reviewpro for landmark london

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ReviewPro Case Study: The Landmark London

Case Study: The Landmark London

January 2011

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The Landmark London is a five star hotel in the Marylebone district in London, set in a beau9ful Victorian building that was originally opened in 1899 as The Grand Central Hotel and served as convalescent home during the Second World War. In 1995, the building returned to its former grandeur and reopened as The Landmark London hotel. The Landmark London is considered by many to be the premier independent luxury hotel in London. The hotel offers 300 guest rooms that are amongst the largest in London with an average room size of 55sqm (592sqf). Its stunning eight‐story glass roof atrium offers a beau9ful backdrop for a memorable dining experience or to enjoy the regular live music. The hotel also offers professional mee9ng facili9es and a spa & health club.

www. landmarklondon.co.uk

About The Landmark London

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Located in one of the most compe99ve hotel markets in the world, The Landmark London strives to differen9ate itself with an excellent level of service. Sally Beck, Director of Marke9ng at The Landmark London, says it is important for the hotel to know what guests are saying about the hotel online. “Our guests are sharing their experiences on sites like TripAdvisor, Booking.com or Expedia whether we like it or not. We started looking at TripAdvisor a few years ago, but it was not feasible for us to manually track the dozens of other relevant sites where clients were talking about us online.“ The hotel was looking for a solu9on to automa9cally aggregate and analyze the review data. “We needed someone to do the hard work for us”, Sally explains, “We evaluated several other poten9al providers, but most were either too generic for us or did not offer the possibility to increase direct bookings on our website. We had trial accounts with two other companies, but then a colleague recommended ReviewPro to us.“ She was very happy with the results ReviewPro provided her hotel, as they were very specific to her needs and ReviewPro was able to give her exactly the informa9on she needed to manage her property more effec9vely. ReviewPro helped The Landmark London to be_er understand and navigate the world of online reviews, aggrega9ng data from more than 55 online travel agencies (OTAs) and review sites. ReviewPro revealed that while TripAdvisor is the single largest source of reviews for the hotel, less than 30% of the hotel’s over 420 total online reviews in the last 12 months are on TripAdvisor. ReviewPro’s tracking capabili9es allow Sally and her team to see the latest individual reviews across all review sites, along with the guest sa9sfac9on ra9ng for all reviews and the source they came from. Having all this info in one tool allows her to gain an instant overview of how the hotel is being rated by guests. The team also receives daily email alerts delivered directly to their inboxes, showing them the new review ac9vity and enabling them to react immediately where needed. Joi Chuku, Marke9ng Manager at The Landmark London, says “ReviewPro is an invaluable product that enables us to rapidly respond to issues that previously we would not have even known about.”

Getting the Full Picture of Online Reviews

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The Landmark London believes that today, consumers are very reluctant to book a room directly on a hotel’s website without first reading reviews or consul9ng other user generated content. Research supports their theory: 25‐40% of users that abandon hotel websites leave to search for consumer feedback on the property. As a response to this important new trend in consumer behavior, The Landmark London decided to embed ReviewPro’s Quality Seal on its website and publish online reviews from a number of review sites and OTAs alongside it. The Quality Seal is a widget that shows the hotel’s Global Review IndexTM (GRI), a score based on a proprietary algorithm ReviewPro developed as an independent assessment of a hotel's quality ra9ng based upon consumer reviews from around the Internet. The GRI can be displayed either as a grade, in The Landmark London’s case currently “Very Good”, or as a point score on a scale from 0 to 100. The Landmark London now publishes reviews to the hotel’s website with a single click from ReviewPro’s tool, helping to increase the conversion rate for direct bookings in their own website. While the tool gives The Landmark London the op9on to only publish the reviews they want to publish, Joi says she also posts reviews that do not always rate the hotel perfectly, as this adds to the authen9city and transparency online reviews provide to poten9al guests. On the subject of nega9ve reviews, Joi adds that people will look at a large number of reviews before making a decision on a hotel. “That’s why it’s important to have a high volume of reviews across as many OTAs as possible.” The hotel does not a_empt to hide or ignore nega9ve reviews. Rather, they choose to post a management response where possible. This gives the hotel the chance to explain their view of things. “People see that we take the 9me to respond and are aware of any issues”, Joi adds.

Increasing Social Proof on The Landmark London’s Website

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In addi9on to responding to reviews directly in review sites, Joi also recognizes them as an opportunity to iden9fy issues that the hotel should react to internally. Typically, a review will men9on a one‐9me issue that the hotel is already aware of because the guest brought it to their a_en9on directly. If she sees a par9cular service issue come up in reviews repeatedly, the hotel provides addi9onal training to its staff. Joi also no9ced through ReviewPro’s seman9c analysis that some guests consider the TV sets in the rooms to be outdated, and the hotel is now looking into changing those. “With the seman9c analysis, you can really drill down and get more meaningful insight into your reviews. This is the first 9me we have really been able to know what consumers are saying about our hotel with regards to our key a_ributes”, she adds. She par9cularly likes that the data is presented in a way that allows her to see which concepts get men9oned the most and what related sub‐concepts people talk about. Joi also explains that the hotel is a member of Leading Hotels of the World, a pres9gious luxury hospitality organiza9on represen9ng the world’s finest hotels and resorts. As such, the hotel has to meet a number of standards and go through regular inspec9ons by the organiza9on. “The analysis we get through ReviewPro helps us prepare for these opera9onal reviews with Leading Hotels of the World.”

Improving Internal Operations

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While Sally, Joi and their team log onto ReviewPro on a regular basis and are therefore fully aware of what is being said about the hotel in online reviews and social media, Joi feels it is also important for other members of The Landmark London’s team to be aware of the hotel’s online reputa9on. “I know our shortcomings, but it’s important for senior management to be fully aware of what our clients consider to be our strengths and weaknesses”. “Our senior management team appreciates the fact that you can just export graphs and easily create reports”, says Joi. She currently prints out graphs and reports from ReviewPro and shares them in monthly review sessions with the senior management team. On the topic of marke9ng for example, she explains, “We need to make sure our key messages are coming through to our customers. And if we are not gegng through, we need to figure out how to do things differently to get the messages through or change our strategy. Thanks to ReviewPro, we can find out if our messages reach our customers.”

Sharing Insights with The Landmark London Team

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ReviewPro monitors what’s changing in the world of online reputa9on management and passes along prac9cal ways to use that in hospitality. Read our blog for more ar9cles, reports and case studies like this: h_p://reviewpro.com/blog Follow us on Twi_er for daily ideas and 9ps: h_p://twi_er.com/ReviewPro

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What’s Next?

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About

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ReviewPro offers the most complete global solu9on for online reputa9on and social media management for the hotel sector. The company offers hoteliers a web based analy9cal tool that enables them to maximize direct reserva9ons and online distribu9on revenue as well as increase market share. By providing invaluable analysis, business intelligence, compe99ve benchmarking and repor9ng func9onality, ReviewPro gives hotels the means to improve guest sa9sfac9on and make be_er decisions on where to focus marke9ng resources and sales ac9vi9es.

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