Hospitality Today July-Aug 2016 | Page 13

than to third party websites as helping to drive customers to their businesses .
Andrew Mabbutt ( left ), CEO of ratings and reviews platform Feefo , believes Barclays ’ findings serve to help businesses in the hospitality sector . He said : “ This report makes very interesting reading . Not only does it tell us that customers are engaging with reviews more , but also that businesses should be listening to their customers and act on these insights . Moreover , with 63 % of businesses not managing
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feedback strategically , there ’ s a missed opportunity to gather business insights to make operational decisions and implement innovation . Such improvements can help to increase trust , traffic and sales , especially with a trusted feedback platform like Feefo .”
73 % of businesses surveyed say that they planned to make changes to how they deal with feedback – including investing in training , employing dedicated staff , and outsourcing feedback management – within the next five years .
Mabbutt remarked “ Whilst this is great news for feedback providers , it ’ s important for hospitality businesses to gather only genuine reviews , feedback and business insights . Feefo is an invite-only platform , meaning that all of the reviews we gather are completely genuine and can be matched to every transaction . This prevents fake reviews being published which can have a seriously negative impact on business .”