Guest Reviews!!

I’m not going to explain why guest reviews are so important / critical in a world of always on mobile connectivity. That’s been covered in a gazillion places distributed all over the interwebs. There’s plenty of research out there and you can Google some of it here.

No one else gets reviews like Hospitality does!

I’ve regularly thought about this, and I can’t think of any other industry that get reviews as often and persistently as the Hospitality Industry does. For example, as a Hotel General Manager, you can know about a broken shower in one of your rooms before your Housekeeping department has even started their daily routine. As a restaurant manager you can be alerted to a happy or unhappy guest, before they’ve paid the bill. Reviews come thick and fast, and it’s the biggest gift, if you have the correct attitude and approach.

At their most basic, guest reviews are feedback, and feedback is critical if you want to know how well you’re meeting your guest’s / customer’s / client’s needs? Let’s be honest, if you’re not meeting those needs, you’re not going to be in business for much longer. Businesses that survive into the future will be those that are still relevant to their customer’s needs in the future.

We have and have had a lot of clients in the Hospitality Industry, and while they serve different markets, some definitely do better than others. And while it’s not good science to boil it down to just one element, there is definitely a correlation between success and those who take reviews seriously.

And it’s really quite simple….

Read / React / Reply / Repeat

That’s the magic formula that I tell all our clients. When a review comes in….

1. You read it,
2. you react (make the necessary changes, if any),
3. you reply to the guest, thanking them, and letting them know how you reacted (by replying, you’re letting that guest, and the next guest know that you’re invested enough to take their feedback seriously),
4. and you repeat, for every single piece of feedback you receive.

The majority of our clients agree, and as a business we spend much of my time replying to reviews, and in conversations with clients on how they’re reacting to reviews? When they fail to react properly, reviews in the future continue to highlight the issue, until it’s been handled properly. However when a repeating issue isn’t dealt with, they sometimes enter a downward spiral that has a negative end result.

Whether it’s a particular staff person, a team, paint that’s peeling in a bathroom, a pothole in the driveway, etc, when these are repeatedly highlighted and not dealt with, it spells eventual trouble. The last thing you want are reviews reinforcing that you’re not interested in fixing the things your guests are asking you to fix. As I said earlier, if you’re not relevant to what your guests want and need, you will soon have no business.

I’ve watched business after business, who take reviews seriously, slowly and consistently climb up whatever list they’re measuring themselves on. Whether it’s TripAdvisor, Booking.com, Lekkerslaap, Travel Ground, Google or Facebook. The formula is simple and it works for every single platform. Read / React / Reply / Repeat.

Sadly, I’ve watched other clients do the opposite because they didn’t think guest reviews were important.

#takeahorsetowater

The post Guest Reviews Are How You Get Ahead In Hospitality appeared first on Calidascope.

While Word of Mouth Marketing has been around since the beginning of time, don’t make the mistake of thinking it has nothing to do with digital.

• Facebook likes
• TripAdvisor Reviews
• Google My Business Comments
• Twitter Followers
• Instagram Likes
• Brand Mentions

These all form part of WOMM, and should be lovingly and carefully curated and looked after.

It’s Never Too Late To Build Your First Website

A few weeks ago I met a business owner who’d not had a website or much of a digital presence over their 45 years of existence. How was that even possible I had wondered to myself? I felt like I was talking to someone from another dimension, and couldn’t wait to hear more. I work for an Agency helping our clients communicate to their audience and market, and a digital presence is always a critical and important piece of any strategy.

Anthony Pools is a swimming pool contractor, who have been building and renovating swimming pools throughout South Africa and across Africa for 45 years. They’re a successful business and in 2020 they decided a digital presence was needed.

I asked their MD, Warren Peterkin, how they’d done it? Survived and thrived for 45 years without much of a digital presence.

Word of mouth has worked for us for over 45 years. We build great pools and finish within the agreed upon time frame, with a top class team of people. We’ve attracted customers through our customers talking about their great experience with us.

And why digital now? What changes where you seeing that brought on a change in strategy?

Increasingly people have been asking to see pictures of our work, and I got tired of sending photos via Whatsapp, and scrolling through images on my phone. Having a website means there’s a place to send people who’ve asked to learn more about us.

Two Things I Learned

I walked away with two things from my conversation with Warren.

Success isn’t determined primarily by your marketing (no matter how much money you throw at it). Success is determined by a great product, delivered when you say it will be, through an awesome team of people. When you’ve got that right, then you have something worth telling the world about.

When you’ve got a great product, delivered on time, through a great team of people, you don’t even have to tell the world. Your customers, guests or clients will tell the world for you!

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

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Some of those brands include: Coca Cola, Unilever, Starbucks, Beam Suntory, Ben & Jerry’s, Verizon, Diageo, Ford, North Face, Honda, Dockers, Levis, Patagonia and many more.

Coca Cola’s official statement includes: “There is no place for racism in the world and there is no place for racism on social media. The Coca-Cola Company will pause paid advertising on all social media platforms globally for at least 30 days. We will take this time to reassess our advertising policies to determine whether revisions are needed. We also expect greater accountability and transparency from our social media partners.”

What I’m Most Interested In?

Of course there are multiple angles to what’s going on, and there’s lots to read and learn about in the process. Debating online censorship and the responsibility of these powerful advertising platforms is long overdue.

However, what I’m most interested in is what impact will this have on the sales of these Brands? Digital Advertising was one of those things that arrived and everyone jumped on board. The hype around the benefits of digital advertising is massive and there are entire industries that strongly support that message.

Well, we’re about to find out what the real impact of digital advertising is? In this case, what the impact of no digital advertising is? For some of these brands, their advertising boycott is only in the US, and for others it’s Global. Assuming they all stop for at least a month, there are going to be some really interesting numbers that emerge. There are also going to be some interesting stories of how these brands re-emerge?

I’m expecting the result will be that digital advertising is key to the revenue of these brands, but this is a rare opportunity to attempt to measure exactly how key it is?

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

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When we first started Calidascope our goal was to do our best to find interesting clients, doing interesting things, who wanted to shake up the status quo and get the attention of their market (not matter the size of their budget). Over the last 6 years we’ve had incredible fun on these projects.

FOR EXAMPLE – THE LEGO MOVIE AND LANSER’S ON MAIN

We designed and delivered Lego Mini-figures to Fresh, Gareth Cliff, Banong Matheba, Lee-Roy Right and Caspar Lee for the launch of the Lego Movie on DVD.

We’ve worked with Lanser’s on Main (in Bryanston). We used TripAdvisor as the bench mark when Lanser’s first opened their doors. If you’ve not been, it’s guaranteed to be an experience you’ll remember. In 18 months Lanser’s on Main has gone from 48th on TripAdvisor, all the way to Number 1. Definitely Bryanston’s favourite Bistro

KWANU – WESTVILLE’s FIRST DEDICATED CLICK AND COLLECT SUPERMARKET

And most recently, we’ve been involved in the launch of Kwanu. A dedicated click and collect online supermarket located in Westville, Durban.

Kwanu is doing some interesting things in the world of online grocery shopping:

Located in Westville, as a Click and Collect service, they’re not focussing on national. In the words of Neville Dunn (ex MD of Masscash), “We’re not trying to solve for the National Market. We’re focussing on one community at a time. We think grocery online in South Africa will be most successful when it has a local focus and integration.”

They’re not a ‘buying business’, using local retailers. Says Andrew Mardon (ex National Buyer for Masscash), “Kwanu is focussed on delivering ‘everyday best prices’. We’ve built relationships with key suppliers, ensuring we can offer our customers the best possible prices everyday.”

By offering a click and collect service along with a focussed range, they’re solving the two biggest issues with shopping online for groceries… never substituting products for out of stock and South Africa’s unique challenges with delivery.

Kwanu’s results and customer feedback speak volumes.

Fast and friendly service! The quickest grocery run I have ever done. – Kerri Wolfaardt

WOW !!! Kwanu is just the most incredible way to shop and has the most user friendly website – they have thought of everything to make shopping easier and then to top it all they definitely have the best pricing in town!! Last night I had a total life transforming moment – sitting at my computer in my PJ’S – normally you see everyone you have ever known when you shoot into the shops in your old tracksuit !!! – Abigail de Robillard

Just had my first Kwanu experience. Will Def be back. Friendly guys and so easy. Thanks. – Leigh Bolam

At Kwanu Promotional pricing is great!! But what you have to look at is the pricing of the products that are not on promotion as they still make up a significant part of your shopping basket! Here is where Kwanu wins. Would love for Kwanu to be put up against Checkers, Spar, PnP, on a basket of products across the range. My guess is that Kwanu is significantly cheaper! – Grant Surmon

More than just Grocery Shopping

Kwanu is onto something. Grocery shopping is largely made up of the same basket of items, week in and week out. There isn’t any reason to have to walk the aisles of a store to do 90% of your shopping. Repeat purchases should be fast, easy and convenient. That’s what Kwanu is doing, and they’re doing it really well. We’re proud to be part of the adventure.

LOOKING TO DISRUPT YOUR MARKET?

If your business is looking to disrupt your market, Calidascope has an experienced team to help you execute your idea into the world. Contact Catri Dixon to set up some time to talk.

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“Nothing”, I told him. His competitor had double the foot traffic going through his business, and we were never going to be able to compete if we were measuring the number of Google reviews. I then said to him, “Next time you see your competitor, tell him we’ve replied to more Google reviews than he has!”

While quantity is important in a digital world, quality wins hands down, every time. I’ll always prefer one visit to my website that results in one sale, than a million people visiting my website with zero sales.

ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

And in the world of Online Reputation Management (ORM), quality is critical. Proactively engaging with customers, giving transparent and honest feedback, using the reviews to improve your business, helping to steer the conversation, all of these and more are no longer nice to haves. This is what success looks like going forward.

There was a time when people found you through the Yellow Pages, or adverts in the local paper, or over lunch with a neighbour or colleague. But that was a long time ago. The internet changed all of that. People find you through Google. They evaluate your products and services through reviews from people they’ve never met. They research you, compare your prices, get a sense of your product / service and what their experience might be, all before they’ve gotten within 50km of your front door.

YOU NEED MORE THAN A WEBSITE AND ADS

Having a sexy well designed website, with awesome video ads on Facebook, and a killer Google Ads strategy isn’t enough. Increasingly your reputation is moving out of your control and into the hands of your customers. You are no longer the sole decision maker with regards to what is put out there about who you are.

Think about your next holiday and all the websites that contain information about the hotel you’d like to stay at? You could go to the Hotel’s website and read about what they tell you, and look at the photos and videos that they’ve posted. But you probably won’t do that. You will look at their website and their media, but you’ll also read the reviews on Booking.com, TripAdvisor or Google Maps. You might even stumble across the blog of someone you’ve never met who goes into incredible detail about their 4 night stay. No longer are customer decisions being made largely on what your brand says about itself. Customers are seeking out and actively listening to what others are saying to make their buying decisions.

Here are some stats from a post on Forbes.com that helps to breakdown just how important those ‘other’ information sources are:

About 90% of global sales still happen in physical stores, but 97% of consumers use the internet to find local businesses and three in four people who use their smartphones to search for something nearby end up visiting a local business within a day. Foot traffic to retail businesses is down 57% in the past five years, but the value of every visit has tripled. 90% of customers say that what they decide to buy is influenced by positive online reviews, and 94% will use a business with at least four stars.

DAILY ENGAGEMENT

Online Reputation Management isn’t about manipulating and falsifying the information that’s out there. It’s about getting into the spaces where your customers are speaking about you, and authentically getting involved in the conversation. At Calidascope it’s a daily activity, helping our clients to proactively respond to reviews, crafting appropriate replies to emails, strategising around new campaigns based on guest feedback, designing training programmes for their employees to close gaps that begin to emerge. It’s definitely not about pushing a green button and then sitting back while it looks after itself.

Last month we posted about a Restaurant in Bryanston who’s had great success in this. It’s an intensive part of the overall marketing and communication plan. There are businesses that do ORM really well. There are many that don’t do it at all. And then there are a group somewhere in between that are attempting something, but it’s clearly half hearted as they copy and paste, illustrating that they haven’t worked out just how important this part of their activity is.

Where your brand goes, you must go. If your customers are going to engage with you on a review platform, you have to go there and get involved in the conversation. And you have to go there every single day.

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In a modern business environment, it’s no longer enough to simply be the best at what you do (or one of the best) to rise to the top. Competition is fierce and there are a large number of competitors, some of whom aren’t even in your industry. It isn’t just other restaurants that Lanser competes with. He’s also up against larger Shopping Centres who work relentlessly to attract people to ‘their’ restaurants. Home entertainment continues to improve its offering, with fibre and streaming making it easier than ever to simply ‘stay in’ and ‘order out’.

Don’t get me wrong, you have to have a great product if you want to be number one, and Lanser’s on Main certainly does. Tasty food, an always changing Specials Menu, a wonderful wine selection, a warm and intimate ambience, impeccable personal service, monthly Wine Pairing evenings, stunning views over Bryanston and Kyalami, all wrapped up in a quiet centre in the heart of Bryanston.

However, when their doors first opened, there was a large mountain to climb, and they knew it. They were a startup. Nobody knew who they were. While Lanser has impressive credentials as a Chef and Restraunteer, in South Africa and London, this was the fist time he was putting his name out there. Lanser’s on Main is located in a quiet centre in the heart of Bryanston (on Main Road, next to the DiData Campus, above Naturally Yours Weleda Pharmacy in the Culross Crossing Lifestyle Centre). Some of Bryanston’s Top Restaurants are right on his door step.

How does a startup attract the attention of patrons in that environment?

Lanser approached Calidascope to join the team. While we have experience in a diverse number of industry’s we’ve got a strong track record in Hospitality. Lanser and I have been good friends for many years and after some tough negotiations, a deal was struck. I remember Lanser approaching us with a promise that while he couldn’t pay us for a while, he’d do his best to make it up in great food and a drink or two. We were up for the challenge of helping Lanser’s on Main become Bryanston’s Favourite Bistro. The game was on.

Many markers and milestones were set, and one of the key measurables used was TripAdvisor. In hospitality TripAdvisor is a great way to measure how you’re doing? In what other industries or businesses do you have customers giving you feedback after every engagement? It’s not the only measure, but TripAdvisor is well understood, respected and trusted by the market.

In April 2018, Lanser’s on Main joined the back of the queue on TripAdvisor. They were Restaurant 55 out of 55 in Bryanston.

While Lanser took care of running the Restaurant, the hard work outside of the Kitchen began. It wasn’t all about digital. Website, Facebook, Instagram, Google My Business, Ads, etc are a given in today’s business environment. You pick the platforms that best suite your business, you ensure the basics are covered, and then you put the machine to work. There were also traditional mechanisms like handing out flyers at robots. The team spent many late afternoons and evenings standing on Sloane and Main Road, putting on a show to get people to open their window a smidgen and take a flyer. That’s the work of a startup. Sometimes you have to put yourself out there in ways you thought you might never have to, in order to do what needs to get done.

The items listed above aren’t proprietary. Any business can do what the larger team at Lanser’s on Main were doing.

How do I explain the move from position 52 to 2 in less than 18 months?

My colleague, Catri Dixon, has some thoughts on this,

“It’s never about the individual elements. If we use a cooking analogy, everyone starts with the same ingredients, but not everyone creates a meal to get excited about. It’s the combination of the elements. It’s a little less of that one and a little more of another. It’s appreciating that everything is connected to everything else, and then getting the best out of the combination. We’ve been working within the hospitality industry for 10 years. Over that time we’ve developed our own secret sauce. We’ve worked with a Hotel that got into the TripAdvisor Top 25 in South Africa, and we’ve worked with others that haven’t. While we sit with all of our clients up front and speak of the ‘secret sauce’ not all of them adopt it. At Calidascope we believe in it. Lanser believed in it, and he allowed us to really implement it. It’s been an intimate partnership between his business and ours.”

SimonSays Communications is the latest member of the team. Their addition to the recipe has been to work with their network to invite journalists, bloggers and influencers to visit Lanser’s on Main. PR is an often misunderstood element. It’s critical because it adds a layer of authenticity to the messages. The people invited aren’t paid in any way. They’re always given the freedom to write whatever they want. We don’t get to see what they write before it’s published, and we certainly don’t have any influence over it. When someone from the SimonSays network walks into Lanser’s on Main, it’s live and it’s real. It’s all in the team’s hands.

I asked Lanser for some of his thoughts for this post.

“I’m a Chef. I’ve opened restaurants before. I’m not a marketer. I knew when I started that I needed a strong partner who understood marketing and communication. We had a lot to do. I was lucky that Calidascope bought into the dream of Lanser’s on Main. During these past 12 months I’ve also appreciated, more than ever, that marketing and the rest of the business aren’t two different parts. They’re inter-connected, and the more intimate that connection the better the synergy between them. I’ve learned a lot about marketing this year, and I hope they’ve learned a lot about running a restaurant.”

That’s our answer to anyone who asks. Success doesn’t come easy. You start with a great product or service, you gather together the best possible team, and then you put in the hard work, focus, discipline, add a little secret sauce, and if you get it all right, it pays off. Eventually.

The post How this Restaurant moved to 2nd place on TripAdvisor in 18 months appeared first on Calidascope.

In the last few years I’ve noticed a new ‘last mile’ emerge as I’ve watched businesses embrace digital marketing and advertising. More and more businesses are realising that a large part of their marketing efforts need to move online into a digital space. Whether it’s a first website, the opening of a Facebook or Instagram Page. The investment of some money into Google or Facebook advertising.

The Objective is Sales

The danger in all of this this activity is losing site of the objective for embracing a stronger digital focus in the first place. If it’s a business we’re talking about, the objective is almost always to sell something. A product, a bum in a bed/seat, a service, etc. If all this digital activity doesn’t result in more revenue, then the effort is wasted. It would be like putting a fibre network into a local community and not connecting it up to any homes or businesses. The fibre is there but it’s achieving absolutely nothing for anyone.

Building a website is important. Opening a Business Facebook page is important. Spending money on Google and Facebook advertising is important. But if you don’t close the loop and connect the activity to a sale you can measure and track back to the activity, then why are you doing what you’re doing?

I’ve visited some companies that are doing incredible things digitally. As you look at the individual elements there are amazing numbers. Clicks on Google Ads are growing, cost per click is shrinking, click through rates are impressive. Analytics on the website show double digit growth of unique users week on week. And as you look at each element there are incredible results worth celebrating. That is, until you get into the Sales Office and start asking questions like these:

• Where did your leads come from today?
• How many were converted into a sale?
• How regularly do you speak to the advertising team doing your Google and Facebook ads?
• Do Google ads convert easier than Facebook ads?

Closing the Last Mile

It seems obvious, but it’s not happening in as many businesses as it should be. In my experience it’s happening in very few. While there are many reasons for this disconnect, what matters most is closing this ‘last mile’.

The sales team and the advertising team must meet regularly to discuss the number and quality of leads based on conversions by the sales team. Sales teams must give insight to the ads team on what sort of leads they’re looking for? Every two or three meetings you should invite the team from the warehouse to talk about what’s been sitting on the shelf and needs a little help getting out the door? Ad teams are improving all the time, and sales teams will understand they have to work a little harder when leads for those items land on their desks.

We’ve seen incredible success with clients when we’re able to have regular conversations with key people in particular positions. Digital doesn’t mean less conversation. Digital doesn’t mean everything is automated. Digital doesn’t mean easy. The ‘last mile’ isn’t going to close on it’s own, and if you don’t find a way to close it, you’ll never get the most from your marketing and sales efforts.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

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Well done Lanser’s on Main, a new Bistro Restaurant in Bryanston. In just 3 months, they’ve taken their TripAdvisor ranking from 43rd down to 7th, for the Bryanston area. They’re located in a quiet centre on Main Road, one block up from the Dimension Data Campus. If you own a business in the hospitality industry then you know this is an achievement worthy of congratulations.

After Chris Bethell took the non-existent restaurant, The Shed, to London’s number one restaurant on TripAdvisor, the review platform has been on high alert and become a lot more difficult to navigate. Lanser, the hands on owner of Lanser’s on Main, will tell you that in the early days some of his guest’s TripAdvisor reviews just didn’t make it onto his page. We couldn’t find a reason why not, and eventually wrote it off to TripAdvisor being more cautious?

There’s no doubt that moving up TripAdvisor’s rankings requires hard work. Both digital and physical. While Chris Bethell was able to game the system, the rest of the world do it be sheer hard work. There’s no easy digital solution to a good TripAdvisor review. Of course digital plays a critical role in terms of following up on guests, and replying to reviews, but movement happens when you provide your guests with a great product and service, and they in return, show their appreciation through a great review.

No Average Review

At Calidascope we’re not convinced there are many average reviews. For anyone to write a review, they need to be moved to do so. Reviews take time, and there’s no payment given for a review. For someone to sit down, look up a venue, and find the correct place to write takes time and effort. Unless they’re one of those rare people who review a lot, they’re probably writing about their experience because it was great or it was crap. Those two emotions are enough to move people. The emotions in between, probably not.

The post There’s a new Bistro Restaurant in Bryanston appeared first on Calidascope.

We (Calidascope) started working with Champagne Castle Hotel around 14 months ago. Our brief was simple….

help to integrate their digital properties into the Hotel strategy in order to achieve the objectives that had been set for the hotel

We didn’t have digital goals, per se. We had to take everything that was digital and make sure it was delivering towards the goals of the hotel.

Our philosophy at Calidascope has, right from our beginning, been that digital is not an ‘add-on’ to the main activities of any organisation. Digital (in it’s broadest sense) is an integral delivery mechanism of the bigger strategy, and must be treated that way. This has been how we measure whether we’re going to work with an organisation. We’re either an integrated part of the larger team, working towards the larger goals, or we’re not the right people to do what you’re looking for. There are plenty of great companies who will run your digital properties, but we’re not one of those companies.

There are a couple of important ‘dials’ that must be watched in the Hotel Industry, and certainly one of the most important indicators on how you’re doing is TripAdvisor. From their ‘About Us‘ page…

TripAdvisor® is the world’s largest travel site*, enabling travellers to plan and book the perfect trip. TripAdvisor offers advice from millions of travellers and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features with seamless links to booking tools that check hundreds of websites to find great hotel prices. TripAdvisor branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world, reaching 350 million unique monthly visitors**, and more than 290 million reviews and opinions covering more than 5.3 million accommodations, restaurants and attractions. The sites operate in 47 countries worldwide.

There are a large number of people who read TripAdvisor reviews before they book or visit somewhere. And while TripAdvisor has it’s critics, whether you like it or not, TripAdvisor has become one of the largest feedback mechanisms in the Hotel Industry.

Champagne Castle Hotel have a permanent agenda item in their daily Management Team meetings for TripAdvisor. While we can’t attend the majority of those meetings (it’s a 4 hour drive) we’re constantly on the phone and email to talk through the feedback.

You can imagine the celebration then, when earlier last week, an email arrived from TripAdvisor to let Champagne Castle Hotel know that they were a 2016 Travellers’ Choice Winner. That’s no easy accomplishment. It puts them in the top 1% of TripAdvisor properties, and they’ve entered the Top 25 Hotels in South Africa list.

Synergy

Certainly we at Calidascope aren’t responsible for this fantastic achievement. It belongs to each of the staff member at the hotel who work tirelessly, each and every day, to deliver outstanding service. But we do know that over the last 14 months, the digital component of the hotel has come a long way towards now being a core component of the Champagne Castle Hotel business. What was once seen as a Facebook Page, a Twitter account, a website and a TripAdvisor page, are now central, non-negotiable pieces of the larger puzzle. They’re no longer digital items, that seem important to have, on the fringes of the hotel strategy. They’ve become a fully integrated part of the business.

Perhaps it’s more accurate to suggest, that while digital didn’t deliver this award, the hotel would probably never have arrived here without digital. That, I guess, is what any business wants. Synergy. The idea that the combined effect of the areas in your business is greater than the sum of their individual effects.

Well done to everyone at Champagne Castle Hotel, every person, and every piece. It’s a fantastic achievement.

Pulp Films in Greenside produced this 1 min video, capturing Champagne Castle Hotel’s A Sense of Place

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