At glh Hotels the guest experience is central. The London-based global hotel company believes that all departments and levels of staff need to be involved in and excited about creating a customer-centric culture. This culture of involvement and motivation has helped the group to achieve some pretty impressive feats in the last few years. This includes a guest review response rate of 100% within 48 hours and a very successful staff customer care training program based on the insights gained from the ReviewPro tool.

We interviewed Nadine Lee, Group Guest Service Manager at glh Hotels, at the ReviewPro office recently, when she gave us insight into how deep the guest-centric culture goes at glh. For us at ReviewPro, communication with our clients is key. Regularly meeting and talking to our clients is a priority to help us develop our tools and ensure clients are getting the most out of our partnership.

 

 

Please tell us a bit about how you use ReviewPro to help you improve guest experience at glh Hotels.

First of all, it’s really nice to be here again. It’s always refreshing to brainstorm new developments and ways of doing things with the team here.

We have been with ReviewPro for about six years, and actively using it for the last three. We have Online Reputation Management (ORM) and Guest Satisfaction Surveys (GSS) in place, and we have recently taken on Advanced Case Management (ACM).

I would say the way we use the tool has changed and evolved along with the tools themselves. Before, ORM was the thing and we started by setting high but achievable targets for our hotels in terms of the Global Review Index™ (GRI) and review response rate (which is now at 100% within 48 hours!). Our General Managers like healthy competition, so we implemented a leaderboard so that they could compare themselves to each other. We still have it to this day!

Which other tools are you using?

The GSS tool was the next solution we rolled out. It has been a huge game changer because we have been able to pinpoint issues related to particular room numbers, something that was very important to us. It also helped individual hotels to get the stats behind recurring issues that they may have already identified, but until then did not had the numbers as back up.

Your hotels have an exceptionally high staff engagement rate; how do you get your staff so motivated to use ReviewPro’s tools and features?

It’s true. We have 17 hotels, and 580 active users at glh Hotels! The key is ensuring that everyone feels part of the process. When we introduce a new survey, for example when using ACM, we ensure that each member of staff from housekeeping to maintenance sees the survey before it goes out to guests. This is not only so as to get feedback or troubleshoot, but to ensure that each member of staff knows that their role is important. It is essential that they see their job as part of a bigger whole at the brand level, and that they have an active and valuable part in our mission – helping to exceed guest expectations.

Can you tell us about another way in which ReviewPro has positively impacted your business?

By looking at ReviewPro data we realized that when customers received great service, their overall experience score was higher even in hotels that perhaps needed some investment. The opposite was also true; if a customer received poor service, they looked for faults in other areas. This led our executive team to see the real value in investing in customer service training. We worked with a great training company who are insiders in the hospitality industry and devised a program called ‘Can Do, Will Do,’ which we then implemented across all our staff. ReviewPro and the view it gives us into guest feedback is at the heart of monitoring the success of the program and to continuously improving it.

Wow, what a success! Nadine, thanks so much for coming in. We hope to see you again soon.

Thanks!

……

If you would like to find out more about ReviewPro’s Guest Experience Improvement Suite™, go here. If you would like a demo of any of our products, just ask!

We also have a resource hub for hoteliers, where you’ll find loads of free guides, webinars, and tips on topics like building a guest-centric culture, improving review responses, climbing TripAdvisor’s ranking, harnessing the power of brand advocates, and more!