Hillbilly
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2011
- Messages
- 939
- Reaction score
- 17
As an innkeeper for almost 15years, I have seen a lot of change in our industry. Some good, some bad. Fifteen years ago, you didn't even need to take a credit card because if a customer reserved a room, they would arrive and pay for it.
Fast forward 15 years and I wont even take a reservation by phone, much less without charging a fee. Lets face it, sadly, a hand-shake does not mean anything anymore. People have lost this trait to the idea of “Whats best for me and me only”?
Then came TripAdvisor. Great Idea. When it first came out I thought this is going to be a nice place for people to tell what a great time they have had at different properties. The problem with this site is, that it is most definitely geared towards the customer only. Businesses have no opportunity to tell about “Joe who got drunk and damaged the room when he threw a chair and knocked a hole in the wall”... or “Hank who smoked in a non-smoking room for 4 nights” causing the property to lose money because the next guests refused to stay in a smoke filled room-at which point, said property charges a smoking fee to old Hank, who immediately gets mad and posts a terrible, and untrue review about the Inn. And so on, and so forth...you probably get the idea.
What can we do about it? Well, here is my idea. John already has a valuable tool. He has a reservation system that has 100’s, if not 1000’s of people per day that stay in lodging properties in different parts of the Country. I would really like to know if a “Hank” or a “Joe”, is a guest that is attempting to reserve a room with my property (or perhaps has already reserved). The idea is simple. It’s a simple ranking system for guests. If I have a guest that is out of line, or cancels last minute and refuses to pay...or smokes in a non-smoking room, causes problems etc.... I can simply write a few notes down and give a quick 1-5 rating or subsequent rating system at check out. When that guests makes a reservation on another property that uses Reservation Key, that property can view what happened and decide if they want that guest to be able to stay or not. You do not have to have a reason. Or at least know going into it to make sure and remind them you are a non smoking property and so on. If they start getting a few good reviews, so to speak, their ranking or score will go back up.
Do I think an innkeeper will write about every guest? No! However, I do think they will click a 1-5 rating. I also think they will write about something bad or destructive that happened. This would be VERY useful info. If we all work together on this idea, I think this would be awesome. I did have one feed back about the thought of been sued. We might want to look into this. Good point. I doubt that is the case. Why? Look at what TripAdvisor does to us. People can post what ever they want about us. We are not sharing personal info through this. Its a simple good old opinion of what happened to us. Thanks for taking the time to read this long post!
Fast forward 15 years and I wont even take a reservation by phone, much less without charging a fee. Lets face it, sadly, a hand-shake does not mean anything anymore. People have lost this trait to the idea of “Whats best for me and me only”?
Then came TripAdvisor. Great Idea. When it first came out I thought this is going to be a nice place for people to tell what a great time they have had at different properties. The problem with this site is, that it is most definitely geared towards the customer only. Businesses have no opportunity to tell about “Joe who got drunk and damaged the room when he threw a chair and knocked a hole in the wall”... or “Hank who smoked in a non-smoking room for 4 nights” causing the property to lose money because the next guests refused to stay in a smoke filled room-at which point, said property charges a smoking fee to old Hank, who immediately gets mad and posts a terrible, and untrue review about the Inn. And so on, and so forth...you probably get the idea.
What can we do about it? Well, here is my idea. John already has a valuable tool. He has a reservation system that has 100’s, if not 1000’s of people per day that stay in lodging properties in different parts of the Country. I would really like to know if a “Hank” or a “Joe”, is a guest that is attempting to reserve a room with my property (or perhaps has already reserved). The idea is simple. It’s a simple ranking system for guests. If I have a guest that is out of line, or cancels last minute and refuses to pay...or smokes in a non-smoking room, causes problems etc.... I can simply write a few notes down and give a quick 1-5 rating or subsequent rating system at check out. When that guests makes a reservation on another property that uses Reservation Key, that property can view what happened and decide if they want that guest to be able to stay or not. You do not have to have a reason. Or at least know going into it to make sure and remind them you are a non smoking property and so on. If they start getting a few good reviews, so to speak, their ranking or score will go back up.
Do I think an innkeeper will write about every guest? No! However, I do think they will click a 1-5 rating. I also think they will write about something bad or destructive that happened. This would be VERY useful info. If we all work together on this idea, I think this would be awesome. I did have one feed back about the thought of been sued. We might want to look into this. Good point. I doubt that is the case. Why? Look at what TripAdvisor does to us. People can post what ever they want about us. We are not sharing personal info through this. Its a simple good old opinion of what happened to us. Thanks for taking the time to read this long post!