Taking Reviews Personally...

Thankfully the majority of reviews we have had to date have been positive and helpful. But there are occasionally the reviews which are........mediocre / not a fair assessment / kind of rude / generally not nice (i'm trying to pick an appropriate phrase). I'm finding it difficult not to take these reviews to heart and oh so personally. Husbands view is that you can't please all of the people all of the time - even the 4 Seasons gets bad reviews once in a while.
Any advice?

Always remember these reviews are an opportunity for you to sell your place (know this seems mental)
use the space - didn't like having to do a flight of stairs becomes - view from our upstairs rooms with only one flight of stairs is well worth it for the stunning panorama. - an so on.
No you can't please everyone and usually its them not you - the fight in the car, he's booked something she doesn't like and so on.

No you cannot let them bother you.....but we know they do. So put a positive spin on your response. But if they felt there was an issue, please see through the hurt and think about how you can improve it...if really true.
Otherwise move on.

For a big company I suppose a review, good or bad, is just part of doing business, as a small operatior a good review puts me on cloud 9 and gives me the will to spend more and do even better for my guests while a negative review puts me down for days, when we care I don't think we can help the feeling, maybe the best solution is go back and reread the good reviews.
I see negative guests/reviews in two catagories:
1) The guest that was unhappy when he/she arrived, just didn't want to be here in the beginning, as Jcam's says all we can do it try to put a positive spin in our reply.
2) The guest that we failed in some manner, that's a learning opportunity for me, maybe it is something I can fix/do better, in the future, or maybe just something I need to make clear in advertising that we don't/can't offer.
Whatever the case you're not alone.

I'm the one in our house who knows I can't please everyone. Gomez takes everything to heart. So, I read and respond to the reviews. If there is something in them we can fix, I mention it. If not, he doesn't need to know.
Let your husband handle the reviews.

Agree with all the good advice before mine and I will add a piece. I often use complaining reviews to clarify our business so that the next person reading the review will not have the same complaint.
One we get is that the bathroom is down the hall. I say something like, "thank you for the valuable room tip. Your room, the Beach Room, is the only one of our rooms with the bathroom down the hall. The bathroom is, of course, private to your room. All our other rooms also have private bathrooms but they are attached."
Another is that we don't serve a plated breakfast. I'll say something like, "Thank you for your comments about breakfast. We don't like alarm clocks when we travel, so we don't ask our guests to specific seating times. We serve a buffet of ........describe breakfast....."

I agree with everything written so far. Yes, we take bad reviews personally here as well as five eyed glories! One minute on cloud nine and the next in the dumps…
In our guest rooms we have a thank you card and envelope which helps people to remember to tip. Inside it we put a post it with these words, "Comments on how we can better serve our guests". It does two things for us. 1) The guests that will write a note in the card can put it here. Then we change that post it with a new one and the card is reused. 2) A place to complain instead of online, hopefully. Where they know we will see it.

Duff2014 said:

I agree with everything written so far. Yes, we take bad reviews personally here as well as five eyed glories! One minute on cloud nine and the next in the dumps…
In our guest rooms we have a thank you card and envelope which helps people to remember to tip. Inside it we put a post it with these words, "Comments on how we can better serve our guests". It does two things for us. 1) The guests that will write a note in the card can put it here. Then we change that post it with a new one and the card is reused. 2) A place to complain instead of online, hopefully. Where they know we will see it..

Click to expand...

So how many have actually given you a card with complaints? Most people don't want innkeepers to know where complaint came from. They think they are anonymous on line. ha ha
innkeepers can almost always figure out who posted a review. But after the fact, we can't do much about it.

EmptyNest said:

Duff2014 said:

I agree with everything written so far. Yes, we take bad reviews personally here as well as five eyed glories! One minute on cloud nine and the next in the dumps…
In our guest rooms we have a thank you card and envelope which helps people to remember to tip. Inside it we put a post it with these words, "Comments on how we can better serve our guests". It does two things for us. 1) The guests that will write a note in the card can put it here. Then we change that post it with a new one and the card is reused. 2) A place to complain instead of online, hopefully. Where they know we will see it..

Click to expand...

So how many have actually given you a card with complaints? Most people don't want innkeepers to know where complaint came from. They think they are anonymous on line. ha ha
innkeepers can almost always figure out who posted a review. But after the fact, we can't do much about it.
.

Click to expand...

Two rooms. Light bulb was out and the sink dripped. We fixed the problems and sent them an email expressing our thanks for letting us know.
Mostly its notes about what they loved about our place and thanks for our hospitality which gives us a bounce in our step as we work!

I just read this in a book, the last line hit home, THIS IS WHAT INNKEEPING does in the traditional way (like we do).
"Warren Yost flew into La Guardia and took a cab to Broadway and 96th where an actor-turned-preacher named Gary Wayne Herd ran a storefront church. The neighborhood wasn't as scruffy as he'd expected, just a typical New York enclave where too many people lived in too little space. They spilled into the streets and stayed there all day, he figured, because their apartments were too small for anything you could do awake. But the absence of personal space made them mean."
Paraphrase
"Working and living in the same proximity as your customers can make you cranky." -JB