CASE STUDY

How Minor Combined Effective Tools and Processes to Increase Guest Satisfaction

THE CLIENT THE CHALLENGE

Minor Hotels is a global company with In hospitality, it is often intuitive, rapid a portfolio of eight signature brands and reliable service recovery that makes spanning 53 countries, and has been the difference between a good stay operating for over four decades. The and an exceptional experience. As part core values of the brand are perfor- of its commitment to making that mance, entrepreneurship, and innova- distinction, the brands tion. By defining and perfecting a very sought out the tools and supporting solid set of Standard Operating Proce- processes that teams needed to meet the dures (SOPs) with the ReviewPro Guest company’s goals. The tools needed to Experience Improvement Suite™ at their help team members identify guest needs core, the company was able to achieve and issues while on site, as well as spot its desired results—and then some. priority areas for longer-term operational and service improvements, all in a seam- “We’re big enough to deliver, but small less and automatic manner. enough to care. We are driven by passion and a quest for perfection.” Dillip Rajakarier, CEO of Minor Hotels Luxury hotels may offer more or less the same amenities, room standards, or product features. To really stand out, the whole experience from A to Z needs to be special. That is what the combination of the ReviewPro tools helps us to do.

Marcus Christiansen, Director of Operational Excellence, Minor Hotels

Avani Quy Nhon Resort & Spa,

www.reviewpro.com THE SOLUTION

The group onboarded ReviewPro in Online Reputation Management December 2016. While the Online Rep- (ORM) utation Management (ORM) and Guest Satisfaction Surveys (GSS) tools were Tracks and monitors online guest central to operations, the solution that sentiment including semantic really brought it all together and ensured analysis and the Global Review outstanding service was Auto Case Man- Index™, an online reputation score agement (ACM). exclusive to ReviewPro.

The beta phase consisted of testing the Guest Satisfaction Surveys (GSS) tools and rules at select properties and using the experience as the basis from Used to create in-stay and post- which to formulate SOPs that would stay surveys to gain detailed in- eventually be rolled out to all hotels. sights into what guests like and These SOPs would go on to serve as the dislike. The results can be integrat- backbone of online training, onboarding ed with the hotels’ PMS to moni- of both team members and new proper- tor and pinpoint issues related to ties, and supporting the majority of the specific room numbers or types of internal processes that deal with service guest, and increase review volume recovery. ReviewPro now forms part of using the TripAdvisor Review Col- the very fabric of Minor Hotels’ guest lection Program. management ethos.

Auto Case Management (ACM)

Automatically assigns and tracks issues related to guest feedback to ensure that they are resolved as quickly as they arise.

Guest Experience Improvement Suite™

Marcus Christiansen, Director of Combines all of ReviewPro’s Operational Excellence, solutions to help the group Minor Hotels monitor and proactively seek guest feedback, automate work- “The benefits we sustain from flows, and ultimately provide the ReviewPro rely on the quality and information needed for both im- effectiveness of internal processes. mediate service recovery and lon- When you find the right data and ger-term operational and service partner it with the right processes, improvement. This elevates guest sustainable changes are rapidly experience and boosts revenue. achieved”

www.reviewpro.com THE PROCESS Here’s how the system works:

Team members are fully trained accord- 1 Guests who stay for three nights or ing to the company SOPs which are more are sent an email on their sec- supported by the ReviewPro tools. In ond day at 10 am with a single ques- keeping with the company’s entrepre- tion: ‘How satisfied are you with your neurial spirit, issues are dealt with at the stay so far?’ They are asked how they property level rather than at the corpo- would like to be contacted (or can rate level. The company believes that specify that they do not wish to be). hotel teams know their guests best and provides the training and empowerment they need to keep guests happy. 2 All responses to in-stay surveys trig- ger the creation of a case which is Method: GSS In-Stay + ACM sent to the relevant hotel workgroup (duty managers, heads of depart- In-stay surveys are employed to help ments and hotel manager). The case guests communicate needs or com- must be followed up within 20 min- plaints while still on site. This real-time utes to prevent it from being escalat- feedback enables Minor Hotels’ brands ed to the General Manager. to act quickly and provide elevated ser- vice in the moment rather than having to wait until after the guest has checked 3 By using the ReviewPro mobile app out to report and manage complaints. the hotel teams can receive alerts, With in-stay feedback timeliness is very assign cases, leave case notes, or important, so the company implement- resolve cases all while on the go. ed automated processes and proce- dures to react quickly, efficiently and 4 The guest is always contacted in consistently. By integrating ACM with the manner requested at the initial in-stay surveys, Minor Hotels brands en- touchpoint. If they do not want to sures that no issue is left unattended. be disturbed team members will wait until they are out of the room to attend to any in-room requests. The hotel always leaves a small token of appreciation and a thank you note to guests who respond to the survey.

Thomas B. Meier - Senior Vice President Operations Asia Minor Hotels

“Knowing what our guests like and sometimes maybe don’t, in a precise, fast and concise way, is key for us to read and understand trends. This in turn allows us to apply tweaks where necessary.”

www.reviewpro.com 3 Each departmental workgroup has 12 “Sometimes guests prefer not to hours to add any information to the raise an issue face to face with the case before a coordinated response team during their stay, so it’s not to the guest is sent, including why until after they’ve checked out that the incident occurred, how the team we hear of what could have been responded, and what remains to be improved. At this point, it is often done. too late to activate good service recovery. In-stay surveys are an unobtrusive service intervention; a 4 Once the information is added, the discreet and efficient way of catch- case is automatically escalated to the ing and resolving any needs or po- ‘Guest Response’ workgroup who tential problems before our guests refer to the notes when responding to checkout from the hotel.” the guest. This group has a maximum Marcus Christiansen, Director of of 24 hours to respond. All detractors Operational Excellence, and passives must be responded to. Minor Hotels 5 If the guest is not responded to within 24 hours, the case is automatically Method: GSS Post-Stay + ACM escalated to the GM. A post-stay survey is employed to identify any issues during the stay, re- 6 Guest survey responses are filtered spond to the issues, and use the using PMS data. This means that the information for longer-term operational company can pinpoint complaints improvements and service changes. coming from specific room types, room numbers, or guest types (such Here’s how the system works: as company or nationality) to make longer-term operational and service 1 The day after check-out the guest is improvements. sent an email survey. 7 Minor Hotels brands also have a TripAdvisor collection program in 2 Each brand has a different survey, place in order to increase freshness but all include the Net Promoter and volume of reviews and boost Score (NPS) question, a question TripAdvisor rankings. about overall satisfaction, and a question about whether the guest experienced any problems during their stay. If the guest gives an NPS score between zero and six (de- tractor) or between seven and eight (passive), a case is automatically trig- gered for team members to respond. If the guest indicates a problem, a case is automatically created for that department’s workgroup.

www.reviewpro.com “ReviewPro is a great tool for A 1 point increase in a hotel’s senior management who have Global Review IndexTM equals up to: limited time. With ACM’s escalation rules each active user +0.89% +0.54% +1.42% receives exactly what they need in ADR in Occupancy in RevPAR to know.“ Marcus Christiansen, Director of Operational Excellence, Minor Hotels

THE RESULTS The impact of this integrated approach to “We encourage and facilitate guest guest feedback management and ser- feedback from multiple sources. vice recovery has been huge. Combined The more meaningful data we have, Minor Hotels brands have seen year- the better we’re equipped to draw over-year improvements in key metrics accurate conclusions. While our for guest satisfaction and guest loyalty. intuition helps us to sensor check These metrics apply to the entire com- information, we are committed to pany, representing a significant achieve- ensuring data driven decisions at ment. every level of our business. Re- viewPro helps us to make full use of • NPS results increased by 14% our data. Coupled with our internal • GRITM increased by 1.3% processes for driving improve- • Management response time improved ment, we’ve been able to maximize by 30% (for NPS score of 0-6) our guest feedback resources and achieve our ROI.

Moving forward, we are excited to continue our partnership with Re- viewPro - the current and upcom- ing features and overall system en- hancements are all focused towards enhancing experiences our guests can’t wait to come back for.”

Marcus Christiansen, Director of Operational Excellence, Minor Hotels

Avani+ Riverside Hotel,

www.reviewpro.com