Views & Interviews

Q&A: About feedback from guests at timeshare resorts

July 2015
It’s always useful to hear the customer’s side of the story – in fact many vacation seekers look for what customers post online before they decide on a resort destination. Sometimes they look for customer comments, when they want to make a timeshare decision. So what your customer says about you can go a long way in terms of getting new prospects interested, or old customers coming back for more of the good experience. But feedback isn’t always positive, sometimes customers genuinely feel there is a short-coming in terms of food, service, or facility.

Here’s a selection of what we found on travel portals, which could start off as small concerns but end up being larger issues if you don’t address the problem early enough.

So, here’s what people could be entering in guest books, or as feedback posts on travel portals.

I wish you had some activities planned for small children…

Sometimes, you need to understand customers from a wish list point of view. Every customer comes to your resort with expectations – the food will be nice and refreshing, the rooms will be comfortable, customer service will be prompt and attentive. But on a timeshare vacation, people expect a little more than that. So it helps to listen to your customer and see if there’s something you can do to widen the experience.

Resorts offering timeshare vacations invariably take a lot of trouble planning activities for guests across age groups – ranging from five to 70. Because, a timeshare vacation brings extended families together – and the numbers here can be as large as 18 people in a group. And with large groups, you need a really wide and all-encompassing activity calendar. Like we always like to say, there’s more to a holiday than four walls, and a window overlooking the pool.

At our age, the bathroom floors could be slippery . . .

Sometimes, customers can surprise you with their complaints, or comments. In the past, your guests may never have complained about your floors, but here’s a senior citizen who is now finding them slippery. So it helps to actually see things from another point of view – maybe the other guests found the floor slippery, but did not complain.

A safety aspect is a serious issue and mishaps can be avoided with careful planning and maintenance. It’s a responsibility shared by all employees, even if they are not in the line of delivery. The accountant who spots a loose tile in one of the verandahs needs to be encouraged and rewarded, because he has done this outside his job profile. By keeping his ‘eyes and ears open’ to spot an inconsistency, he has virtually taken ownership of customer convenience and safety.

Can you do something about the air conditioning...

Sometimes there are peripheral comforts at a resort that go beyond the satisfaction scores on food and room service. The proper working of air conditioning is one of them, and going by Murphy’s Law anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. So in terms of customer response, it’s useful to come across as concerned and efficient – with a commitment to the client that the AC will get fixed within a committed time, or you will change the room. This may not always be possible, but it is useful for your support staff to know that maintenance support is a serious commitment in the hospitality industry - where customer comfort is a priority area.

We just love your resort - everything was just right and wonderful…

Surprised? Well customers don’t only reserve feedback for grouses and complaints. They also want to let you know if thing go well during their stay at your resort. So don’t be at a loss for words if a customer gets complimentary – acknowledge the compliment, thank the customer for giving you positive feedback and insist on written feedback from the customer on ways the resort could improve in terms of service and offerings. Customers who have had a pleasant stay at the resort are often the best people to obtain constructive feedback from. When customers are in the “complaint mode” they are not very objective and are tempted to put everything into their complaints baskets.