Ignore social media complaints at your peril, warns hotel customer service expert

Customer service expert Mario Dolcezza believes many hotels are failing to realise the potential of social media, insisting it can be an ‘invaluable’ customer engagement tool.

“I know that some hotels are ignoring customer queries on social media in the hope that it will all go away,” he said. “However, all the evidence suggests the opposite is true and companies ignore it at their peril.

“Currently many hotels have left social media to their marketing and PR departments and have not realised its potential with regards to customer service. It is an invaluable customer engagement tool and an excellent means of securing meaningful customer feedback and vastly improving a company’s reputation.

“Keeping your customers is all about building relationships with them, showing them that you’re interested in them and that you value their business. Social media offers a great opportunity to do this and firms do need to embrace and not shy away from it.”

How to deal with negative publicity​

With the growth of the likes of Twitter and Facebook, owners of hospitality businesses are finding themselves written about and scrutinised in a way they've never known before. Earlier this year, a BigHospitality special feature provides advice on how to effectively monitor and deal with negative publicity.​

Dolcezza is managing director of Diciamo, which is next month launching a new solution for managing customer feedback left on social media to meet client demand.

“Few Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions offer effective social media integration and lack the monitoring, engagement and social CRM features that customer service teams need.

“However, the latest version of our Your Impressions customer feedback tool integrates multiple sources of customer feedback, including that from social media, in one single location using the new ‘Waves’ platform. This will provide companies not only with invaluable information about their business, but also with tools to build and enhance their customer experience.”

Live Twitter event​

Dolcezza is hosting a live Twitter event on Tuesday, April 24 from 11am to help answer people’s queries on the topic. Hotel staff and managers are invited to tweet their questions on customer service via social media to Dolcezza on Tuesday, April 24 at 11am. He will be live and answering queries for a 30 minute slot at www.twitter.com/diciamouk​.