Overall, the hotel industry is on an upward trajectory, with hospitality trends showing higher travel demand and a significant increase in guest satisfaction. After hitting a 15-year low in 2022, the American Customer Satisfaction Index shows guest satisfaction levels bouncing back for the second consecutive year, with increased excitement for travel and high expectations for exceptional experiences driving the trend. Facing heightened demand and consumer expectations, effectively and efficiently handling guest complaints should be a key priority for all hoteliers.
Swift and effective complaint management is crucial for hotels that want to satisfy their guests and keep them coming back. So, whether you're looking for helpful tips, action plans, or best practices for managing hotel complaints, you’ve come to the right place. This guide provides step-by-step instructions for handling guest complaints for hotels, venues, and other travel-based businesses.
Ten tips for handling guest complaints
Hotel complaints come in many forms from many places, including email, review sites, social media, and word-of-mouth. Wherever you encounter feedback from a concerned guest, it’s important to respond appropriately, professionally, and authentically.
But how? And when?
1. Be prompt
Addressing guest complaints swiftly is critical to controlling the situation and maximizing the hotel’s ability to obtain a positive outcome. How quickly teams respond to hotel complaints also significantly impacts customer satisfaction. Recent research from BCV Social indicates that consumers expect faster response times across all communication channels. From social media messages to hotel emails, 79% of complaining patrons expect hotels to respond within 24 hours.
2. Show empathy and gratitude
Don't get upset when guests bring problems to your attention. Thank them for letting you know, put yourself in their shoes, and try to understand their experience. Show compassion and pay attention. Actively listening to each guest can even help catch concerns they don’t share directly.
3. Follow apologies with action
Apologize, but do more than say sorry; offer solutions. Take responsibility and acknowledge the hotel's role in guest issues. Assure visitors that their satisfaction is your top priority, and demonstrate a commitment to providing each guest with a positive stay experience. This helps build trust, boosting the likelihood that dissatisfied guests will give your property another chance.
4. Provide team guidelines
Although most visitors are kind and courteous when bringing a hotel issue to light, some may be angry, rude, or difficult to communicate with—situations that can be difficult for employees to navigate gracefully. Provide your team with a step-by-step guide on handling common guest complaints. Create easy-to-understand policies that guide hotel staff through guest recovery procedures. Consider offering recommendations or setting limitations on financial compensation, such as reservation refunds, future free stays, and extra loyalty points.
5. Notify all appropriate parties
When guests experience an issue, it’s essential to notify anyone who can help prevent it from occurring again. Was the problem related to cleanliness, guest service, or maintenance? Which department needs to follow up first? Regularly meet with team leaders to discuss hotel complaints so you can identify trends and pinpoint minor problems before they balloon.
6. Delegate response duties
Identify who monitors each hotel-guest communication channel for questions and concerns. Who will monitor social media and review sites for complaints? Is there a brand.com page? Who can access it? Who manages the hotel email account, and how often do they check it? Establish response time goals, follow-up procedures, and employee access restrictions.
7. Practice overcoming objections
Provide your team with the tools they need to succeed. Give them the training, resources, and skills to manage hotel complaints promptly and professionally. Consider hosting hotel team-building workshops or casual training sessions that encourage staff to let loose while having fun and act out various complaint scenarios. Include situations ranging from common complaints to absurd interactions.
- How would/should the employee respond in each scenario?
- What works and what doesn’t?
- What complaints has the hotel received recently? How would you resolve them?
Encourage employees to assist each other with creative solutions and collaborate to determine how things could have been done better. Work together to evaluate which actions are most helpful in overcoming customer objections.
8. Check social media
Don’t forget social media is an increasingly important research resource for aspiring travelers and hotel guests. According to the 2023 Sprout Social Media Index Report, only 56% of travel brands respond to guest messages or customer feedback on social media, so doing so could set your property apart. Regularly check hotel social media accounts, replying promptly to messages on platforms such as—
- YouTube
- TikTok
- Snapchat
9. Log guest complaints
Collect and organize guest complaints so you know what’s happening at the hotel. In addition to helping improve guests’ experience at your property, repeat complaints may help identify employees needing additional assistance. Diligently log guest feedback to track trends, pinpoint training gaps, spot improvement opportunities, and enhance the customer experience.
10. Follow up
Lodging a complaint shouldn’t be any guest's last interaction with your hotel. After providing a solution, check in with guests. For example, if you move a guest to a quieter room or offer a free meal to apologize for a cleanliness issue, reach out a few hours later to reconnect and ensure they are pleased with the resolution. After checkout, send an email to express your gratitude for their feedback and illustrate your commitment to impressing hotel guests in the future.
Common guest complaints hotels should know about
Travelers may voice concerns for several reasons, from comfort to consistency and far beyond. Although hotels should always expect the unexpected, there are a handful of common complaints most properties encounter.
Inaccurate reservations
A range of inaccuracies may be the root of hotel complaints. Mix-ups are a common source of guest disputes, from reservation inaccuracies, such as incorrect dates or rates, to descriptive errors, like inaccurate room type descriptions. They may occur because of outdated marketing, pricing distribution problems, and technological or human error. Communicate with guests regularly, providing numerous opportunities for them to view and review their reservation information for accuracy.
Cleanliness concerns
Cleanliness can impact the overall guest experience and hotel performance scores, and recent research shows the effect is significant. In 2022, cleanliness influenced nationwide performance scores, with the bottom two hotel cleanliness metrics scoring negative double digits.
Mitigate cleanliness complaints with a “leave no trace” housekeeping policy. Check-in-ready rooms should show no trace of previous guests, like hair on the sheets, a bar of soap in the tub, or lingering odors. Work with all employees to keep public areas tidy, refuse-free, and smelling fresh.
A lack of free supplies or amenities
Another common source of hotel complaints is a lack of complimentary amenities or supplies. Properties that skimp on toiletries, coffee, or other comfort items may upset consumers, especially if they thought the room rate included more. Communicating which hotel amenities and services are complimentary, online and in-person, can help reduce amenity-based complaints.
Guest comfort
Although “comfortable” is technically subjective, most hotels try to offer an atmosphere that appeals to as many guests as possible. However, you can’t please everyone. Strive to provide a warm, welcoming space that matches your brand identity, but expect that some guests will conclude—
- The hotel is too hot or too cold
- The location is too noisy or too quiet
- The lobby is too bright to too dim
- Water pressure runs too low or too high
- Beds are too soft or too hard
- Guestrooms are too cluttered or too sparse
Trouble with the Wi-Fi
Lightning-fast, accessible internet service is no longer an option for hotels who want to remain competitive; it’s a necessity. One of the most common complaints from guests in all market segments is an inability to connect to hotel Wi-Fi quickly or consistently. Invest in a strong, supported wireless network offering secure, streamlined guest sign-on.
Technical issues
As hotels incorporate more technology, they become more reliant on it. As a result, minor tech issues or software hiccups have the power to disrupt massive hotel operational procedures. For example, strong Wi-Fi is a necessity for digital nomads, and a weak network could harm your ability to attract the growing market segment. A power or network outage could interrupt the digital key reader function, temporarily locking guests out of their rooms. Invest in hotel technology that offers robust real-time troubleshooting support.
Poor customer service
Encountering a dismissive or rude employee can ruin a lovely hotel stay. If a guest reports experiencing poor service from your staff, investigate and follow up. Did they encounter an employee having a difficult day? Perhaps they didn’t feel their concerns were taken seriously. Dig into what happened, how it could have been prevented, and how team members could better manage a similar issue in the future.
Maintenance issues
From routine procedures, like fixing broken furniture or freeing clogged plumbing, to major projects, like hotel renovations, maintenance disruptions are a common source of guest complaints. Whether a guest’s air conditioning malfunctions or the elevators go down during their stay, these issues can markedly impact their experience. When maintenance issues or renovations occur, keep arriving and in-house guests up-to-date to mitigate complaints. Update a digital display in the lobby, send push notifications, or alert guests of outages via text message.
Other guests
Other guests can be a significant source of frustration for travelers, particularly during event season, high-traffic evenings, and peak season. Review guest profiles before check-in on high-demand dates to identify arrivals with quiet room preferences, working to place them as far from the noise as possible. When teams, weddings, or reunions are in town, assign group rooms as close together as possible, putting at least one in-house chaperone in charge of monitoring youth groups.
How can ignoring guest complaints harm your hotel?
If you don’t know why consumers dislike your business, how can you improve it? Reading and responding to guest reviews enhances a hotel’s ability to identify and overcome shortcomings. Failing to answer or reacting poorly to guest complaints could—
Harm your reputation
Excessive complaints, whether in person or online, can significantly harm a hotel’s reputation. 81% of travelers report regularly—if not always—reading reviews before choosing a hotel. In addition to pushing consumers to competing properties, racking up complaints negatively impacts hotel search engine optimization, moving your property lower and lower in search results.
Cost money
Consumers who see negative reviews online may expect to pay less to stay at your property than nearby hotels with higher ratings. Collecting too many complaints could negatively impact assorted hotel key performance indicators, including average daily rate (ADR), occupancy, revenue per available room (RevPAR), and overall hotel costs.
Affect vendor relationships
Hotel reputation extends beyond the business and impacts its partners as well. Vendors, planners, and community professionals may not want to attach their reputation to a problematic property.
Reduce sponsorship opportunities
Are you interested in fundraising, community relations, or destination tourism events? Mishandling guest complaints could make it more difficult for your hotel to receive invitations to participate in or host future events.
Increase employee turnover
If guests regularly have a poor experience at your property, there’s a good chance team members do, too. A stressful, chaotic work environment can increase employee turnover, with 46% of HR leaders citing employee stress as the primary driver of half their annual turnover.
Why should hotels respond to guest complaints?
While failing to address guest concerns can harm your property, professionally and promptly responding to hotel complaints can—
Drive repeat business
Dedication and commitment build guest loyalty. Even if a mistake is made, trying to fix it demonstrates your hotel cares and can boost repeat business, even after an imperfect stay. Moreover, corporate planners, group organizers, and other decision-makers will likely book with you again if they know they can count on your hotel.
Increase your online presence
Just as failing to respond to complaints can harm SEO rankings, regularly responding to reviews can boost how high your property appears on search engines and social media. In addition to making finding your hotel easier, sourcing consumers are more likely to click on a business demonstrating positive ratings in their results.
Build a recognizable brand identity
Use a consistent tone and style in complaint responses to give your hotel a distinguishable identity. Develop a distinguishable voice that customers begin to associate with your hotel or brand. Even if review and booking sites feature a few complaints about your property, how you respond to negative comments can help set your hotel apart from the competition.
Beat the competition
Strive to be more courteous, empathetic, and responsive than nearby competitors. Outshine them with superior customer service, even when you can’t match their amenities.
Do all guests who experience issues make complaints?
Many guests may not express issues or concerns directly with the hotel, which can harm retention rates or turn customers away without the property knowing why or how to fix it. Following up after check-out can help uncover issues that may have gone undiscovered.
How do hotels know if guests have unshared complaints?
Keep it simple. Ask for a star rating through the hotel’s mobile app or email a link to a short, 3- to 4-question survey. Watch social media, read forum comments, and check local travel-focused groups to see what visitors may be saying elsewhere.
Did you know that data can also help hotels uncover hidden guest complaints?
With smart technology and big data, hoteliers can collect and analyze valuable guest information, such as stay patterns, spending behaviors, and other trends that help indicate how guests feel about their property.
Keep reading to learn more about the power of hotel data and how analytics boost business.
