What Others Say Matters Most

Do you encourage your guests to provide a review of their holiday experience? If not, you are overlooking a valuable marketing tool. The letting agency, Holiday Rentals, have analysed the effect of customer reviews on booking enquiry volume:

- A property advert with 3 Reviews receives on average 23% more enquiries

- A property advert with 5 Reviews receives on average 33% more enquiries

Potential customers are much more likely to take notice of a previous customer's testimonial praising your product or service than they are of all your own sales messages. Think of it as a word-of-mouth recommendation. A big thumbs up from your clients is very powerful.

Rather than simply saying what a great holiday they had, encourage your guests to be specific and detail the reasons they were pleased with your service and property. What was the best thing(s) about the accommodation and location? Why did they enjoy your food so much? If you're offering an interest or activity holiday of some kind then definitely ensure your guests comment on that too.

Here's an example of an effective testimonial:

We stayed with Robert and Sue at La Petite Ferme in July this year. We stayed in Hibou gite which suited us perfectly as it was not overlooked and there were lots of walks we could begin right from our doorstep - the car didn't get much use! The walk cards created by Robert were invaluable - we'd never have found some of the hidden gems en route otherwise. On lazy days we really liked the large, secluded swimming pool and Sue's vegetarian fare is to die for! (Try her Wild mushroom & chestnut cottage pie... ) We had a fabulous holiday and will be back next spring!

Here are 3 ways to encourage your customers to write testimonials for you:

• Send your customers a thank you card around 2 weeks after their holiday and say you'd love to be able to include some of their thoughts in your marketing material. Then simply ask them to forward a brief testimonial. Give them lots of ways to do this such as email, fax, skype, post (include an S.A.E if possible).


• Just ask on the spot! If a guest is praising an aspect of your service actually during their holiday then simply say "Would it be OK if I used what you just said as a testimonial?" Don't overdo this or guests may feel a little hounded!


• Offer to help. If your customer niche tend to lead busy lives, you could always offer to write the testimonial for them and then email to them for approval. This approach has the added advantage of allowing you to emphasise aspects of your service you're keen to promote. It's not underhand as long as the customer agrees with your content.

Use your customer testimonials in all of your marketing materials - in your sales letters, brochures, website and advertisements. When placing testimonials on your website or blog, either create a separate 'What our customers think' page or include testimonials on different pages throughout your site.

By doing this, you should instantly see an increase in response rate from your marketing.

Karen Guttridge runs Giteblogger http://www.giteblogger.com/ and helps holiday property owners to generate more bookings through online marketing using free and low cost online tools.