Your Customers
Understanding your customers, who they are, how they found out about you and what they think of their stay can be extremely valuable for the development of your business. You need to collect information about your customers to:
A. Satisfy legal requirements for guest registration
B. Obtain feedback on the quality of the visit
C. Contact them in the future
Registration of Guests
All serviced (and self-catering) accommodation premises must keep a record of all their guests over the age of 16. The record should include their full name and nationality. For overseas guests passport number and place of issue should also be recorded. Each guest’s details must be kept for at least 12 months.
Some data can be collected at time of booking but this can be checked and supplemented on arrival with other information such as address, email address, how they heard about you etc.
As you are holding personal data, you must comply with the Data Protection Act 1998. More details can be found here but compliance is unlikely to be onerous for a Guest House.
Feedback
If you can get some feedback from customers on their visit you can use this information to:
- Apologise and make amends for those who are not happy
- Change your marketing strategy if a particular type of customer is dissatisfied
- Improve aspects of your establishment or the services you deliver to satisfy customers better
If you have email addresses for your guests you can send an email with a link to an online survey such as Survey Monkey or ask them to reply to you direct with feedback. You could also suggest that they go on to TripAdvisor or another review site and leave a comment. Remember it needs to be as quick and simple as possible for the customer.
Your local college or university may have students who will help you in designing a survey and even analyse the results for you. Think carefully about the questions though – there is no point in asking something unless you think you will respond to the result.
Alternatively you can leave a feedback card/form in the room or ask visitors to complete one as they leave the room or as they check out. Make the form as simple as possible and encourage customers to complete them by offering incentives – a prize draw perhaps.
Keeping in Touch
Keeping in touch with guests after their visit through email, social media or printed material can help to promote customer loyalty and encourage repeat visits. If you know something about their interests or life stage you may be able to target your messages. Some Guest Houses produce newsletters regularly keeping previous customers updated on new facilities, local events or special offers to promote further visits. For more advice on this type of marketing, look at the ‘Staying in Touch by Email’ section of VisitEngland’s Online Marketing Toolkit.