Silvia Battistella knows a thing or two about responding to online reviews. As Online Reputation Manager at Iberostar Hotels & Resorts for three years, and now occupying the same role at Barceló Hotel Group for the past two years, she estimates that she has responded to around 20,000 reviews—in English, French, Italian and Spanish.
But she is quick to point out that it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. “We have to remember that we’re quality managers, not quantity managers,” she told ReviewPro in a recent interview. “It’s not a matter of numbers, it’s a matter of being able to write meaningful answers that give relevant information to the travel community.”
At Iberostar, Battistella was responsible for posting online reviews for the English, French and Italian markets for the 50+ hotels in the EMEA region. “I was in constant contact with the management teams at the hotels to gather information in order to guarantee meaningful responses based on the information reported by users,” she said.
Today, at Barceló, her role is different because on-property hotel staff are responsible for responding. “My main role consists of teaching our hotel teams how to manage and respond to online reviews with periodic training both in face-to-face classes and distance learning. I also assist them when they need guidance on reviews that may critically affect the online reputation both at a hotel and company level.”
How Frequently Should Hotels Respond?
According to Battistella, one of the obstacles to writing a quality review is that some hotel companies have a policy of responding to all reviews. “Many positive reviews say the same thing,” she explained. “How many ways can you thank a user for mentioning the kindness of staff or the cleanliness of a room without sounding repetitive?”
Barceló’s policy is to respond to 100% of negative reviews, 50% of neutral reviews, and 25% of positive reviews, a policy that Battistella fully supports. She says that reviews must be posted within a maximum of three days, and ideally on the same day. The company also rates review responses on a scale of 1 (very bad) to 5 (excellent).
“Our KPIs are shared during monthly management committee meetings so the entire organization is aware of the importance of responding, the average time to publish a review, and the quality of our responses and public communications in general,” she said.
