Birmingham's Hotel La Tour publishes live stream of reviews online
A Birmingham hotel operator is publishing live, unedited customer reviews collected from an independent third party, on its own website.
The four-star, 174-bedroom Hotel La Tour is one of the first luxury hotel establishments to take this step, and is working in collaboration with "feedback engine" and review system Feefo.
Reviews come through the engine and are then published on the hotel's homepage as and when they appear.
Feefo customers are verified before being permitted to post, meaning that any reviews posted are likely to be genuine. The hotel general manager is then able to reply to all comments, with the aim of responding to all enquiries within seven days.
Negative comments will be replied to within 24 hours, followed up with a phone call from the hotel's director.
It is intended that this system will allow customers to make an informed choice when choosing the hotel, and improve the customer service on offer.
More than 1,300 comments have been received since March 2013, with 95% of reviews rating the hotel as "good" or "excellent".
The constant, public feedback has also seen the hotel make some changes in response, including improving staff training, putting bottled water in the bedrooms, offering a choice of pillows, changing the shower water pressure, altering the TV and radio selection.
The Feefo system also means that guests receive an e-mail thanking them for their stay, and inviting them to comment or review. There is no editing from comment to publication online, except if reviews contain expletives or personal details. Around 16% of guests have used the system so far.
Managing director Jane Schofield commented: "Our policy is to embrace social media and online customer reviews. it makes good business sense to listen to your customers, respond to what they are saying and, where appropriate make business changes which will enhance our offering. Guest comments are also extremely valuable in the on-going training of our team."
"We know that, on occasion, things will go wrong and I think that anyone looking at our reviews can see that we genuinely do strive to deliver the very best customer service."
