Tackling Negative Reviews on TripAdvisor for Businesses in the Travel Industry

Negative reviews on TripAdvisor can be relatively straightforward or pretty disappointing. The first thing to keep in mind is to not overreact to bad reviews. More importantly, do not rush to justify the opposite. Bad responses in the heat of the moment could turn potential clients away from you.

Responding to Negative Reviews on TripAdvisor

There is no way to make negative reviews disappear, but the only tool you have at your disposal is your response. To avoid creating a bad impression, try handling negative feedback like this:

• Do an in-depth review of the feedback to understand the issue.
• Double-check with your staff and see if this is a repeating incident. In the case of a repeated complaint, this might indeed be an issue that needs to be addressed on your side.
• Always respond in a positive, non-defensive way and thank the customer for his time to leave the feedback.
• Try to move the communication in a private channel, so the issue does not escalate publicly any further.
• Make sure the issues are being addressed or a resolution has already been made.
• Afterwards, you can invite them to come back and try out your services again.

Reduce Negative Feedback

Negative reviews on TripAdvisor are inevitable, because customers behave differently and have different expectations. However it is entirely possible to reduce the amount of negative feedback.

Great Booking Experience

As a business on TripAdvisor, you should ensure you have a functioning website and booking system. This will help prospects find you online and book with ease. The website should include a clear description of your offering and ensure that the booking system updates and confirms payments automatically.

Deliver on your Promises

Always deliver on your promises. Generally it is better to under-promise and over deliver than the other way around. Keep your offer constantly up to date, so that customers receive exactly what they booked. In case it’s not possible, due to some incident or inconvenience, inform the customer in advance. Offer them an equally attractive or even better alternative if possible. The most important thing is to communicate with the customers and never leave them in the dark in this kind of situations, because they will get a feeling of being cheated.

Use the Feedback Loop

Whenever you receive feedback, good or bad, learn from it. Often you can find improvement potential for your services. Similarly customers can help you identify weak spots in your business processes that otherwise might have not surfaced. For example, if customers say, it would have been great if you had more information about the surroundings of the hotel — you can add this to your travel website or provide informational leaflets at the destination.

The experience of your customers while using your services will directly impact the quality of your reviews. Moreover, any future customers will base their decision on your current clients’ feedback.