Expedia Reviews: Harnessing the Power of Social Proof

Expedia reviews serve multiple purposes. It gives travelers the chance to share their honest thoughts about their stay, their car rentals, or their experience with flight reservations. At the same time, vacation rental owners and car rental services can find out more about the good, the bad, and the ugly of their offerings, helping them make strategic improvements. On top of that, the reviews also serve as social proof to potential travelers.

Not only does it help to give the service providers more credibility, but also the Expedia group as a whole. This helps to drive more traffic to their website and set them apart from other popular online travel agencies. This is particularly beneficial for those looking to compare prices or find travel deals on the Expedia app.

How Do Expedia’s Post-stay Reviews Work?

From hotels to apartments, all types of properties, including rental cars, can benefit from Expedia reviews. To help you unlock all the advantages offered, Expedia offers a post-stay review tool. Basically, it will automate the process involved in getting guest reviews.

Here’s how it works:

• Guests will be prompted to write a review and rate you in terms of amenities, service, and cleanliness. This could be after a stay at a hotel, after using a rental car, or after a flight reservation.
• Once you’ve received a review, the platform will inform you allowing you to reply to the review as quickly as possible.
• You can then display these reviews on your own website too. To do this, you’ll need to download and install their Guest Review widget.

It will first appear on the booking website that the guest used to make the booking. After 90 days, it will then appear across all the other websites in their marketplace.

What Are the Benefits of Reviews?

Reviews (including bad reviews) matter. Here are three of the main advantages:

1. Reviews have the potential to boost bookings

Before guests book with Expedia, they first do some research. Not only do they browse other available properties on popular online travel agencies like Airbnb, Booking.com, etc. but they also search across Expedia’s own selection of properties.

With potentially hundreds of rooms to choose from, guests often let reviews be the deciding factor. They’ll use bad reviews to shorten their longlist to a shortlist. If both properties have received good reviews, the sheer number of reviews can often be the criteria they use for their final decisions.

This means that the more positive reviews you have, the better your chances of making it to a shortlist and securing another booking.

Make no mistake, listing elements like high-quality property photos and descriptions still matter. However, without reviews to back that up and confirm that they’re seeing the real deal, it can be difficult to convert interest into reservations.

2. Property listings may appear higher

Reviews can help with your search engine ranking and online presence. In addition to being displayed on channels within the Expedia network, it can also appear in Google’s search results.

What’s more, Expedia’s guest experience factors look at review data and guest ratings to identify what they like and dislike about your property. Accommodation providers with positive reviews that prove that they offer a first-class guest experience can see a higher placement in their sort order. This will ultimately impact how visible your listing is on their booking websites.

To do this, Expedia’s policy will consider your average rating over a period of time. That said, to help hosts, recent reviews will be given more importance over older reviews.

3. It shows you’re engaged and caring

Not only are travelers looking at what the review reveals about your actual property, but also at the way that you respond to the reviews. In fact, according to an Expedia report revealing travelers’ needs, more than 90% of travelers feel that property managers and owners should reply to negative reviews.

Even if the guest didn’t highlight any issues that demanded your response, by simply thanking them for their review and support, you’ll show your dedication to your guest. It also gives you an opportunity to invite them to book your property again.

Practical Tips for Attracting More Reviews

While it’s up to your guests to decide if they want to take the time to write a review, there are polite ways that you can nudge them. Here are some ideas and suggestions:

• Place a sign in the hotel room or in your property’s welcome book asking guests to leave you a review.
• Add a QR code that will redirect them to your social media profiles where they can also leave a review. Most guests are active on social media each day and will prefer to leave a review on one of these sites. This way, their family and friends can also get a quick glimpse into their latest trip.
• Hotels can ask their front desk staff to remind guests to write reviews upon checkout. Short-term rental owners with cleaners, butlers, or personal chefs that stay onsite can ask them to remind guests.
• Instead of asking them verbally or leaving a note specifically about reviews, you can also give them a freebie like a water bottle or tote bag with your branding and QR code that will take them to the review form.

Responding to Reviews

Whether you received only 1 star or 5 stars, make it part of your routine to respond to all reviews. If it was a bad review, it’s even more important as it gives you an opportunity to share your side in a professional way (if needed).

Most travelers realize that bad reviews happen from time to time. What matters more to them is how you respond to them. In fact, according to the Expedia report revealing travelers’ needs, 91% of travelers’ trust can still be regained after a bad review.

Here’s how to ensure your response hits the right mark:

• Personalize your message by including the guest’s name.
• Thank them for their review.
• Recognize the problem and apologize.
• Avoid coming across as defensive, indifferent, or angry.
• The wait time for a response should be limited to 24 hours.

Analyzing Your Reviews

Aside from responding to reviews, you should also take the time to analyze your reviews. Expedia lets you turn guest reviews into actionable insights with their Guest Review Insights tool.

This feature will evaluate the guest reviews you’ve received during the past year. It will then identify feedback about various key property amenities and features like:

• Check-in
• Checkout
• Wi-Fi
• Free breakfast
• Location
• Parking
• Value
• Staff
• Property condition

All these amenities will receive an individual score. This way, you can easily identify your top-performing property features and which areas need improvement. As you can compare trends over the past 12 months, you’ll also be able to work out if any renovation projects have paid off and which changes have been less successful.

Final Thoughts

To sum up, Expedia reviews are important for both travelers and property owners. They allow travelers to share their experiences and help owners learn how to make their services better. These reviews also make Expedia more trustworthy, attracting more people to their website.

Expedia has tools that make it easy to get and understand these reviews. These tools help owners connect with their guests, respond to their feedback quickly, and figure out what they need to do better.

But managing these reviews and other parts of your rental business can be hard. That’s where iGMS comes in. iGMS is a tool that makes it easier to manage many properties on websites like Expedia, helping you make your guests happier by helping you:

• Manage multiple accounts and listings on the top OTAs from a single interface.
• Synchronize reservations across multiple platforms to eliminate double bookings.
• Organize messages into a single feed with a unified inbox.
• Improve communication with automated templates and triggered messaging.
• Create and coordinate cleaning tasks with live tracking to completion.
• Create your own direct booking website.
• Process payments securely via integration with Stripe.
• Create essential reports on your business results within minutes.

Use the power of Expedia reviews and make your rental business better with iGMS.