Hospitality Reputation Marketing: Get Great Reviews

The Art of Housekeeping owner, Lonny Wolfe returns to our podcast with powerful words of advice for hoteliers challenged with mixed reviews due to housekeeping issues.

Just as COVID-19 increased the need to inspire trust with travelers on our cleanliness and hygiene practices, the industry was thrown into a second crisis- how to hire and retain sufficient housekeeping staff.

The world may refer to “The Great Resignation”, but in the case of our industry, it was simply a lack of desire to return back to work. Even when the enhanced federal unemployment support ended, workers failed to return in full force. Many left for less taxing higher-paid jobs with more benefits, fewer hours, better schedules, and a better work-life balance.

There has been a lot of discussion about the need to enhance the employee experience in the industry, but it makes one wonder why it takes a pandemic to think about treating our teams with the care and compassion we want them to give to our guests.

The Hospitality Industry recently celebrated Housekeeping Week, a time when hotel leadership takes the time to show extra appreciation for our hard-working housekeeping teams, but the time has come to show appreciation to all our staff every day.

Lonny Wolfe, Owner of the new company, The Art of Hospitality, is a former GM who is a shining example of how you can challenge your team every day, set the highest standards and expectations of excellence, and keep a loyal, engaged, high-performance team who stayed with the hotel year after year. The 3-Star hotel was one of the highest-guest rated hotels in Florida, thanks to an unwavering flow of five-star reviews.

I hope you enjoy this conversation about how Lonny shows hotels how to create employee and guest loyalty, starting with the hardest working people on any property, the housekeeping team.

Ken McGarrie, Author of the Surprise Restaurant Manager joins Adele Gutman on the Hospitality Reputation Marketing Podcast to discuss:

• Why even 1-star reviews are great feedback for restaurant managers

• How to inspire your restaurant team

• What topics you must not forget on your pre-shift huddle

• How to build great reviews starting at the interview process

 Please LIKE, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE! If you have any comments or questions for Ken McGarrie or Adele Gutman, please leave us a comment below! We are here to help!

 Buy the Book Here: https://www.amazon.com/The-Surprise-Restaurant-Manager/dp/B08YP1R14Y

 Connect with Adele: 

Website:     https://www.adelegutman.com/

LinkedIn:    https://www.linkedin.com/in/adelegutman/

Twitter:      https://twitter.com/AdeleGutman

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InspireFiveStars/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspirefivestars/

Tracking Customer Satisfaction Score (CSS) can often give managers and teams a false sense security. Alternatively, tracking Your Hotel’s Net Promoter Score (NPS) can be a shocking experience. But it can also be a very rewarding experience as you identify where you are with guest loyalty and work collaboratively with your team to reduce friction and elevate delight for your guests.

In this 13-minute video, Adele Gutman explains how CSS and NPS are different, why these leading indicators matter to savvy hospitality revenue and marketing professionals, and how to track these KPIs with your team, your leadership, and hotel owners.

What’s in your tech stack enhancement plans this year? Contactless, AI, CRM, CRS, PMS, Revenue Management, all great tools that everyone should have and use to the fullest.

But according to Jordan Ekers, the Co-Founder of Nudge, technology alone will not transform your business’ guest experience nor your ability to retain clients and employee’s loyalty without working to win the hearts and minds of your team. When everyone is fully engaged and aligned with your company’s mission, goals and values, incredible financial results will follow.

 No, I am not talking about Reputation Management tools, although they are wonderful to have and very worthwhile.

 I had the pleasure of speaking with Jordan, who talked with me about how Nudge, an internal communication tool that can help hospitality leaders transform the culture of companies by facilitating 2-way communication between teams and leadership.

 Is that a Marketing tool? I say, 100% yes! Absolutely!

Your Business’ Reputation is the foundation on which to build any commercial strategy for success. Sales, Marketing, and Revenue initiatives will all be greatly impacted by the loyalty created on the strength of your Guest Experience.

 Decision-makers will check your hotels' reviews before booking…

• after your sales team has made a call to a potential client.
• after a planner has seen your meetings and events advertising.
• after your sales manager has made a great presentation at a tradeshow.
• after a traveler has seen your hotel on a meta-search site.

 The list goes on. Great experiences drive loyalty and return visits better than any incentive. Travelers are willing to pay more and stay more often when friction points are minimal and kind, unpretentious service is in abundance. You lower the expense of acquiring new guests when not only do you keep more guests, but you inspire your guest to share their amazing experience with everyone they know and everyone online.

 I hope you enjoy the conversation. If you want to learn how to get the maximum impact from a communication tool like Nudge, please give me a call and I will be happy to help you with your Reputation Optimization plan.

www.adelegutman.com

Adele Gutman, the foremost expert on Hospitality Reputation Marketing addresses a few of the most commonly asked questions.

I have a great story for you today! If you want a fantastic example of how leadership and the highest standards for guest experience excellence can produce more revenue, more return visits, and more five-star reviews, you won’t find a better example than in the story of Craig Poole, AHLA General Manager of the year and President of Reading Hospitality Management - Doubletree by Hilton.

Hear how Craig took a distressed hotel in one of the poorest, most crime-filled cities in Pennsylvania, hired nearly 200 people, many with no experience and no exposure to what service and hospitality looks like. He looked for people who felt hope for the city and the joy of hospitality in their hearts and gave them a chance to build something amazing together that would change people’s lives in the city of Reading. Even ex-felons were given a second chance to turn their lives around for themselves, their families, and their community.

Now The Doubletree by Hilton in Reading, Pennsylvania is not only the top-rated Doubletree in the world with a perfect 5-Bubble review score on Tripadvisor, but it also is one of the highest-rated hotels on Tripadvisor in the entire state, and comfortably selling at rates $50 a night its competition.

Mr. Poole says that he and his team accomplished this extraordinary level of guest satisfaction, completely aligned with the culture and values of Hilton and Doubletree. Indeed, if everyone at the brand actually embraced the well documented values of Hilton, the entire company would see it’s guest satisfaction scores rise significantly along with revenues and shareholder returns.

If you want to hear what might be stopping other GM’s from embracing this more joyful and effective leadership style, you’ll just have to listen.

Here are some other great podcasts made by my friends which I am sure you will enjoy:

Toni Reese and Craig Poole: Humanize Profit

Loren Gray’s Hospitality Marketing Podcast.

Lily Mockerman’s Hospitality Revenue Management Podcast:

Holly Zoba’s Hospitality Sales Podcast

Dean Schmit’s Hospitality Meta Search Podcast:

And you can see many of us together on Fridays at 11:30 AM Eastern on

This Week in Hospitality Marketing

or find us on the Hospitality Marketing Club on Clubhouse!

Do you have any questions about how to rank #1 in your market on Tripadvisor, Google my Business, and other Review Sites?

Please be sure to send me a comment or message via adelegutman.com and we will be happy to help!

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It’s time for Part Two of the Nantucket Hotel and Resort interviews! In our last episode, we had a thought-provoking conversation with Gwenn Snider, the owner of Little Gem Resorts, including the Nantucket Hotel and Resort, a hotel distinguished for year after year, topping the Top 25 Best of the Best Hotels in the US on the Tripadvisor Travelers Choice Awards. 

This time, I was honored to have the opportunity to speak with the hotel’s extraordinary General Manager, Jamie Holmes.

Jamie shared with me many insights on how his winning team keeps their guest satisfaction so high, by thinking as a team, working as a team, and even focusing on guest reviews as a team.

If you are a hotel manager or aspire to be a great hospitality leader someday, you will not want to miss a single word of this episode of the Hospitality Reputation Marketing Podcast, Get Great Reviews. 

There are so many words of wisdom in this interview with award winning hotelier Gwenn Snider, the owner of Little Gem Resorts. Her hotel, the Nantucket Hotel and Resort in Massachusetts consistently ranks as one of the top three hotels in the USA on the “Best of the Best” TripAdvisor Traveler’s Choice Awards- the top 25 most highly rated hotels in the USA, based on the reviews of their guests.

There are many people who will share well meaning posts on “how to manage your online reputation”, who have never actually done achieved award-winning guest review success themselves. The mission of the Hospitality Reputation Podcast is to share the philosophy and insights of those who are truly masters at Reputation Cultivation, and whose results speak for themselves.

In this conversation with Nantucket Hotel and Resort Owner, Gwenn Snider, she shared her tips on how she and her team lead by General Manager Jamie Holmes, inspire five-star reviews. 

• Being obsessive about the details and committed to creating a unique and welcoming guest experience.

• It’s all about the small moments, so it is important that everyone feels empowered to be able to change a guest experience in a positive way.

• It’s surprising what small detail or kindness can make a hotel a traveler’s favorite experience.

• Never take your guests for granted. Be unrelenting. Things don’t get ignored from an operational standpoint. 

• Truly listen to every guest review and survey and have leadership respond personally to every complaint.

• Kindness goes a long way to change someone from a state of stress to a state of relaxation.

• Forget, “it’s not possible.” Find a way to say, “Yes!”

For more show notes, visit adelegutman.com/blog

Thank you so much for listening!

Please subscribe, send us a comment, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or Audible.

 You can also join my newsletter by leaving your email on www.adelegutman.com and never miss another episode of the Hospitality Reputation Marketing Podcast. https://www.adelegutman.com/blog

 Here are some other great hospitality podcasts I am sure you will enjoy: 

Loren Gray’s Hospitality Marketing Podcast: https://www.hospitalitydigitalmarketing.com/podcasts/

 Lily Mockerman’s Hospitality Revenue Management Podcast: https://www.thinkupenterprises.com/podcast/

 Holly Zoba’s Hospitality Sales Podcast: https://influencer-sales.com/podcast/

 Dean Schmit’s Hospitality Meta Search Podcast: https://www.audible.com/pd/Hospitality-MetaSearch-Podcast/B08K581QTP

Jeffrey Kulek, the Area Vice President and General Manager London West Hollywood is well known for supporting a fantastic work culture at his hotel.

 That great corporate culture has been a supportive environment where employees are invited to contribute to the greater good, grow, learn, and reach for the full potential that they aspire to. An environment like that is life changing for employees, knowing that hospitality offers a path that no matter where you come from, if you are willing to learn and to serve with generosity you too can have a shot at the American Dream.

I hope that hotel General Managers, Hotel Owners, and everyone who aspires to be a hospitality leader will listen and take a bit of Jeffery’s wisdom to heart. It is not only the right thing to do, but this is one of those times when what feels great is also what inspires guest satisfaction, loyalty, and great reviews!

Thank you so much for listening!

Please subscribe, send us a comment, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or Audible.

You can also join my newsletter by leaving your email on www.adelegutman.com and never miss another episode of the Hospitality Reputation Marketing Podcast. https://www.adelegutman.com/blog

Here are some other great podcasts I am sure you will enjoy:

Loren Gray’s Hospitality Marketing Podcast: https://www.hospitalitydigitalmarketing.com/podcasts/

Lily Mockerman’s Hospitality Revenue Management Podcast: https://www.thinkupenterprises.com/podcast/

Holly Zoba’s Hospitality Sales Podcast: https://influencer-sales.com/podcast/

Dean Schmit’s Hospitality Meta Search Podcast: https://www.audible.com/pd/Hospitality-MetaSearch-Podcast/B08K581QTP

How to Turn Around a Struggling Hotel- with Christine Trippi and Adele Gutman

This is Adele Gutman, your host of the Hospitality Reputation Podcast, Get Great Reviews, and I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this conversation with my guest, Christine Trippi.

As a former Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Revenue, I have personally experienced extraordinary success with helping hotel managers achieve astonishing revenue results by focusing on reviews and guest satisfaction. Yet even after being recognized by Tripadvisor as having the #1 hotel in the world and some of the top hotels in the USA on Tripadvisor, and by ReviewPro as having the highest rated luxury brand in the world, I am still seeking knowledge on how others learned to elevate and differentiate their business by creating true loyalty through hospitality.

I am continually fascinated to learn from others who have also achieved Tripadvisor and guest satisfaction success, longing to discover what their journey was like. What if any alternate routes they have they taken on the road to Five-Star Review Success?

Spoiler alert: You should not be surprised when I tell you that while every business has a different story, the steppingstones that each discovers along the way are full of parallels. There are universal truths at work. When you embrace them and put them into your daily discipline, they always bring powerful results.

This is great news. It means that if you want more success at your business, and more revenue at your hotel, these proven principles can work for you too!

And as you will hear in our conversation, it is actually easier to inspire and empower your team than to struggle by allowing issues to fester without identifying root issues and finding creative solutions.

You don’t have to be a 5-Star Hotel to deliver 5-Star hospitality and receive 5-Star reviews!

That’s why I was so delighted to invite Christine Trippi for a conversation about her experience as the former General Manager of the Courtyard by Marriott Waukegan. How did Christine step in and take her struggling property from a “red zone” low-rated select service hotel to the #1 hotel out of 81 hotels in Lake County? Guess what? It’s still ranking high as #2 in Lake County, even though Christine left years ago. That’s the power of a strong culture. As long as it is maintained, the magic will linger for a long time.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes from our Christine during our conversation.

“Focusing on what you cannot control makes you a victim. Focusing on what you can control makes you a Viking.”

“It does not matter what four walls you are in. It only matters who is inside your four walls.”

- Christine Trippi, Author of Yes is the Answer.

You’ll definitely want to listen in to hear more about the four things within your four walls that you can control and lots more tips and insights as Christine and I share our philosophies that any business can replicate to optimize your revenue and guest loyalty.

In these challenging times when hotels and restaurants are either struggling with consumer confidence or employee shortages, it is important to note that this work that Christine and I espouse, serves not only to increase guest satisfaction and revenue goals but also develops strong, empowered, and engaged teams who are happy when they are challenged and contributing members of a successful team.

If you enjoyed this episode, please like and share it with your friends and leave a review on Audible or Apple Podcasts.

Never miss an episode of the Hospitality Reputation Marketing Podcast!

Subscribe and discover more at https://www.adelegutman.com/

Do you have any questions about how to rank #1 in your market on Tripadvisor, Google my Business, and other Review Sites?

Please be sure to send me a comment or message via adelegutman.com and we will be happy to help!