Internet Based Hotel Guest Feedback vs. Mystery Guest Audits: A Comparison

A while ago, a client of mine in Doha-Qatar informed me that his hotel would no longer be requiring our mystery guest audits, as their hotel chain had launched an internet based guest experience survey program.

Remember the survey cards the hotel receptionist used to politely ask you to fill out, when you were settling your hotel bill? In this age “guest reviews via the internet”, many of the multinational hotel & resort brands have developed programs that rate their hotels and resorts’ guest experience performances across the globe via an internet adaptation of those traditional guest satisfaction surveys.

The main difference between the old and new approaches is that the headquarters of these multinationals, and not the individual hotels, manage these internet based programs. The justification is that hotel guests will be more comfortable providing their feedback at their leisure, that the collected data cannot be corrupted by hotel management (in the event of unfavorable reviews, for example) and they are able to capture guest data (including demographics, preferences, etc.) in a more centralized manner.

So, the advantages of these programs are clear, but have hotel guest experience audits become irrelevant; are the days of hotel assessments conducted by a professional auditor visiting the hotel over? I certainly don’t believe this to be the case and, without going into too much detail, I’d like to prove it to you;

Both approaches have the common underlying principle of ‘capturing data and analyzing it’, and in capturing the hotel-experience data, one approach emphasizes a reliance on technology (internet) and the other on experienced professionals visiting the hotel, posing as guests.

Humint vs. Sigint.

An interesting analogy can be drawn here with national intelligence agencies that have traditionally relied upon “sigint” (signals intelligence gathering – satellites, drones and other tech) and “humint” (human intelligence gathering). Despite the immense advances in technology, human intelligence gathering is still considered critical and, in many cases, more significant than technology driven intelligence gathering. This is probably due to the fact that technological approaches tend to be static by nature, and humans are more dynamic and therefore adaptable to changing scenarios and environments; the human brain and ‘intelligence gathering training’ being significant differentiating factors in the comparison.

Opinion vs. Fact.

Surveys are subject to opinion and, as we all know, different people have different opinions, values and expectations. For example, the exact same buffet experience for one couple may rate an 8 out of a possible 10 score, while another couple experiencing the same buffet at exactly the same time may rate the experience as a 5 on their internet survey. The same applies to identical rooms, check-ins, etc.; you get the point. Adversely, hotel mystery guest audits are based upon specific “Yes/No/NA” answers to very specific questions concerning the experience, usually leaving the opinion out of the equation.

Tailoring Hotel Mystery Guest Audits.

To take the point further, if a hotel manager suspects that staff members in a specific area of his/her hotel are underperforming, he/she can direct the hotel auditing company to place emphasis on this particular area - such as a particular restaurant, the operator service or maintenance engineers, with a view to acquiring specific data and rectifying the problem. By nature, however, a guest satisfaction survey is static in the areas it probes for guest feedback and may, at best, indicate that an issue may exist but cannot study the issue more closely.

In making my final argument for the relevance of guest experience audit companies I cite the recent acquisition of one the most formidable companies in the field of hotel operations auditing – LRA by one of the “big 5” accounting and financial auditing companies in the world, Deloitte. By acquiring LRA, Deloitte have stepped out of their usual sphere of business, investing in an industry where they must expect a sound return on their investment. This implies a sound future for all professionally competent companies operating in this field.

In conclusion, I would say that both approaches are significant hotel management tools; there is no doubting the usefulness of feedback from guests that have experienced your hotel. But to claim that the advent of internet based guest reviews negates the efficacy of mystery guest audits seems somewhat hasty and “jumping on the internet-based solutions bandwagon”, to be honest.

And for hotel managers, as well as hotel corporate headquarters interested in discovering more about how a (human) mystery guest experience program can benefit their hotel operations, you can communicate with me directly via email at www.biahotelmystery.com”. We are Brand Integrity Auditors and we have successfully conducted over 800 full hotel mystery guest audits since across 5 nations since 2004.