Management responding strategy to customer online reviews : a case study of hotels in Taiwan

Abstract

The hospitality industry in Taiwan is experiencing unprecedented opportunities and challenges. For decades, the industry has been growing rapidly, but the sudden decreases in visitor growth has led to increased competition among hotels. To attract more international guests, hoteliers have started to manage their online reputations by responding to online reviews. In this study, we analyzed online customer reviews and the responses of 31 hotels. A clear trend was observed: hotels are putting more resources into online management responses. We also interviewed ten hotels to learn how they manage these responses, what challenges they face in responding to online customer reviews, and how they use online reviews for other management purposes. We found that most hotels in the case study manage customer responses reactively rather than proactively; they lack strategic goals and methods for evaluating ROI. We also found that executive involvement and the hotel's internal communication style affect how customer responses can be used as a tool to improve the service-recovery process. Using online customer as a source of employee performance evaluation and linking customer feedback to encouragement scheme are also found in some hotels' practice. Future studies should further investigate how hotels' internal communication styles and response strategies and behavior affect service-recovery and customer loyalty. The use of online customer reviews to help improve other aspects of management such as human resource management is also suggested to be studied.