What Is a Guest Satisfaction Survey?

If you’re in the hospitality business, you’ll undoubtedly know the importance of a guest satisfaction survey. It’s a post-stay guest survey or guest feedback form template that is used by hotels, rentals, and B&Bs to gather more structured feedback from their customers. They can use it to understand the experiences of guests better, while identifying newer areas of improvement alongside. You can think of it like a hospitality questionnaire where guest feedback is collected on several aspects of the stay in a brief yet structured way.

This helps hospitality businesses identify guest experience improvement areas across service, cleanliness, amenities, etc. They may also be used or distributed throughout multiple formats, including emails, smartphone apps for property management, and QR codes. Let us now take a closer look at these guest satisfaction questionnaires and their main aspects.

Why Guest Satisfaction Matters in Hospitality

Guest satisfaction is vital for any hospitality business, since it directly affects its reputation, long-term growth, success, and revenues, of course. So, happy or positive customer experiences are likely to translate into great reviews, which automatically have an impact on the overall brand image and value proposition to prospective customers. It also brings in repeat bookings as a result of positive word-of-mouth and growing customer loyalty on account of higher satisfaction.

So, it’s basically a feedback cycle that not only drives much-needed hospitality improvements along with spreading throughout online reviews. This has a direct impact on customer retention and overall accountability of the team managing any particular property. Satisfied guests are more likely to come back, recommend the property to other potential customers, and leave positive reviews, which draw newer clients simultaneously. On the flipside, dissatisfied guests may leave negative reviews, leading to poor reputation of the establishment, lost revenues, and a bad image among potential customers. Feedback mechanisms are vital to understand guest preferences and needs, while identifying areas for improvements, while fostering a culture of accountability as well.

How Feedback Matters for Hotel Brands:

Guest feedback highlights things like sluggish processes, slow room service, and poor response times, which the brand can improve upon.
Feedback helps businesses understand and personalize services to meet individualized preferences.
It helps make data-based informed decisions regarding resource allocation, training, staffing, etc.
Guest reviews directly impact bookings and brand image/reputation, with a high percentage of positive reviews almost always scaling up booking rates.
Addressing negative comments promptly and constructively also shows guests that the brand cares about feedback and remains committed towards making improvements.
When guests know their feedback is valued, they are likely to return for future stays. Higher retention also becomes more cost-effective in comparison to the cost of new customer acquisition.
Feedback ushers in a culture of accountability and the team learns to focus on service excellence, while being empowered to take more ownership of their tasks.

By focusing on guest satisfaction, hospitality businesses can build a culture of guest centricity. For example, a study by TrustYou discovered that hotels with higher review scores usually have higher occupancy and average daily rates. Repeat guests, as per further research, also tend to spend more on each stay, thereby contributing significantly to overall hotel revenues.

When and How to Use Guest Satisfaction Surveys

A post-stay guest survey or guest review form can be used strategically by hospitality businesses to harness the above-mentioned benefits. So, in this case, it all depends on the feedback collection methods. Here are some pointers worth noting in this regard.

The hotel guest satisfaction surveys should be sent just after the guest has checked-out, ideally within 24-48 hours. This is because the details of the stay will still be fresh in the mind of the guest in this period.
The best ways to gather feedback are via email, in-app, and even printed surveys for in-person inputs.
You should focus on mobile-friendly and short surveys for increasing your response rates and to gain swifter and more practical insights.
Don’t send surveys too frequently or at times when your customers are more likely to be busy, i.e. during standard working hours.
Weekday evenings between 6-9 PM usually get the highest response rates as per studies.
Keep the time zones in mind for recipients, while keeping the number of questions more concise and making them easy to understand.
Personalize wherever possible, using guest names and specific stay details to make it more engaging and attractive for your intended recipients.
You may consider providing smaller rewards and incentives for completing surveys in order to enhance overall participation.
Evaluate all the key customer satisfaction metrics and include them in your questions, accounting for staff performance feedback, service quality in hospitality, and other experiences like cleanliness, check-in/check-out, etc.

Types of Guest Satisfaction Survey Questions (With Examples)

There are various kinds of guest satisfaction survey questions that you can consider. Of course, it goes without saying that you should aim for a mix of various question types in order to keep the experience more concise, crisp, and engaging for your guests. Let us take a closer look at some of the types of sample questions that you may include in your guest satisfaction survey.

1. Net Promoter Score-

NPS helps measure guest loyalty and the likelihood of recommending the hospitality business. A single, scaled question is usually used to understand the overall satisfaction levels.

Sample Question- On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our hotel to your friends or colleagues? You can also follow up with another question- What is the primary reason for your score?

2. Rating Scale Questions-

This is one of the best question types to measure varied customer satisfaction metrics. It uses a numerical scale, i.e. 1-5, 1-10, etc. to evaluate particular areas of the guest experience.

Sample Question- On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied were you with the speed of our hotel service? A follow-up question can be- Can you elaborate more on your rating?

3. Multiple-Choice Questions-

These are questions that come with a wide range of predefined options for you to choose from.

Sample Question- Which of the following best describes the reason for your visit to our hotel? (Options- Leisure, Business, Event, Other). A follow-up question can be- If you choose Other¸ please specify the reason for your visit.

4. Open-Ended Questions-

These questions enable guests to offer more detailed and written responses without any limitations.

Sample Question- What was the best part of your stay? You can follow up with- Can you elaborate on your response?

5. Yes/No or Binary Questions-

Binary questions have just two possible responses that guests can provide, i.e. yes or no.

Sample Question- Did you find our booking process convenient? (Options- Yes and No). You can follow up with- If your answer is no, please explain the reasons for the same.

What’s Inside the Free Guest Satisfaction Survey Template?

If you’re worrying about creating your own guest satisfaction survey, you need not fret! You can easily download the free guest feedback form template that’s available here. This downloadable PDF includes the following for your benefit:

7 post-stay survey questions across key areas
Includes NPS, rating, open-ended formats
Built by leading hospitality experts
Print-ready PDF for maximum convenience

You can easily download the same and use the format to collect invaluable feedback from your guests and make necessary improvements for long-term success.

Automate and Analyse Guest Feedback Easily

If you’re looking to automate the entire mechanism of gathering and evaluating guest feedback, aPerfectStay has a guest app that is tailored for your needs. You can use it to seamlessly automate guest satisfaction surveys and track feedback/data. This can generate actionable insights that help you improve in crucial areas and foster higher positive reviews, revenues, and repeat bookings in turn.

aPerfectStay’s guest app integrates seamlessly with multiple booking and CRM systems, enabling quick survey distribution after the guest’s stay. You can also create your own customized surveys depending on particular guest interactions, i.e. the type of room, services that the guest used, locational advantages, etc. Your guests get surveys automatically, helping you save time and money on data entry and manual distribution. You can easily store all responses in the centralized system, making it easier to evaluate, track, and access these inputs.

Other Benefits:

You can get dashboards and reports to identify areas of improvement and actionable insights.
The app helps you segment guest satisfaction feedback, depending on varied criteria and individual rooms/properties, helping you make targeted improvements.
The reporting abilities of the guest app makes it easy for you to make more informed and data-based decisions instead of relying on assumptions.

Signing Off

aPerfectStay’s guest app is undoubtedly one of the best ways to not just gather feedback, but also leverage it efficiently for great results. This naturally enhances not just guest satisfaction and loyalty, but also long-term positive reviews, branding, operational efficiencies, and your overall competitive advantage. On that note, check out the app today and download the guest satisfaction survey PDF right away!