Murrayshall Country House Hotel

Old-fashioned forms of feedback, a lack of confidence, superficial insights, keeping staff motivated

• Old-fashioned feedback mechanisms

Kevin is the first to admit that the way Murrayshall collected feedback prior to GuestRevu was old-fashioned. Using pen and paper methods like comment cards and physical questionnaires for guests to complete was no longer a manageable solution. “Whilst a sense of guest satisfaction could be taken from these,” he explains, “it was not very scientific.”

• Lacking confidence

When it came to Murrayshall’s online reputation, their teams were reactive, checking portals like TripAdvisor, Booking.com and Expedia for reviews that may have been left, but were wary of encouraging guests to post online reviews, worried about the less than stellar ratings that they thought they would receive. “This was mainly down to a lack of confidence,” says Kevin. “The business had gone through so much change, and we were worried that some of our offerings were a little tired in places.”

• Not getting insights for business decisions

With only pen and paper feedback and the occasional online review, Murrayshall’s management were finding it difficult to know where to focus their efforts. Getting guests to give their feedback, while being reluctant to encourage them to express their views online, was proving challenging, and the feedback that they did receive from their guests was superficial, making it nearly impossible to pinpoint specific areas for improvement or measure trends. This left management with the difficult task of trying to guess what their guests might want or need, without knowing for sure.

• Keeping staff motivated

“We are trying to create a competitive culture,” says Kevin, “where departments want to be better than than their colleagues, but recognise that they are still part of the same team.” But with only superficial feedback, it was difficult for management to see where particular teams or specific staff members were going above and beyond, or where further training was needed. This, together with the lack of confidence in the experience that they were providing, made it challenging to keep staff motivated and providing the best possible customer service.

A straightforward, easy-to-use direct guest feedback and online reputation management solution with excellent customer support and two-way Guestline PMS integration

Thanks to GuestRevu’s easy-to-use software and superb customer service and support, the team at Murrayshall Country House Hotel and Golf Club are getting the feedback and insights that they need to:

• Understand, and meet, guest expectations
• Identify and monitor trends in guest experience
• Motivate staff and meet training needs
• Focus efforts and make operational decisions
• See improved TripAdvisor results

Thanks to the two-way integration between GuestRevu and Guestline’s Rezlynx PMS, Murrayshall’s management are also able to automate the sending of guest surveys and collate information across the two systems, allowing for effortless collection of invaluable guest insights. “It was easy to implement,” says Kevin, “and both companies work well to deliver seamless integration.”

Getting more feedback and actionable insights, while boosting confidence and encouraging friendly competition

Since implementing GuestRevu at Murrayshall, management have been seeing more feedback, both directly and online, and more detailed insights into their guest experience, helping them to make operational decisions, motivate their staff members and feel more confident in the property and the service that they provide.

• Seeing, and keeping track of, more feedback

GuestRevu’s consolidated dashboard, which combines survey responses and online reviews to form a complete view of guest experiences, is not only helping Murrayshall’s management team to keep a closer eye on their feedback, but is also helping them to hear from their guests more often. As Kevin explains, “it saves trying to correlate hard copies of written guest questionnaires, and our response rate has increased dramatically.”

• Feeling confident thanks to online reviews

“Our fears about encouraging online reviews were unfounded,” says Kevin, proudly. “It is clear that what our guests think of us, and what we think their opinion of us is, are two different things! Our overall ratings have increased following the introduction of GuestRevu’s TripAdvisor integration, even without our second phase of refurbishment commencing.” That the average rating for jointly collected reviews has increased by 11% is particularly significant considering that Murrayshall have seen 358% more reviews since adopting GuestRevu.

• Drilling down into insights

Thanks to drill-down questions in guest surveys, Murrayshall’s staff are finding themselves getting the insights that they need to guide decisions across their departments — from management, to housekeeping, to training and customer service. “It takes out the guesswork,” Kevin explains, “Because we can drill down into the various elements of the guest stay, it allows us to get to specifics quicker, and also helps us to identify trends much easier, which in turn gives us evidence so we know where to need to concentrate our training efforts.”

• Friendly competition, inside and out

Hearing from guests more often, and getting more detailed feedback, is helping to encourage the friendly competition that Murrayshall’s management aim for. “By allowing everyone access to the feedback, there is a natural good-humoured competition between the team, allowing staff to do well and be recognised for their efforts.

All of the team wear name badges,” Kevin uses as an example, “and this helps our customers to recognise those members of the team who have impressed. We’ve found guests enjoy naming those who have performed well.” And it’s not just internal competition that the feedback inspires. “We have been able to benchmark against local competitors, and this, in turn, has led to the team adopting a competitive mentality to perform better.”