online, and 18% offline. That means that a business with mixed reviews can be eliminated from consideration long before a salesperson has a chance to speak with them. It also means that a business that was not already on the radar of a planner, can rise to the forefront based on consistently enthusiastic five-star reviews and personal recommendations.

https://www.gartner.com/en/sales/insights/b2b-buying-journey

For the complete blog post, with highlights and pro tips inspired by our conversation, please visit our website https://www.adelegutman.com/getgreatreviews

I hope that you will take the time to listen and enjoy the full conversation.

Do Happy Employees = Happy Guests or is it Vice Versa? EX2CX Excpert Jill Raff and Adele Gutman talk it out!

Outside of location and price, the Guest Experience is the most important differentiator in choosing a hotel. In fact, it is so important that many travel decision-makers are willing to pay more they planned to and select a less convenient location in order to have an exceptional elevated experience that enriches their lifestyle.

But an excellent guest experience isn't created in a lab. It is delivered by human beings. And right now, the hospitality industry is grappling with how to attract and keep great employees, perhaps with as much concern as they have for attracting new guests.

So which comes first? Does focusing on happy employees create a loyal fanbase of guests? Or does focusing on happy guests create a loyal base of highly engaged and enthusiastic employees?

Listen in as Jill Raff, the EX2CX expert, and Adele Gutman, the creator of the Five-Star Review System talk it out on this episode of, Get Great Guest Reviews, the Podcast. Although their approaches seem opposite, they agree on many of the same principles.

Read the highlights of the conversation as well as past episodes on adelegutman.com/getgreatreviews

Follow and connect with Jill Raff:

Website: jillraff.com

LinkedIn: JILL RAFF, EX2CX™ Expert

Facebook: Jill Raff: EX2CX Expert

Instagram: ex2cx_expert

Twitter: Jill Raff

Youtube: Jill Raff

Follow and connect with Adele Gutman:

Website: Adele Gutman

LinkedIn: Adele Gutman

Facebook: InspireFiveStars with Adele Gutman

Instagram: InspireFiveStars with Adele Gutman

Twitter: Adele Gutman

Youtube: Get Great Guest Reviews with Adele Gutman