ReviewPro - Apex Case Study

Case Study: Apex Hotels, July 2011!

Case Study: Apex Hotels Managing Social Media And Online Reputation On A Brand Level For A Group of Hotels!


Apex Hotels is an innovative group of seven city hotels based in the UK. “Knowing our brand position as a group of contemporary, luxurious city-center hotels helped us with our social media strategy and content,” said Sam Weston, who along with Amy Spark, share some of their thoughts on how to manage social media at the brand level for a group of hotels.!

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About Apex Hotels


Apex Hotels began using Twitter in March 2009. While this was a little later in the game than some of their larger competitors, they wanted ensure they had the time and resources available to manage it effectively. “An unmonitored and stagnant Twitter account can do more harm than good for a brand.”!!Since joining the network, Apex has increasingly used Twitter as a method of engaging with guests and like-minded individuals. They also see a big opportunity in engaging with other businesses.!!“Twitter offers us an invaluable feedback channel for both positive and negative comments, although Iʼm pleased to say we receive mostly positive feedback! People seem much more inclined to offer feedback in 140 characters than via longer channels. Often, it provides valuable insight into what weʼre doing well within Apex, or where we might be able to improve.”!

The Apex brand doesnʼt have a rigid tone of voice for Tweeting, despite their account being administered by three separate individuals. They do, however, have a clear understanding of what is acceptable to broadcast, and try to avoid controversial subjects or appearing too opinionated. Messages are intentionally light, friendly and informative to abide by what they see as one of the most overlooked principles of social media: conversation. “We like to appear approachable to questions and enquiries about our hotels, the cities in which we operate and the products we offer.”!!

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How Apex Hotels Uses Twitter


Apex has one main Twitter account that covers all their hotels: @apexhotels.!!“We chose to run one main profile rather than an individual account for each hotel to give us the best possible chance to reach as many as we can through Twitter. We also wanted to ensure consistency in our brand message: we didnʼt want a whole host of people from different areas of our business having access to Twitter and potentially causing a PR disaster here and there!”!

!!Apex built a separate Twitter account for their HR team – @apexcareers – which is used to offer advice and guidance to potential applicants. This account also offers recruitment and CV tips. “Engaging with the wider recruiting world ensures that Apex maintains an excellent standard of service by employing the right people at the very top of their game.”!!!

Amy Spark also maintains a profile – @apexaffiliates – to offer guidance to participants of the Apex Hotels affiliate network (through Affiliate Window and Buy.at). They find this to be a very helpful way to communicate latest promotions and offers that these affiliates can promote and earn additional sales commissions. It also offers a two way channel for them to hear feedback on what offers theyʼd like to see from the hotels in the future.!!Additionally, Apex is experimenting with a Twitter profile for their sales team – @apexsales. The purpose is to provide their sales team with an opportunity to engage directly with corporate clients and key industry members within the sales and marketing world. This account enables them to tweet slightly more corporate messages, since the target audience is familiar with hospitality terminology, meetings and events promotions, and so on. !!

“We chose not to tweet this to our main profile too much as we didnʼt want to have an overly corporate-sounding profile, and prefer a more informal, friendly approach.”!

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Different Accounts for Different Purposes


Apex Hotels monitors social media channels using various tools such as ReviewPro to ensure their team is aware of what is being said about their brand: acknowledging both the positives and negatives, and responding where required. “Itʼs easy to ignore the negatives, but in our experience a problem ignored often becomes more difficult to deal with in the long run and has an almost snowball effect as it gathers momentum through re-tweets and social media chatter.”!!At the same time, the team celebrates positive feedback from guests through re-tweets and comments. “Itʼs a great qualifier for people considering staying at their hotels if independent comments on Twitter (and of course through various online reviews) reflect our brand positively.”!!!!!

Apex Hotels monitors mentions of their hotel names and specific @mentions too. They created saved searches to monitor chatter about the cities in which they operate: London, Edinburgh and Dundee. This might be as simple as any mention of ʻdo you know + Edinburghʼ to more targeted hotel and restaurant queries. “An example of what weʼll find could be as simple as ʻwhats the weather like in Edinburgh?ʼ – or it could be detailed questions about attraction prices and opening times.”!Regardless of whether the person asking the question is staying at Apex, they will respond if they have the time. The reason is that even if theyʼre staying with the competition this time, theyʼll hopefully follow @ApexHotels and perhaps remember the Apex brand for next time.!

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Monitoring and Responding on Twitter


Apex finds that gathering content for Twitter is often an organic affair – coming from social media discussions about the cities they operate within, hotels and hospitality in general. They also find ideas from within the company – from any department. !“Occasionally events will happen at the hotel that weʼre unaware of, so we do ask staff to contribute when they see something that is social media worthy.” In the near future, Apex is looking at establishing ʻchampionsʼ at each property who will report on local activity and take quick snapshots to post online. This will further establish the connection between the on and offline.!!Competitions on Twitter – asking followers to re-tweet messages or contribute to discussions – has been very effective in engaging with followers. “Maybe itʼs primarily because thereʼs an opportunity to win a break at one of our hotels, but often it spins into discussion between other Twitter users.”!

“Of course, weʼre a business too, so we do tweet our offers, although we try to keep to a rough ratio of 1:10 (1 offer per 10 tweets). From using Twitter personally, it seems that many companies tweet almost all offers and I find, again personally, that I stop reading their tweets in the stream, or scan past them. I think originality is important and the catch of a good tweet, or a different Tweet is often the difference between being acknowledged or ignored.”!!The Apex team tries to tweet every day, and they monitor their accounts frequently to ensure messages arenʼt left unanswered. Responsibility for creating responses is split up among the team by day so that one person isnʼt left to manage the account themselves. “This provides a little variety and new ideas for tweeting. It ensures the content is always fresh, on brand and fun.”!!!!

The time of day they try to publish tweets varies. “We do try and tweet during the evening on occasion, as well as during the standard 9-5. A good example was the recent bad weather in November and December of last year. With the weather changing every 10 minutes and peoplesʼ travel plans being constantly interrupted, we tweeted a special offer in the evening so that if they were stuck in London, Edinburgh or Dundee and didnʼt have somewhere to stay, we were on hand to help. Flexibility is probably one of the most useful things with social media. Some brands seem to be constrained by a rigid and formulaic approach and personally I think that can seriously impact on the value a company, and the people following that company will get out of the relationship, out of the conversation itself.”!

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Types of Content That Work Best on Twitter


Apex Hotels began building their Facebook presence in early 2009. Facebook has, of course, evolved their business profiles significantly since then – making them work more like personal profiles. “We find it has become a very good way for us to engage with existing guests, along with potential new ones.” Apex Hotels now has over 3500 ʻlikesʼ on their main brand profile, which is growing quickly. As with Twitter, they created additional profiles that are managed by their spa and HR departments. These more specific pages have also built a solid following.!!Apex has seven hotels located across three cities in the UK: London, Edinburgh and Dundee. They created a main Apex Hotels page for the group as a whole, which is !where they publish content about the hotel group, the individual hotels and restaurants, and the cities where the hotels are located.!!!

Trackable links are created for both Facebook and Twitter to see which content is most popular on each. “Particularly on Facebook, we find very corporate sales messages cause people to ʻunlikeʼ the page or unsubscribe from updates. Currently 6% of our fans are unsubscribed from receiving our updates in their news feeds and we obviously want to keep this percentage as low as possible”!!As with Twitter, Apex prefers to stick to a friendly tone, and focus on competitions, photos and video, and events in the cities. “Itʼs more about keeping people engaged with the brand so that they remember us when they need to book a hotel, rather than trying to sell to them right away.”!!!!!!!

After a few years of experimenting with both social networks, Amy finds they can get away with posting more content per day on Twitter than on Facebook. “The nature of Twitter is more fast-paced and people are used to receiving lots of short messages. However, with Facebook, we try not to post more than once a day as we find people start to unsubscribe, probably because they feel bombarded.”!!And as with Twitter, Facebook is also used to answer customer queries and collect feedback, which is passed on to the hotel managers. They notice the majority of the feedback they receive through Facebook is positive, but if they do receive anything negative itʼs important this is addressed and resolved as soon as possible.!!

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The Apex Strategy for Facebook


All staff members at Apex are encouraged to keep the social media team up to date !with news from the hotels and surrounding area. All team members, especially those working on the front lines with guests, can be a huge resource. Additionally, the social media team looks out for current events and occasions in their three locations. Alerts are set up to pick up items of interest, such as shows, festivals, exhibitions, and so on.!Local businesses that the hotels work with also provide a source of content. “Building relationships with other companies through social media gives us access to more discounts, competitions and useful information for our fans.”!!!!!!!!

Content That Draws The Best Response!!!“Competitions and prize draws are by far our most popular posts. Offering a hotel break as a prize give us the opportunity to showcase our properties, which generates interest in them without sending out a sales message that will put people off. ”!Photos and video also work very well, especially on Facebook. The Apex team publishes new photography, hotel videos, and TV advertisements, which are always popular. Facebook fans and members of the hotelsʼ online community are also encouraged to post photos.!!The mascot for Apex Hotels – the Apex Duck – has also worked very well for them. “Guests receive a branded rubber duck in their rooms when they stay at the hotels. People collect them and take photos of them all over the world. We have a competition where the best photo of the year wins a hotel break.” !

Each hotel offers a different colored duck that can be collected. Fans can also name the new duck whenever a new hotel opens.!Timing also plays a big role in the responses they receive. “We find that posting on Friday afternoon and on the weekends gives us double the impressions of posting at other times of the week, so we save their best posts for the end of the week.”!

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Sourcing Content for Publishing


“It is difficult to track the exact monetary value as people may hear about us through Facebook, but then book using another method. We can trace bookings that have come directly from facebook.com through Google Analytics and in the last year we have had 28 transactions, but we believe the untracked total to be much higher than this.”!!For Apex, the main purposes of their Facebook presence are the following:!• To maintain a relationship with previous guests!• To attract new guests through recommendations from friends!• To keep people engaged and interested in what Apex is doing as a company!• To see what other hotels and companies are up to!“Facebook is changing and developing all the time and we look forward to new marketing opportunities as they arise.”!

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More Thoughts on Facebook


How online reviews affect travelers today! !Apex Hotels finds that their guests use social media throughout the buying process. This begins when they ask their friends for travel recommendations on Twitter, look at photos of hotels, and use other social media sites to plan their trip. During their stay at an Apex hotel, the guest may interact with Amy and Sam on Twitter @ApexHotels. And then after leaving the hotel, many of these guests like to share feedback about their stay. Social media is important at each stage of the travel process.! !“The quickly emerging importance of online review sites is clear,” said Sam Weston. “People go to a hotel website, and read through the text, but they often try to go beyond marketing speak and look for qualified reviews from real guests.” !!!

“Potential guests are more likely to trust other travellers opinions, rather than relying on what hotels say on their own websites,” added Amy. For these reasons, the team sees user generated content is very important as part of their hotel marketing strategy.! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How Apex Hotels became one of guestsʼ favorite hotels! !Apex Hotels puts a lot of emphasis on selecting central locations for their hotels and creating a great product, so a certain amount of the positive reviews they receive happen organically. A strong emphasis is made on service delivery and the quality of the product. Since London is a very competitive market, this requires continual improvement to stay ahead.! !The General Manager at each property keeps a careful eye on all feedback received, so if there are any areas that need improvement, quick action is taken. While perfection may be constantly moving target, the Apex team works constantly to get as close as possible.!

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How Apex Hotels Manages Online Reputation


The staff at Apex asks for feedback from all guests – both through online reviews and their own internal questionnaires. Business cards were created to hand out and encourage guests to review the hotels. Post-stay emails provide another opportunity to ask for these reviews. But itʼs important to note that Apex does not incentivize online reviews in any way. Even aside from the legal and ethical implications, Sam and Amy recognize that hotels that try to game the system are missing the whole point of online reviews.! !Naturally encouraging a positive online reputation has side benefits. “Many of our guests find us through review websites, and this means theyʼre also more likely to back to these sites and write a review after their stay.” said Amy. They see a snowball effect happening here: the more they optimize their online reputation and encourage people to check review sites as part of their buying process, the more online reviews they get. !

“Encouraging reviews ultimately has to be ! an organic process that is the result of other factors of the experience you create. If people have a good stay, theyʼll leave you a good review,” said Sam. “The principle behind online reviews and social media is transparency and trust. If you can instill that trust, then you are going to get repeat business.” ! !Apex Hotels has also worked to create a very approachable guest services team. During the check in process, guests are encouraged to contact these people for any help needed during their stay. Providing clear channels for communication – both online and off - reduces the number of situations that may lead to a negative review. Many times guests that raise an issue through Twitter, for example, are pleased with how quickly they receive responses. ! !!

Real-time media like this allows for real-time service – putting power back into the hands of hoteliers, and allowing them to take more control of their online reputation.!!

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Encouraging Guests to Share Content Online


For Apex, improving quality and guest satisfaction is a team sport. For hotel general managers, it was essential to have a centralized portal for reviews and reputation. While they understand the vital importance of guest feedback, they have very limited time. “Having a tool that quickly shows a complete view of how their hotel is performing online means that they now have more time to spend actually improving the services offered by the hotel.” !! !“ReviewPro is an exceptional tool to bring all online reviews together in one place, and offers our managers an opportunity to filter reviews, quickly analyze the positive and negatives, and perhaps identify little areas of improvement. And then the tool allows them to quickly assign tasks so all levels of the business are involved. Each of our general managers is actively using ReviewPro, but each department manager – from the restaurants to the housekeeping department – also has access.”! !

The general managers keep their teams up to date on how theyʼre performing according to the Global Review Indextm – ReviewProʼs benchmark measurement of online quality. Negative and positive feedback is always shared with the team. Sharing these reviews can be a great morale booster, and encourages the team to continue doing great work.! !To encourage remarkable service, Apex Hotels has an incentive in place to reward staff members that are mentioned by name in an online review. “This really encourages our entire team to work hard and provide great service,” said Amy. !!

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Involving Everyone In The Process


Sam and Amy considered various reputation management options, but the lack of comprehensive, hotel-specific reporting meant that nothing that really met their needs until they found ReviewPro. “ReviewPro was the best fit for what we wanted to achieve.”! !ReviewProʼs ability to export data became very helpful as the team integrated and cross-analyzed online reputation data with internal surveys and other business performance metrics. “This gave us a holistic view of our hotel operations.”! !ReviewProʼs philosophy of constant innovation was also attractive. “We liked that it was a continually developing product. Social technologies are changing very quickly, and we didnʼt want to be stuck with a product that wasnʼt future-proof. So the fact that ReviewPro is constantly evolving with our feedback is very valuable for us.”! !

Semantic analysis has become a fundamental part of determining marketing strategy. “It enables us to instantly understand our unique selling propositions – from the guestsʼ perspective.” For example, the team realized their location is much more important to guests than their food offerings, so they played this up in their collateral. “Semantic analysis ensures we are connecting with our audience, and communicates what they are looking for.” ! !“Improving quality and guest satisfaction is an ongoing process. Itʼs never going to stop. Market conditions change and the needs of our guests change. So we will continue to monitor all online reviews and feedback and incorporate that into our operations so we are always at the top of our game.” !!

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Why Apex Hotels chose ReviewPro

ReviewPro was the best fit for what we wanted to achieve. !

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See how ReviewPro can help you !!!ReviewPro enables hoteliers to efficiently aggregate, organize and manage their online reputation and presence in leading social media sites. ReviewPro provides the analysis, customer intelligence, competitive benchmarking and reporting needed to help hotel professionals more effectively manage their organization.! !!!!!!!!!!

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!!Keep learning! ReviewPro monitors what is changing in the world of online reputation management and passes along practical ways to use that in hospitality.! !Read the blog for more articles and reports like this: http://reviewpro.com/blog! !Follow us on Twitter for daily ideas and tips:!http://twitter.com/ReviewPro!!!!!!!!

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