(ARTICLE UPDATED in January, 2021)
Editor's Note: Originally published in October 2019, this post has been completely updated and refurbished for comprehensiveness, accuracy and relevance.
What’s in it for me?
Good question! This article will acquaint you with the basic premises of the Booking.com review response writing procedure along with the relevant images at every step to help you understand the overall stratagem, and providing the ease of navigation on a platform like Booking.com
To respond to the reviews on Booking.com is no joke. There is no denying the fact that reviews play a vital role in maintaining a hotel’s online reputation. In order to leverage the marketing of your property, it is important for you to get reviews. Customer feedback helps optimize your online presence. Hence one of the goals that every hotelier nurtures and works hard to achieve is to get more and more reviews.
Thankfully, there is a great list of sites online that help you get reviews and post your responses to the same.
Of these, Booking.com is one of the most commonly known names.
Headquartered in the Netherlands, Booking.com is a travel fare aggregator and metasearch engine for lodging reservations. With over 29 million listings worldwide, this Dutch-based website had officially launched its management response feature to all the hotels globally in February 2015, allowing a perfect management response. It allows the hoteliers to connect with the authors privately. This is extremely helpful in winning the trust of the customers as it helps them feel that the hotel actually cares about their feedback.
For those who are new in the field of the hotel industry, listing and claiming your business matters! So, in this article, you will be looking at an easy tutorial on how you can respond to the reviews on Booking.com
For your convenience, we have compiled and illustrated a step-by-step procedure on responding to Booking.com website reviews:
1. Once you have registered your business on Booking.com, log in with your credentials (username and password). You can do this by visiting the website and clicking on the ‘Sign in’ button which is right next to ‘Register’ (see the image below).
Booking.com Review Response Step 1
2. After clicking on the ‘Sign in,’ the page (see the images below) asking for your login credentials would appear. Carefully enter your registered username and password.
Booking.com Review Response Step 2
3) Once you have successfully logged in, the interface entitled ‘Group Home’ will open. This option is applicable only if you have more than one property. Here you can filter by property, id, name, or location to respond to the reviews for the desired property (in the blurred space entitled ‘Click on this if you have more than 1 Hotel’ as shown in the image.
But in the case of a single accommodation or property, click on ‘Reviews’ (see the image) which is right next to the ‘Group Home.’
Booking.com Review Response Step 3
4) Once you have clicked on the ‘Reviews’ tab, a page entitled ‘Reviews’ will open showing you the Date, Id, Property Name, Review Score, Comments (with emoticons for pros and cons)
Also, there is a ‘Date Range’ option at the top that helps narrow down your search to a great extent. Here also you can filter your search according to the score, date, comment through the box on the right side (see the image below).
Booking.com Review Response Step 4
5) After this, a ‘Reservations overview’ interface will appear. Here on the top, you will have to click on the ‘Guest Reviews’ option (8th option)(see the image below).
Here from begins the actual process of review response.
Booking.com Review Response Step 5
6) After you have clicked on ‘Guest Reviews,’ a dropdown list will appear with two choices: ‘Guest Reviews’ and ‘Guest Experience.’ Click on the 1st option- ‘Guest Reviews.’ (see the image below).
Booking.com Review Response Step 6
7) After clicking there, you will see a new interface entitled ‘Guest Reviews’ in front of you. Here you will see an overall rating of your property based on the total number of reviews along with an overview of various factors (staff, value for money, comfort, and so on) with their specific individual ratings (see the image below).
Booking.com Review Response Step 7
8) Scroll down until you see the customer comments preceded by a positive and negative emoticon or face indicating pros and cons respectively. Click on the ‘Reply’ button to begin typing your response (see the image for step.8).
Notice, at the top, we once again have the reviews filter search called ‘All reviews.’ Click on it to avail the suitable option from the dropdown list. Here we have kept it as ‘all reviews.’ (see step_8).
Booking.com Review Response Step 8
9) After hitting the ‘reply’ button, you will see a white box saying (Reply in the guest’s language or in English). You can enter your response here (see the image for step_9). Remember to keep it crisp, short and personalized.
Booking.com Review Response Step 9
10) Once you have entered the response, hit the ‘send’ button (see the image below) which is right below the white response box towards the left. You can also choose to ‘cancel’ the response if you are unsure about what sort of response would be deemed accurate. For more information, you can click on ‘Have you read our guidelines?’ option which is right beside the ‘cancel’ option towards the right.
Booking.com Review Response Step 10
11) After clicking on ‘send,’ you will notice that the response takes a few seconds to get approved. You can scroll further down to see how the approved response looks. To do so, click on ‘view your approved response.’ It will show you your response right below the original guest comments (see the image).
Booking.com Review Response Step 11
12) Now your approved response will reflect. You can also ‘remove’, ‘edit’ or ‘cancel it.’ The three buttons will be right below (see the image). Proceed after selecting the desired option.
Booking.com Review Response Step 12
13) Repeat these steps under the ‘Review’ tab to respond to the Booking.com reviews like a pro.
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Though easy, following these steps can be a little tedious at times. After all, there is a lot that a hotel has to work on everyday. But hey, reviews are important! Therefore, replying them to is a chore to be treated seriously.
For this, we bring you an efficient and user-friendly solution. With GuestTouch, you can reap the benefits of an excellent review management solution that allows you to respond professionally and accurately to all the reviews on the go.
Things you’ll sign-up for:
• Maintaining a systematic review tracking in a next-gen reputation dashboard
• Responding timely and professionally to all the reviews over various OTA platforms like Expedia, TripAdvisor, Booking.com Google, Medallia, and Much more!
• As the owner or response writer, you have the authority to approve and publish comments or set parameters for auto-approvals.
• Smart prompt features used by our expert team to draw data for writing an accurate, unique, and personalized response to every review of yours.
• Know the context? Providing your input is easy with one tap that will help strengthen the replies to the reviews.
• Have preference for specific phrases and words? Bring it on to enhance your brand’s communication standards.
Viola! And you are sorted!
No more need to to sweat over the idea of how and when to respond to the reviews on Booking.com and other platforms!
Need more clarity? Get your hands on our quick, free demo today!
Open up yourself to a whole new world where technology reigns supreme, becoming a cinch for the modern-age hoteliers to succeed
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