Recently I was fortunate to travel overseas. I had made bookings for accommodation and tours, etc. before I left. Finally we settled on a 4.5 star Hotel in the CBD. About 3 weeks prior to leaving I logged onto TripAdvisor. The site has various reviews from people of all walks of life - covers EVERYTHING! Hotels; restaurants; tours – you name it. So Naturally I typed in my hotel and the City. To our horror the reviews over the past month were terrible! Everything was canned - the staff; the rooms; the service. There was apparently nothing good about this hotel! 
I decided to ring the Hotel manager. After much trepidation, the staff finally put me through to “Bernard”. I told him about my booking and asked him if he was aware of the reviews? He said he was vaguely familiar with them. I asked him if he would like to comment on the maintenance issues? The staff morale? The service approach of the Hotel? He stammered and spluttered and didn’t actually address any of the questions. In the end I said “Bernard, would you book yourself into your hotel?” I was waiting for the emphatic “Yes” – it didn’t come. The hesitation was unnerving! He did say “yes” eventually when he gave it considerable thought. (I guess after all – his job was important to him!)
Changing hotels at this point was cost prohibitive. Prices had jumped 25-40% so we kept our booking.
The experience raised a number of issues that business owners should consider.
1. Always make sure your staff (and especially your managers) appreciate and are proud of the product or service they are selling. It’s important that your staff know the benefits of your product or service and ideally would feel comfortable “buying” your product or service otherwise they will not come from a “genuine” place when telling someone about you.
2. When a customer makes a complaint, provided they treat you and your staff with respect, it is important that management listen carefully. I would much prefer the complaint be upfront than to read about it on the internet. Hence it’s important that customers are encouraged to give feedback. This is some of the most important information you will receive to grow and improve products or services.
3. Give your staff the power to correct or solve the problem quickly. This will actually provide a smoother resolution process and minimise issues for your customers and clients.
As it turned out, we had a good experience and have reminded everyone not to read too much into the internet reviews.
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