How to Collect Guest Feedback at a Hotel

Comment cards. They’re at every hotel. You want your customers to fill out a card with a few questions and place it on a desk or pillow, and then it’s picked up by someone on staff, looked at, and put in a box somewhere, never to be seen again.

Comment cards are a poor way to gather guest feedback, as is asking the hotel guest how their stay was when they’re leaving your hotel. These methods of data collection have a lot of flaws that make them a poor choice for hotels that are committed to a great customer experience.

The reality is that if you want to get real, usable guest feedback, you have to make sure that you’re using online surveys, because they provide benefits that things like comment cards cannot. These include: Usable Data: What can you really do with a comment card, other than place it in a box? Comment cards can tell you about a specific person’s stay, but they don’t provide you with any usable data.

With an online survey, you can ask specific questions, you can find out about specific services the customer experienced, and you can use math to determine trends in the data. Honest Answers: People are less likely to give honest answers when they are afraid of being judged. Unfortunately, when you ask someone to fill out a comment card and leave it in the room, they know the cleaning staff will see it, they know that it’s connected to their name – if they have a problem with the cleaning staff, what chances are there that they will fill out a card honestly and leave it for the cleaning staff to see? Most are also in a hurry to leave, and don’t have time to think about each and every answer, and in some cases there are experiences that happen after someone leaves that can ruin their trip while the comment cards are filled out beforehand.

More Responses: Presumably, few people fill out comment cards. Most people do not even know a comment card is there. With an email survey, every single person that comes to your hotel can be a respondent, and that means you can learn much more.

If you run a hotel, online survey software is the best way to collect feedback from your guests. If you’re genuinely committed to getting as much information as possible, sign up with SurveyMethods today.