Mark Simpson (Boostly) explains why guest reviews are critical to booking conversions and search ranking on platforms (Airbnb, Booking.com, TripAdvisor). He introduces and recommends a hospitality-focused review product (branded in the talk as “Reviews” / spelled out R E V Y O O S and referenced at reviews.com) that syncs five-star reviews in real time from OTAs to hosts’ own websites. He notes the product won a VR Tech Award, offers a free trial, and has tiered pricing (example: 5–9 properties ≈ €8/£8 per month). He also explains why Boostly doesn’t adopt it for all clients (agency-rate disagreement when scaling across 700+ Boostly sites).
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About €8 (about £8) per month.
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I think it'll be no surprise for me to tell you this, but one of the major impacts in the guest booking process is reviews, social proof, word of mouth. And this is one of the reasons why TripAdvisor grew so quickly between 2010, 2018. And this is another one of the reasons why Airbnb and booking.com now Google really emphasize on the review part and it majorly impacts how you rank on their search. Now, when you bear all that in mind, there's one mistake that I see hosts just like you make time and time and time again. And this is one thing that Boostly is trying to do to rectify that. Now, before we get started, before we really get into the meat of this episode. Hi. If this is the first time that you've come across the Boostly podcast, my name is Mark Simpson. I give host the tools, the tactics, the training, but most importantly the confidence to go in and get more direct bookings so you don't have to rely on Airbnb and booking.com and Verbo to do so. And let's dig in and delve into what this topic is. So we're talking about reviews and why it is so important now when it comes to your own website. So again, in the comments below, if you are watching and whatever channel you are watching on, put a link to your website. Now. Majority of the websites that I see being built today that aren't a Boostly website do not have real time reviews sinking in to their website. Which is crazy because again, we've established that reviews are so important to the guest booking process. And I go and look at a website and I do lots of marketing reviews every single month and knowing that how important reviews are and I'm looking at somebody's homepage, it amazes me how many people aren't actually having a review tool. Now there's a couple of review tools out there. We use one, but the one that we use isn't specifically designed for the world of hospitality. There's one that is and I want to draw your attention to. Again, this is not a sponsored podcast. This is not an affiliate link in any way, shape or form. This is me bringing attention to something that has been created by a host for hosts in the in the world of hospitality. The only reason why Boostly doesn't use these for her 700 plus website hosts is that reviews and I, we can't come up to an agreement on an agency rate because we do this on such mass, mass, mass, mass scale. The company that we use for our system, they do it at a much lower rate. And again, I can't because we try and keep our costs so low, that's the only reason why we don't use them. But this is the one that I recommend because number one, it is being built for the world of hospitality and short term rentals. So reviews R E V Y O O S Go and check it out. Reviews.com as you can see, some of the industry leaders, Vanessa who's been on the Boosted podcast, Mr. Simon Lehman who's on a roundtable and Mr. Matt Landau who's on a a podcast in 2020 with me, they speak highly of it and I do too. We at Boostly have got hosts that have been signed up to reviews for a while and they don't want to use our tool and they want to use theirs. And again, it does look really, really cool on a Boostly website. So the way it works is that it grabs the data from, you know, Airbnb, booking.com grabs your five star reviews and it puts it on your website. So by having the five star proof, you instantly build that trust with a guest. So when they land on your website and then maybe on the fence of booking by having these real time reviews coming in from the, you know about your property and it's because it's synced in real time. These are your latest ones. So it's not like you've just copied and pasted something from 2017 which is massively out of date. This is in real time and it's only showing those five star reviews which is kind of cool. So I do go recommend that you go and check it out. As you can see on the website, they won the fabulous VR Tech Awards and pricing wise we always like to dig into the price in here. It starts off very low. So if you've got five properties, five to nine, it is only eight euros, about eight pound a month and then it just scales up from there. The more that you scale and grow. So it grows with you. They've got a free trial which is very common nowadays. So do even go and test out and just see how it will work and benefit you. Any questions, let me know below. Hopefully the team will be watching this and they'll jump in. But also as well, if you are a reviews customer, you are a reviews client. Let's pass the conversation over to you. Why do you use them? Why do you think it's important for you? Would you recommend it to others? Please, please, please leave your comments below. If you listen to the audio version and you want to reach out. Instagram is Ostlyuk. If you want to join in the conversation, come and find us on YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. As always, I'm here every single day trying to give you the tools, the tactics to train, but most importantly the confidence to go and increase your diary booking. So with that being said, thank you so much and I'll be back tomorrow.
Having a blast gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee cuz it's so hard and the T is loose leaf making up those rhymes don't write it, just do it loosely.
