Breaffy House Resort

Inconsistent feedback, no accurate KPIs, losing track of guest journeys, and keeping a large team motivated

• Relied on comment cards and intermittent online reviews

Despite the large number of visitors to the resort, management were not receiving consistent feedback about the experience that they provided. “We had our comment cards in our bedrooms,” Wilson explains, “and we were relying on TripAdvisor, Booking.com, and so on, to gain feedback from our guests, but it was very much on an ad-hoc basis.”

• Struggled to find an accurate measure of guest experience

While the management team at Breaffy House Resort had a high-level understanding of how their guests were feeling about their stays thanks to their comment cards and online reviews, they were finding it difficult to measure themselves against other properties, or to gain an understanding of how their guest experiences compared. As Wilson explains, “Between myself and the senior management team, we were driving ourselves crazy opening and closing so many different review sites, trying to find an accurate measure, or gauge where we were in the marketplace in terms of customer feedback.”

• Lacked a clear understanding of their guest journey

“TripAdvisor is important, and most hoteliers are worried about TripAdvisor because it's seen as the review site,” says Wilson. But management weren’t convinced that their guests were reaching them through the review giant. Without a clear understanding of their guest journey, or a clear view of trends in booking and in experiences at their properties, it was proving difficult for them to keep track of where improvements could be made in their operations and online reputation.

• Tried to keep a large team motivated

Another difficulty that management was facing with operating a resort the size of Breaffy House was trying to keep their contingent of staff motivated. This was proving to be problematic, as Wilson explains, "Because the hotel is so big and because we've gone through such a huge change, and we're 230 staff.” Without detailed feedback, management was finding it difficult to know which team members were performing well, or where improvement or training may have been needed.

A user-friendly direct feedback and online reputation management solution with in-depth reporting and an integration with Guestline’s Rezlynx PMS

Thanks to GuestRevu’s award-winning direct guest feedback and online reputation management solutions, and their integration with the Guestline’s Rezlynx PMS that the resort uses, Breaffy House’s management are able to:

• Gain a deeper understanding of guest sentiment
• Analyse their guest experience in relation to their competitors
• Use a single, consolidated platform to track feedback and monitor trends
• Manage their online reputation across multiple online travel agent (OTA) and social media platforms

That GuestRevu integrates with Guestline has proved to be particularly valuable to the management team, as Wilson explains: “Obviously the more integrated each technology is, and for each interface to work together, makes my life much much much easier.”

“There is a great benefit between Guestline and GuestRevu being integrated,” he continues, “because really the work and the effort is seamless. And, as GuestRevu and Guestline grow and the integration gets better and better, in the future we will be able to further break down our guests' comments by market segments. So we'll be able to see if we're performing well in our wedding segment, which is fairly large for us, or how we're doing in our leisure segment, or how we're doing on our corporate segment. Because each customer is very different and they have very different needs. And with a strong integration between the two companies, this is going to have a major benefit to us here at the resort.”

Engaging with all their guests, measuring their experiences, monitoring trends and encouraging friendly competition

“GuestRevu is user-friendly. It enables both the managers, the team leaders, and the general staff a very fast glance of where we sit with our customers,” says Wilson.

Since implementing GuestRevu, the team at Breaffy House Resort have gained a better understanding of their guests, the journey that they take to come to the resort, and the experience that they have while they’re there.

• Proactively approaching guests for feedback

Where before Breaffy House Resort’s management team were only receiving feedback sporadically, as Wilson explains, “Once we went with GuestRevu, that all changed. It was a managed, focussed process that got the whole team very aware, very fast, of how our guests actually felt.

“We're proactively approaching our guests to engage in a feedback form, that goes onto TripAdvisor, which enhances our reputation because we're getting more positive feedback. We're speaking to all of our guests rather than just a select few who are happy or dissatisfied.”

• Understanding how their guest experiences measure up

The hours that Breaffy House Resort’s management team were spending manually analysing each of their online platforms are in the past. “What we have with GuestRevu is one platform that does all the work for us,” Wilson explains.

With help from their consolidated dashboard, management are able to see at a glance what feedback they’ve received across the review sites that they’re listed on, as well as the feedback that guests have been leaving via their direct survey. And with the addition of their competitor report, Wilson says, “we’re able to see how we compare against our competitors independently.”

This provides them with the ability to compare their guest experience to other properties in their area and around the world, while also gaining a greater understanding of their guest stays overall.

• Seeing trends in their guest journey and their feedback

“While TripAdvisor is very important,” Wilson says, “we worry about the feedback from all of the review sites and our own guests.” And since introducing GuestRevu to the resort, they’ve managed to get a better handle on the true impact that the review giant is having on their bookings.

“When we’re analysing what our guests are saying and where they come from, where they’ve heard about us, and what decisions triggered the guests to book with Breaffy, we’ve then realised that only between 1.5% and 3% of our guests use TripAdvisor as a reason for booking,” Wilson explains.

And it’s not only how guests arrive at Breaffy house that management is discovering trends in. “Through GuestRevu’s monthly management reports, we were able to drill down within the report to see departments, and sections within the departments, that were performing well and performing negatively,” says Wilson. “When we saw breakfast, for example, getting scores of only 88 compared to the rest of the hotel achieving 95 and 98 satisfaction rates, we were able to react to that. And as a result, over a period of three months, breakfast has come up to 98% [satisfaction] and is one of the best performing departments in the hotel.”

• Inspiring and motivating staff through friendly competition

“Positivity is as contagious as negativity,” says Wilson, and since introducing guest comments into their staff routines, Breaffy House Resort’s management are seeing a positive effect on their staff members.

“We’re able to give feedback to our 230 staff here on a monthly basis,” Wilson explains. “Our staff members who are mentioned regularly are highly motivated, and then the people who aren’t mentioned regularly say to themselves, ‘Jeez, we’ve got to work that little bit harder for the guests to recognise our input in the business.’”

As WIlson points out: “Because our feedback is gaining more momentum, and because it’s so positive, it’s really having a dramatic effect on the staff. Staff members are trying to outdo each other in terms of performance, and ensuring that our guests leave the hotel with a huge smile on their faces.”