Paradores is an iconic collection of hotels located in historic buildings and natural parks across Spain. The company motto has been “Quality, Friendliness, Legendary” since 1928. It is fully committed to customer centricity, a position that has been a key driver to success, even during the 2020 pandemic
Paradores
•
Europe
How Paradores Won Spain’s Best Reputation Three Years in a Row by Prioritizing Guest Experience
Europe
Area of operation
98
Number of properties
5,800+
Number of rooms
Paradores, a luxury hotel chain in Spain, prioritized guest experience, implementing daily guest feedback follow-ups and monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs). Their commitment led to improved review scores, increased ADR, and winning Best Reputation in Spain multiple times.
Solutions implemented
Infrasys POS
Reviewpro Reputation
Iceportal Content
Shiji Platform
Daylight PMS
Meridian Experiences
Horizon Distribution
Astral Payments
Twilight Data + AI
Customer Centricity as Its Core
Even though the brand has a unique offering, it still recognized the need to safeguard online reputation to maintain its position as one of Spain’s most important hotel companies. Paradores incorporated customer centricity into all aspects of the business. The CX value chain has guided many of the decisions on quality and guest management: emotions generate memories, memories affect behaviors, and behaviors drive business.
The binds between customers and brands comes down to guest experience, and there is a direct link between guest experience and a companies’ profit and loss.
-Ramon Adillon, Online Reputation and Guest Satisfaction Management, Paradores
Challenge
Spain has always been a thriving and competitive market for hoteliers. In order to secure bookings, the brand knew early on that the battle would be fought and won online. Paradores wanted to secure a strong online reputation and ensure that clients shopping for their next holiday would choose the mover their competitors. By increasing demand, hoteliers can raise ADR and RevPAR, which has a direct impact on revenue.
In this day and age, it’s not enough todo it well. It’s necessary that customers perceive that you are doing well. You must take customers opinions into account and act precisely where the customers tell you to act.
-Ramon Adillon, Online Reputation and Guest Satisfaction Management, Paradores
Solution
The brand took on Online Reputation Management (ORM) in 2017, and quickly incorporated the solution into its processes. The group also took on Guest Satisfaction Surveys (GSS), in order to get the detailed results that are sometimes missing in freeform online reviews. To get the most out of the combined solutions, the quality team created:
•A handbook of good practices to guide hotel managers on online reputation management and how to monitor and identify areas to improve on.
•A comprehensive management response strategy guideline.
•Response templates for positive, neutral and negative reviews.
Paradores’ Best Practices for Responding to Reviews
Respond to reviews is a daily part of Paradores’ guest experience management strategy. The brand outlined the following tips:
•Every response should be written in an appropriate tone, apologizing if needed, while giving further details on what the guest has mentioned and should end on a positive note.
•Speed is key and ideally, reviews are responded to within 72 hours.
•Use templates to facilitate and increase efficiency, but make sure you personalize the responses!
•Use the responses as an opportunity to highlight any new measures you’ve implemented recently, for example cleanliness.
•Respond to al portals and all reviews categories.
Engaging the Entire Business
Guest experience needs to be at the heart of a business for it to truly work and this is something Paradores are well aware of. To act on different guest touchpoints during the stay and make “wow moments,” staff must be fully engaged and have guest experience “in their DNA.” To ensure this, the brand implemented the following:
• Staff KPIs are based on guest experience criteria.
• Head office provides support on specific cases.
• Corporate offices set annual objectives on a regional level and on a hotel level for GRI™, questionnaires, response time and response rate for each category of reviews.
Monitoring Is Also a Key Driver to Success
To ensure ongoing service excellence, Paradores monitors continually:• Monthly KPIs reports focusing on the Global Review Index ™ scores compared to same period previous year.
• Any property with a drop of more than 1.5 points must draw up a monthly improvement plan with actions the property will implement to increase score and reverse situations.
• Departments that negatively affect scores are identified and assisted.
• Yearly reports are filed to pinpoint repetitive errors that affect quality of the service, action is then taken on a company level for continuous improvement.
“Good Processes Make Great Results.”
Since 2017 the group have shown a steady increase in all KPIs – GRI™, NPS® and Guest Satisfaction Survey scores, even during the 2020 pandemic.
The group also won best brand in Spain for two consecutive years (2019-2020) according to the thinktank ‘brand finance.’
What we are trying to achieve is to attract new customers through a good management response as well as maintain and increase the high level of satisfaction that we enjoy today. To do so we first listen to the voice of the customer and act accordingly, implementing the necessary improvement plans and actions to meet and exceed“ customer expectations.
-Laura Arias Cubría, Accommodation, CX and Quality Director, Paradores de Turismo
About the
Paradores
Paradores is a public company that has been serving tourists since 1928. It successfully fulfils its mission of promoting the best image of Spain, protecting the country’s historical and cultural assets, promoting local economies and caring for the environment.
About Shiji Group
Shiji Group is a multinational technology company that provides software solutions and services for enterprise companies in the hospitality, food service, retail, and entertainment industries, ranging from hospitality technology platforms, hotel management solutions, food and beverage, and retail systems, payment gateways, data management, online distribution and more.
Founded in 1998 as a network solutions provider for hotels, Shiji Group today comprises over 5,000 employees in 80+ subsidiaries and brands in over 31 countries, serving more than 91,000 hotels, 200,000 restaurants, and 600,000 retail outlets.
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