Since opening two year ago, 137 Pillars House, a property in the SilverNeedle® Hospitality Group portfolio, has earned a sterling reputation for its attentive service and elegant facilities. As one of the luxury boutique hotels in the Chiang Mai region, the property’s mission is to “create exceptional memories for every guest on every single day.” This commitment to delivering personalized service can be seen in the hotel’s customer feedback. To date, 96% of the property’s 380 reviews in 2013 have been positive, with 100% of TripAdvisor reviewers recommending the hotel. The hotel’s 4.73 average review rating also ranks among the highest in Thailand, a hotel market with more than 300 hotels.

Manfred Ilg, General Manager of 137 Pillars House, says the hotel’s positive reputation is maintained by incorporating customer feedback into the hotel’s daily operations. He explains, “At 137 Pillars House, we review the positive feedback in our morning meetings and use it as a motivational tool for the all of our associates. We acknowledge colleagues who are named by our guests for delivering extraordinary service are rewarded with a certificate of appreciation. Constructive feedback is discussed in detail with our respective department heads and Human Resources and a plan of action is prepared, put into place, and measured after implementation.”

Since December 2012, the property was ranked just outside of the Top 5 on TripAdvisor. For 2013, the SilverNeedle^® Hospitality team set a goal for the property: to reach the Top 5 in the Chiang Mai market. In order to do so, the team understood that it needed to start proactively soliciting guest feedback. The company turned to Revinate to help tackle this challenge. Says Mark Wong, Assistant Vice President of Marketing at SilverNeedle^® Hospitality, “Prior to using Revinate, we were relying on our customers to share their feedback on their own. We were fortunate that the hotel’s high service levels motivated many guests to contribute a review, but we knew that there were other highly satisfied guests who would also contribute if they were invited to do so.”

Understanding that content freshness and volume are two influential factors in TripAdvisor’s Popularity Index algorithm, Wong and his team set the property up with Revinate Surveys, a guest satisfaction solution that allows hotels to systematically deploy post-stay surveys to guests after checking-out. These same surveys can be shared internally, published on the property’s website or automatically submitted to TripAdvisor for syndication. It was this syndication that appealed most to Wong and his team.

Since 137 Pillars House began using Revinate Surveys, the property has boosted its review volume on TripAdvisor by two to three hundred percent. Before the property chose to automatically submit Revinate Surveys to TripAdvisor for syndication, the hotel was receiving anywhere from three to eight reviews per month. Since implementation, the hotel has received at least 18 TripAdvisor reviews each month, with 80% of them coming from Revinate Surveys. Most impressively, the property rose to #3 on TripAdvisor after just three months of this syndication.

With more than double the number of reviews to learn from year-to-date, Revinate’s core reputation management solution has proved equally valuable to the property. Says Wong, “Revinate Surveys may have helped us get the volume of TripAdvisor reviews we were looking for, but the entire platform is what allows us to respond to all reviews…across all different sources.” To date, the property has responded to double the amount of reviews than it did in 2012 and looks to increase this number in 2014.

137 Pillars House has been so pleased with Revinate Surveys that the team added the solution to its next year’s budget after just 3 months of syndication. Wong comments, “Revinate Surveys have become the number one source of feedback for the property. With more reviews to learn from, the hotel’s operations team can identify customer preferences better than ever before.” Now that the hotel has achieved its 2013 goal of reaching the Top 5 on TripAdvisor, it’s setting its ambitions even higher. “The natural next step is to get to #2,” Wong says, “and we’re confident that, with Revinate Surveys continuing to drive more positive feedback for us, the hotel can rise to the top.”

Thanks for checking out this Revinate Success Story. You may download a PDF version of this article. Please check out additional success stories, and contact us for more information about Revinate.