We connect you with your guests: reviews, questions & answers on outdooractive.com
Guests looking for a source of inspiration are able to search through a variety of tools, platforms and channels. However, destinations are losing more and more control over this defining phase of the customer journey. We want to give you back that control by offering the possibility to be able to communicate with your guests more efficiently and directly. These are the main drivers of an effective information exchange. It is also of central importance to be able to communicate with both current visitors and potential ones. Outdooractive provides the tool required for a direct interaction with the new ‘Questions & Answers’ function.
Destinations are the experts when it comes to dealing with questions about their region and they should therefore use the opportunity to communicate directly with their guests. The Outdooractive Platform gives them access to interact with 10 million potential guests each month. ‘Questions & Answers’ creates a completely new way of looking after guests and the ability generate and respond with direct feedback is a good quality indicator in respect of the destination. To make the process easier still, users of the Outdooractive DMS system also receive a notification as soon as any interaction with their online content is taking place, the only prerequisite being that the email notifications are enabled.
The following changes allow destinations to interact with their guests:
Questions & Answers
In the Question and Answers section guests can ask questions that you, as the author of the content, can directly answer. As representatives of your destination, you have the opportunity to pass on accurate and targeted information to parties interested in your region and in doings so, elevate your role as local experts. In order to be able to process information in the best possible way, questions and answers can be handled using texts, photos and videos.
In order to further strengthen the interaction between the guest and destination, optimizations have been made in the following functions.
Reviews
In the ratings section, guests are able to review, among other things, their routes, hotels and restaurants with a rating of one to five stars. What is new now is that you can respond to these directly thus acknowledging the guest. You can even publish additional information where necessary. As a comment is now required for each rating, you are also better able to be found in search engine results.
Users are only permitted to leave one rating per product or service, in order to avoid any manipulation. Reviews and comments left in the ratings section are displayed in a manner that is chronological and contextual, irrespective of whether an actual star rating has been given. Ratings can be remarked on, liked, and shared across social media to generate even greater interaction.
Uploading photos without any hurdles.
In addition to reviews, pictures are also essential when it comes to destinations being chosen. Guests can therefore upload images showing places and routes without the need to provide descriptive text. In order to create a legally compliant framework when uploading content, they are currently advised to only publish pictures and videos for which they have Usage Rights.
Thanks to all the new features and the fact that guests need a user login, destinations not only obtain the ability to interact directly with their guests, but also to gather a wealth of useful information about them, which can then be used for long-term targeted brand communication.
We will be telling you more soon about how Outdooractive can bring more guests your way and how easy it is to get closer to them to help cultivate and make use of the guest relationship.