5 Key Insights You Can’t Miss from Your Hotel NPS® Survey

The Net Promoter Score® or NPS survey is a widely accepted metric for measuring customer loyalty. In the hotel business, guest loyalty is a driver of growth. Hotels that fail to nurture loyalty among their guests do so at their own expense.

In a world of increased competition, and the rise of alternate choices like AirBnB and hostels, hotels must do their best to retain guests by creating a positive experience the first time, and every time from then on.

Measure Customer Loyalty with NPS ❤️

Create NPS surveys, measure customer loyalty, and close the feedback loop with Zonka Feedback.

The NPS survey is ideal – designed to assess guest loyalty, it’s short, easy-to-fill-out and will capture your guests’ overall sentiment about your brand with only a couple of survey questions.

Here are five insights you can use from your NPS surveys to improve your customers’ experience at your hotel and promote guest loyalty.

NPS Scores for Benchmarking

Since the Net Promoter Score measures the customer’s overall opinion of the brand, it is a great metric for benchmarking – both internal and external. Survey software and feedback apps have a dashboard where you can see NPS data. Use NPS survey scores for internal benchmarking. Use this to assess a particular hotel’s share of loyal guests. Take NPS surveys over time to compare how your hotel is doing. Ideally, your NPS score should rise – indicating that with an improvement in services, guest loyalty is increasing.

The most obvious use of NPS survey scores is for external benchmarking. You can use NPS scores to benchmark against other hotels in your hotel group. You can see NPS data from multiple locations in the dashboard of your feedback app or survey software.

Use this data to compare NPS scores across your hotel chain. Use this information to identify low and high performing hotels. Dig deep into the why behind the scores. Identify what the best hotels are doing right. Use these insights to provide cross-training and collaboration opportunities to help lower-performing hotels improve the customer experience.

You can also compare your NPS score against the industry benchmark. You can also survey not only your guests, but also all target customers, including guests at competing hotels to learn exactly where you stand.

Compare your NPS survey data against competing hotels with the same star-rating, or those that serve the same market (business hotels, boutique hotels etc.). Identify leading hotels through the data and analyze the processes, services and guest experiences that contribute to their share of guest loyalty. Make strategic changes across your hotel to improve your guests’ experiences.

NPS to Convert Detractors and Delight Promoters

Use NPS survey data to identify customer issues that are affecting your Net Promoter Score. Most feedback apps have a response management system that can help you identify your promoters, detractors and passives.

Knowing whether a person is a promoter or detractor could help identify opportunities to delight promoters and address detractor issues before they get amplified, suggests Bain. While you address your detractors, don’t forget to connect with and get the most out of your promoters.

Take it a step further by pairing NPS survey data with other sources of customer data. NPS surveys, when paired with other customer feedback, can help you gain a comprehensive understanding of your customers.

Bain suggests that social media analytics with NPS survey feedback can provide insights to improve the customer experience and promote loyalty. Choose from various NPS survey templates or create an NPS survey with a customized follow-up question.

Link insights from the follow-up question in an NPS survey to CRM data, other customer data and social media analytics. Use this comprehensive data to tailor a guest’s experience with the hotel. From which suite your guest booked, to which wine they ordered last time, use insights from data to create an exceptional guest experience at your hotel.

Link NPS and Feedback Data to Employee Performance

In your efforts to provide a stellar customer experience to your guests, your employees are key. You must get your employees to work together to serve the customer. One way is to use customer feedback to reward frontline employees. Indian Hotels, which runs Taj Group of Hotels, uses guest input to rate employees and rewards staff if guests and colleagues compliment their service.

By using feedback data to reward employee performance, you can set a culture that puts the guest first. You can use NPS and other feedback for unifying the KPIs of distinct departments. This is a great way to encourage different teams to always keep the focus on the guest.

Create a culture of autonomy and cross-collaboration among teams and departments. Encourage your employees to perform intelligent acts of kindness – low-cost, simple gestures that create an unforgettable guest experience.

For example, a high-end hotel in Boston filled a stressed-out guest’s gas tank free of cost, without their asking. A desk clerk at the Four Seasons delivered a pot of tea, gratis and unasked, to a hotel guest with a bad cold. The result: delighted guests who are more likely to come back, and tell all their friends.  

Evaluate the Success of Touchpoints or Services

NPS surveys capture your guests’ overall perception of your hotel. Use them with social media analytics, CRM and other customer data to gain an integrated view of the customer experience. Use this integrated customer data to create a link between customer experience and business value.

Identify customer behavior that results in customer experiences that promote guest loyalty and further business outcomes. Use these insights to identify opportunities for improvement, including using customer feedback to train employees and create a team of power performers.

You can also use transactional NPS. You can ask for feedback from guests after select customer experiences, episodes or transactions. Use these insights to evaluate the impact of different touchpoints on the guest’s experience.

You can further distill insights to see how customer interactions at key moments influence their guest loyalty. The NPS reports on your feedback app or survey software can show you trends for different NPS surveys. Use the insights from these surveys to tailor your strategy to focus on touchpoints with the highest return on investment. Improve guest experiences at those touchpoints or crucial moments of guest interaction.

For example, a luxury hotel, acting on guests’ feedback about the laundry service, found a disconnect between how guests viewed the laundry service vs. how the hotel staff viewed it. The hotel found that about 80 percent of guests used the laundry service, often for high-end, designer clothing.

Guests often had an emotional attachment to these pieces, and trusted the hotel’s laundry service to care for them. On the other hand, hotel employees felt that the laundry service was a “less-than-desired career path”. Lacking motivation, they didn't display any particular care for the garments when doing the laundry.

This mindset was generating a high risk of failing guests’ expectations. Armed with this insight, the hotel transformed the laundry service completely. It became a distinct selling point for the hotel and a coveted department for employees to work in.

Measure Guest Loyalty Over Time

Once you've implemented measures for improving the overall guest experience, use your NPS survey results to assess their success. Conduct NPS surveys over time, to assess the success of measures for improving guest perception and increasing customer loyalty.

Use your feedback app or survey software to compare NPS surveys administered at different times to identify trends and analyze changes in the score. Ideally, your NPS score should improve over time with increasing guest loyalty. Use the insights gained from this survey to fuel further strategic and tactical changes within your hotel. 

Customer experiences are the differentiator for customer loyalty. Your guests expect stellar service, personalized attention and so much more. Use the results of your Net Promoter Score surveys to create an experience your guests will want time and again.

Zonka’s comprehensive NPS Software can help you do just that! While you’re at it, check out Zonka’s NPS survey templates to help you create an NPS survey that asks the right follow-up question. Get the insights you need to make informed business decisions.

Learn more about the Net Promoter Score (NPS)

• Net Promoter Score Benchmarks

• Why Measure Net Promoter Score (NPS)?

• Customer Segmentation and NPS: Get Deeper Insights from Your NPS Data

• The ABC of NPS Survey - What It is and What It's Not

• Net Promoter Score: Pros & Cons