Your staff is your reputation in the hospitality industry. Each interaction is important, whether it be a warm smile, or even a simple, “Good afternoon, Ma’am, How are you today?” It is possible to leave a lasting impact and receive a positive review. A well-trained and motivated team is vital for any hospitality business. How can you motivate your team to improve daily in the face of a difficult hiring market?
Your guest feedback can help you with this. With the right strategy and tools, you can transform guest insights into daily services that lead to growth.
GuestRevu provides hospitality managers with quick access to real-time feedback from guests. This allows them to turn these interactions into valuable opportunities for learning. Positive comments increase staff confidence (“Look at John!” A guest loved your cocktail skills! Keep up the good work .”). Meanwhile, complaints provide opportunities to improve (“Let’s make sure that no other person has to wait for 45 minutes before dessert.”).
Hotel management is unable to be in every corner of the hotel at once, so they rely on consolidated technology to provide them with actionable results. They can analyse, aggregate, and compare performance across different departments based on what guests have to say. Staff can see how their efforts are performing, making it easier to identify and correct issues with staff performance.
Employee Feedback: Recognizing and Rewarding Your Staff
The Best Work is Still Fresh: Highlighting the Best Work
Even a simple thank you can be a powerful tool, especially for an industry in which staff are often under pressure to work long hours. Their work is also often overlooked in the hustle and bustle of busy shifts. Hearing that a guest appreciated your service can make a real difference to job satisfaction, and sharing positive guest comments reinforces to staff that their effort matters — not just to the guests, but to leadership too. GuestRevu allows managers to quickly access guest reviews so that they can share praise when it is still relevant.
TIP: Sharing feedback from guests during morning huddles or team meetings can turn it into motivational material and keep everyone focused on the guest’s satisfaction.
Difford Louw regularly shares feedback with the management team at The Royal St Andrews Hotel. When a member of staff is singled out and their efforts are recognised, he makes sure they receive a reward.
Offer Real Rewards to Consistent Performers
Recognizing good performance can boost morale and lead to improved service. GuestRevu’s clients offer a variety of rewards to encourage continued excellence in service. It could be a certificate or mention in a team meeting. Or it could even be a financial incentive. Consistently good feedback over time helps managers identify their best performers and pinpoint areas that staff members need to improve.
GuestRevu provides us with a wealth of data. It’s amazing how many ways I use it. I use it for our staff. We reward and motivate our staff based on the promise we make to guests about being hospitality experts. From an internal perspective, it is really powerful.
David Scott, CEO of The Hotel Folk
Employers and team leaders can get a better picture by tracking reviews over a period of weeks or months. These patterns can help managers make better decisions regarding promotions, shifts or training opportunities for employees who have the potential to move up in their career.
Negative reviews can be turned into positive growth for your staff
Using complaints as teaching opportunities
Not all reviews will be positive. But even those that are less than favorable can still be valuable. The feedback of guests on slow service, incorrect orders or poor communications gives managers the opportunity to intervene and offer assistance. Instead of criticizing staff, managers can use feedback to offer practical suggestions, guidance, or refresher training.
A manager could, for instance, investigate if the guest complained that his meal was cold and if there were not enough staff in the kitchen. Or he might check if food has been left on display too long. Share this feedback with your team to help them better understand the impact their actions have on the guest’s experience. They can also see how to prevent the same problems from occurring again. The goal is to make feedback part of the conversation, not a confrontation — something staff can learn from, not fear.
David Scott, The Hotel Folk’s CEO, says that guests are more likely to appreciate feedback than management. says, “It almost changes the sentiment of what that (feedback) actually means – it’s not me, it’s not the hotel manager, it’s not someone within our business talking about it; it’s actually a guest giving you real-time feedback to say, ‘this could be better’ and I think quite often that gets a better response from the staff than actually us (management) pointing it out ourselves.”
Addressing patterns before they escalate
An early detection of trends is one of the many benefits of using an application like GuestRevu. It’s important to investigate if several guests say that the check-in is taking too long, or if rooms are not ready on time. This information can be used by managers to focus team meetings and training sessions towards fixing the issue at its root.
The staff also benefits from knowing that feedback is not personal. The goal is to improve the overall experience of everyone. This encourages learning to happen regularly and not just when something is seriously wrong. Teams begin to accept feedback as a part of their work, and improve becomes a common goal.
Encourage friendly competition by setting clear goals
Turning comments into practical goals
It’s not only about the one experience. It is a hint that something could be improved, or should be repeated, and can help proactively shape training for staff around what guests really care about, not just management. Thinks matters.
These are the most common gaps between hoteliers’ and guests’ perceptions
Managers can turn these comments into goals that team members will be able to achieve with GuestRevu. If you want your staff to know what is expected of them, clear goals are essential.
These goals often follow the SMART format — specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. If a member is having difficulty with guest interaction the manager can arrange some brief role-playing activities or one-onone coaching. The staff will feel proud of themselves once they have achieved the goal. Remember, feedback isn’t just about what’s going wrong — it’s about what’s going right, too.
Use Milestone Markers and Goal Lines on KPI Visualisation Graphs to track the effect on guest satisfaction of any training interventions over a given timeline.
By giving staff access to the feedback of guests, they can be empowered to take ownership for their performance and not wait for manager-led evaluations. Staff are not just told how they’re impacting the guest experience – they can see for themselves. Transparency fosters pride and accountability. Guests notice the little things — the warm greeting, the remembered coffee order — and when staff consistently get these right, it leads to great experiences and even better reviews.
Motivating teams with light-hearted competition
Friendly rivalry among staff members can be an excellent motivator. GuestRevu customers run recognition schemes based on feedback from guests. These awards don’t just give out prizes, they also encourage employees to strive to be the best.
These mini-competitions help people stay motivated, especially in busy times. Even small tokens of gratitude, such as vouchers or additional break time, are meaningful when tied to a job done well.
Also, team successes are celebrated. If a particular department receives repeated praise, perhaps housekeeping is praised for spotless rooms – the whole team is recognised. This creates a greater sense of pride and unity in the work they do together.
When employees feel valued and part of a group working toward a common goal, they are more motivated to do their best work. Managers can create a sense of unity by using feedback to celebrate successes and work together on challenges.
Conclusion: A Culture of Continuous Improvement
A successful hospitality business relies on a well-trained, motivated team that is committed to providing excellent guest experiences. Businesses can improve staff morale, performance and motivation by using feedback from guests as a training tool and a recognition tool.
GuestRevu allows managers to turn any feedback into a learning or celebration opportunity. Whether it is recognizing efforts or addressing areas where work needs to be done, this feedback-based strategy helps teams remain engaged, confident, always looking for improvements.
In the end, using feedback to not only improve processes but also to reinforce hospitality values will lead to happier employees and better customer experiences.
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This post was originally published on GuestRevu. here This is reproduced by their permission.
