How to improve guest experience with bookings and reviews

Link the data behind bookings and reviews and the whole guest journey gets sharper, from operations to marketing.

Managing table bookings and handling customer reviews are daily tasks for every hospitality operator. The two are closely connected in the guest journey, yet in most venues the data behind them never meets.

Link them and you get more than a slick customer experience. With data and insights from both in one place, your operations and your marketing get sharper.

Three reasons to link your bookings and reviews

1. Get valuable operational insights

When you sync customer feedback to the booking it came from, a review arrives with a name and a table attached. You can trace back who served the guests, what they ordered and when they visited.

That matters most when a guest leaves a negative review. Instead of guessing, you can see what might have happened and take appropriate action.

2. Keep your reviews valid

Linking both systems gives you better control of your reviews. Quite often it is the booking that triggers the feedback request. But what happens when the guest is a no-show? Disconnected systems send the request anyway. Connected systems know the guest was actually at your venue.

For example, once a guest is checked in at the host desk, a feedback email can go out a set time after the visit. You also avoid invalid reviews from people who never visited, which protects your overall score.

3. Optimise the full guest journey

Your guest journey starts with the booking and ends with the review. Connect the two and you can map everything in between, giving you a single view of each guest's experience and its timeline.

That helps you keep the journey smooth from end to end, act at the key touchpoints and spot chances to make a guest's next visit more personal.

Use bookings and reviews data to build loyalty

There is more you can do with the combined data from your booking and feedback systems. Three audience examples to power your marketing:

• Visited but left no review. Send a review reminder, with an incentive attached if you want one.

• Visited and left positive feedback. Reach out with a special offer if they refer you to family and friends.

• Visited and left negative feedback. Run a win-back campaign with a special offer.

Each group comes straight from the combined data, so the message only goes to the people it actually applies to.

Want to fill more seats more often? Get in touch with the team to find out more about how bookings and reviews work together at Stampede.