Hotel Review from TripAdvisor Now on Google Places - Impact on Reservations Can be Huge

Aug. 25, 2010 - PRLog -- How do hotels and motels increase their Reviews on Google Places, TripAdvisor, and Other Business Review Sites?

The race is on.  Hotels in some metro areas already need more than 100 reviews on Google Places local business directory in order to rank in the seven-pack next to the map.  Having a few negative reviews on Yelp can keep the phone real quiet.  At least Yelp and Google now allow you to reply to your critics.  Others like City Search, InsiderPages, and Yahoo have no such option.

Online reputation management has become a big deal for hotels large and small, in both urban and suburban areas.  The center point of building a reputation has switched from the Fodors reporter who writes books of reviews to the customer who likes to sound off about their experiences.  And it would be hard enough to control these reviews if all were legitimate.  The truth, however, is not all that exists in these reviews.

Negative reviews can come from disgruntled ex-employees or suppliers, from competitors or their suppliers, family, and friends, or folks who just love to complain.

Your competitors positive reviews can come from their own computer, from review farms, or from paying customers to put up reviews.  What is an honest hotel or motel owner to do?

First you need to make sure that your staff understands that good reputation management starts with stellar customer service.  Studies have shown that the most profitable businesses are those with the best customer orientation.  Meet often with your staff to discuss customer care issues.  Incentivize good customer service.

Secondly, have a proactive effort to encourage your best customers to take a minute and give you a glowing review on as many internet local search engines and directories as possible.  Services such as ShoutDog create fast links from your website, Facebook Face Page, Blog, Twitter, or blogs directly to the review section of your listing on these business review sites.

Third, be prepared to reward customers for their help.  Some business review sites state that owners should not pay for reviews.  There is a difference between paying for a review and offering a nice discount for a future meal as a thank you for their help.

You might want to create a business card or other reminder tool to hand the customer as they check out.  The business card should give instructions on how to find the places you'd like to have reviews appear.  ShoutDog at http://www.ShoutDog.com offers a post card that does exactly this.

Should you ask Grandma, your son-in-law, and your employees spouses to review you?  If they have stayed in your hotel and had a great experience, why not?  Should you encourage the same group to do negative reviews on your competitors?  Not a chance.  It is wrong on it's face, and you never want to start a fight you may not be able to win.

Do jump on the review issue immediately, and plan to be actively involved far into the future.  You can proactively overwhelm future negative reviews with lots of good reviews.  You can get ahead of your competitors in overall reviews, then stay ahead.  Just the process of working on getting good reviews will keep you and your staff sharp regarding providing great customer service.  Win - Win - Win!

A new directory has been created at http://www.businessreviewdirectory.com

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Page1Listings.com is a SearchEngineMarketing company specializing in getting the phone to ring in small local businesses throughout the US and beyond. Utilizing web sites, articles, YouTube, Press Releases, blogs, and local search engines and directories, Page1Listings.com, their clients are seeing sales and profit increases even in this recession.

Now Page1Listings has created a completely new tool for achieving the goal of sales increases for SMB's. ShoutDog is a method for helping consumers easily put up reviews of their favorite businesses.