10 customer survey tools for improving hotel guest experience

March 14, 2016

In the hotel industry, customer surveys have been used for years to gain valuable guest insights, improve service levels, and address area of weakness. Recently, it’s been suggested that traditional surveys are becoming outdated as hotels increasingly look to online reviews to learn about guest satisfaction levels, but the latest customer survey tools are helping hotels respond to customer needs long before they get around to posting online feedback.

Today, customer survey tools are enabling hotels to personalize the guest experience by collecting valuable information before check-in. They’re being sent to guests during their stay to ensure specific needs or issues are swiftly addressed.

As customers browse a hotel’s website, contextual surveys can now be used to gain feedback on user experience and uncover reasons for booking abandonment.

In short, survey tools can offer a range of applications beyond the post-stay review. The following list features some of the best options available that cater to a range of budgets and specific business objectives.

Hotel-specific customer survey tools

Among the wealth of general survey tools available, a selection of specialist service providers cater specifically to the needs of the hospitality industry. These companies typically offer customer survey solutions as part of a suite of products related to guest intelligence, customer relationship management, marketing, and revenue management. So while they offer great benefits specific to hotels, their solutions tend to be pricier than general customer survey tools.

1. Guestfolio

Guestfolio enables hotels to gather customer feedback through customizable pre-arrival and post-stay surveys. You can create surveys yourself or ask Guestfolio to help you structure questions to capture the most relevant data to meet specific needs. To speed up responding to guest reviews, you can also set-up automated responses that are triggered when a survey score falls below your own pre-determined level. Different surveys can also be generated based on criteria such as your customer’s nationality and how often they stay with you.

2. ReviewPro

With more than 19,000 customers, ReviewPro is one of the most popular survey tools for the hotel industry. Top features include “sentiment analysis,” which lets you assess guest feedback in over 120 categories to quickly identify key areas that might need urgent attention. To help improve the guest experience while on property, ReviewPro also offers in-stay questionnaires that offer the ability to quickly survey customers and respond to potential service issues. Surveys can also be customized in up to 36 languages, a useful tool for hotels that regularly attract overseas guests.

3. Revinate

While creating customizable surveys can end up being pretty time-consuming, Revinate makes life easier with a series of drag-and-drop tools. Surveys can be quickly created by selecting from multiple question types, while integration with your hotel’s PMS means each survey can be swiftly matched up with the right guest. Revinate also has a mobile app, so you can delve into guest satisfaction data on the move. Online reviews and surveys can also be brought together in a single dashboard, which is ideal for getting a complete overview of satisfaction levels and trends.

4. eZee iFeedback

The survey tools that eZee iFeedback create for the hotel industry are particularly impressive. Surveys can be uniquely created for websites, tablets, and smartphones, and they can also be integrated into touchscreen kiosks around your hotel. This can obviously be hugely beneficial for capturing feedback as customers move around specific areas of a property. The ability to produce multilingual forms is also a distinct advantage of using eZee iFeedback, while integration with social media channels means guest responses can also be published to platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

General customer survey tools

While the following survey tools aren’t designed specifically for the hotel industry, they each offer a number of highly effective features that can be harnessed to capture guest data at various points in the travel journey.

5. SurveyMonkey (the established solution)

With more than 20 million customers, SurveyMonkey is one of the biggest and most trusted survey tools out there. It provides the flexibility to create simple polls for gaining a snapshot of customer opinion, but you go much deeper and create complex, multi-question surveys that deliver more detailed insights. If you need a little inspiration, there are hundreds of pre-written questions to choose from as well as hundreds of templated questionnaires that can each be quickly customized. SurveyMonkey also has a free version that comes with 10 questions and 100 responses.

6. QuestionPro (the customizable solution)

With QuestionPro, you’re given the option of using a template survey, creating a customized version, or uploading your own survey from a Word doc. So as far as flexibility goes, it’s hard to beat. Hotels will also appreciate the fact that surveys can be sent to customers across a range of platforms. Embed them on your website, send them over email or post them to social media accounts to reach customers at key points in their travel journey. QuestionPro has a free version, but for just $12/month an advanced package offers a series of handy extras including offline analysis and customized themes and branding.

7. ClickInsights (the one-click solution)

The beauty of ClickInsights is its simplicity. You email customers just one multi-choice question with up to 10 different responses. Customers give answers simply by clicking or tapping within the email. After sending their response, customers are then directed to a customized thank you page. From here, it’s possible to pose an open-ended question to gain greater in-depth analysis. With its breezy 1 question format, ClickInsights is fast to set up and requires minimal effort on the part of guests—a go-to option for gaining rapid feedback.

8. Temper (the real-time feedback solution)

Another incredibly simple survey tool, Temper lets customers respond to your questions by clicking one of three different mood faces. You can either feature surveys at the end of emails or embed them into your website. Feedback is sent back in real-time and the quirky mood face format means that within a glance, you can get an instant idea of overall satisfaction levels. Temper clearly isn’t about gaining detailed customer insights, but this fun and fast style of interface is likely to encourage a greater number of customer responses.

9. Qualaroo (the premium enterprise solution)

Qualaroo offers a range of advanced features for businesses looking to really drill down into customer data. You can place surveys on any page across your site including exit surveys, which are a great way to address issues relating to high bounce rates or booking abandonment. Qualaroo is one of the more premium survey products out there with the basic package starting from $63/month. At the top end of the scale is a premium “Enterprise” package, which comes with a range of advanced features including integrations with CRMs and customized best practice training.

10. Google Forms (the always free solution)

One of the big attractions of Google Forms is it’s free to use. And if you use the likes of Google Sheets or Google Docs, you’ll also appreciate the fact Google Forms can be integrated with your existing Google Apps. Logos, photos and YouTube videos can all be added to customize your forms and make them instantly more engaging, and you can create unlimited surveys and unlimited respondents. While Google Forms are relatively basic in design, if you’re looking for a free, flexible and intuitively designed survey tool, it’s one of the best options out there.

Choosing the right guest survey solution for your hotel

Customer surveys continue to play a major part in how hotels look to improve service levels, refine the guest experience and better understand the needs of their customers.

The latest tools can help gain a quick snapshot of general satisfaction levels or provide detailed data that offers invaluable insights throughout the travel journey.

In the end, choosing the most suitable option comes down to considering your budget, how easy you want the process to be and the level of insight you’re looking to gain. But whatever kind of survey tool you choose, asking the right questions at the right time will ultimately play a defining role in the quantity and quality of data you get back.