May Songbirds Serenade You

Every step along the way.

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Take A Deep Breath

Just yesterday, things looked bad for inns with existing pools who didn't already have a permanent pool lift as required under the new ADA regulations. Yesterday, the DOJ said they weren't budging on the new rules despite the fact that it's become very difficult - if not impossible - for many inns to comply.

Why so difficult? Well, if you have a pool or spa you already know. The regulations were so late in being clarified (the lift cannot be portable, must be permanent) that many inns had already purchased portable lifts. When they found those would not be considered compliant, lifts that could be purchased already had been. Installers became swamped with more work than they could reasonably handle before March 15th. Worse yet, many innkeepers found themselves stuck with expensive portable lifts that had drained their budget's ability to stretch to start all over again.

So things didn't look good. And, truthfully, the strict compliance mandate from DOJ didn't make any sense. How could they insist on compliance that had become impossible because of the department's own late clarification?

Today all that changed. Eric Holder has issued a 60-day extension on the lift requirement, moving the new date out to May 15.

Innkeepers should remain mindful that this extension applies only to the permanent lift requirement for pools and spas. All other changes to ADA are now in force, including changes to reservations and changes to service animal requirements. When in doubt, consult the Department of Justice website. If you're still not sure, speak to a good ADA attorney.

Meanwhile, to those innkeepers with pools, take a deep breath. This kind of turnaround doesn't happen every day.

Let There Be Light

Linda Fox at Tnooz has a great post up that dissects the results of a recent white-paper report from Reevoo, looking at the intersection of bad reviews and guest loyalty. Guess what they found? Bad reviews aren't necessarily all that bad.

Regular readers won't be surprised that I'm, well, not surprised myself at the results.

Why?

Because the report shows that regular travelers are, in fact, fairly savvy themselves and tend to dig a little deeper to get the whole story when they've read a bad review.

And, much as I've espoused over the years, they tend not to trust the reviews when they're all just hunky dory.

Why?

Because no two guests are the same. No guest experience is the same. Even the world's best innkeeper can't avoid bad reviews at some point. They're just a part of life.

And yes, I actually have the nerve to say that even as someone who has been quite fortunate in never having gotten a bad review myself. I mark that off to luck every bit as much as to skillful innkeeping.

That's not to say I haven't had complaints that felt like a kick in the gut. The thing is, it's much more important how those complaints are handled than the fact that the issue ever came up at all. And if there's a reason that I haven't had bad reviews, it's almost definitely because of the way I handled the guest issue in the first place.

The real trick in moving past all the bad stuff is knowing how to respond to bad news. And how not to.

Many innkeepers try their best to bury the bad review under a slew of fake good reviews. I can tell you as a frequent traveler myself who has been burned that way, it is no way to build loyalty. It's the way to lose it.

No one likes being misled.

Many other innkeepers try to minimize the bad reviews by criticizing the reviewer, killing the messenger so to speak. Not a good plan.

There is no nice way to tell a guest that what they're saying simply does not count without running off other future guests. Hello nose, meet spite.

It never comes across half as clever as intended. Don't go there, no matter how cute and clever it may sound to your innkeeping friends. They're not paying your bills. Your guests are.

How to do it, then? Honestly, with humility, with graciousness, with recognition not admonition.

And with a great leap of faith that the truth will win out in the end.

Your guests are smart people. They chose your inn, didn't they?

Smart innkeepers never forget that future guests will likely be just as smart.

Smart enough to find a bad review intriguing enough to read more. To dig in long enough to find the real story. Intrigued enough to find out for themselves just how wonderful an experience your inn will provide.

Why would anyone want to stop that wondrous evolution?