Is Using questionnaires to measure guest satisfaction is waste of money?

It's a dilemma, if they are to complex and comprehensive guests don't complete them, if they are to simple, the information gained is meaningless.  We Think, when used well, that questionnaires are one of the best ways to measure the guests’ satisfactions, or to measure any packages, promotions and impact with our guests. It is widely used in many areas like restaurants or hotels …… specially online, keeping the results is a good reference for future questionnaires.

Cards have been very useful in the rooms for comments, however the use and use of cards has been antiquated to some degree.  Some hotels have installed an iPad at their desk for guest comments.  It has given them some very good feedback and guest like it better than the comment cards. The format is quick and easy for the guest, all they have to do is insert their room number and all of their info is there along with what they liked as well as what they did not. There is an option to remove their info if they so choose to do so.  Problems encountered are sent to each department for critique and then fixed and usually emailed back to guest with a comment from the General Manager.

I think questionnaires provide good feedback overall, and more than anything, I think it gives the client the opportunity to provide useful feedback. However as they are so widely used, clients are often bored or ¨just don’t bother¨. So always useful to link these to a ¨reason to fill it in¨ i.e. because they know it is going to be read - I think it is always important to follow this up, even if with just a ¨thank you¨. The fact that they give you an email provides you also with a great marketing tool. This gives them more credibility. In the past we have always contacted the client with a problem, BEFORE leaving the establishment. That way the client provides further feedback, and doesn’t leave ¨disgruntled¨. Often a questionnaire just gets filled in as a complaint - encourage clients to also praise - i.e. Can link into employee of the month scheme. Also very important at the time of creating a questionnaire that these are configured to provide useful information, so as to get the maximum affectivity from this. They must divide Fact from Opinion. It is also a useful training tool - set departmental budgets for customer satisfaction in percentages as part of your Quality Management Systems. Works more often than not as a great, and free, motivator. So back to the original question, they are useful, if you manage them well, make them work for you and make the staff participate actively in their use.

I'm convinced that using guest feedbacks to improve our services, to discover the feelings of our guests is the best long-term solution to improve quality & loyalty. What do you think?