5 Ways to Create an Amazing First Impression on Your Guests

Impress your guests from the start by paying attention to the intersection of multiple spaces, from your website to your lobby.

First impressions are important, and they may happen in an instant. In fact, research shows a guest may form a first impression of your hotel in 33 milliseconds.

Make a good first impression, and a guest may be more likely to book, enjoy their stay and leave a glowing review of your property. Make a bad one, and all your efforts to provide stellar service may fall flat on a guest who’s already made up their mind.

To cultivate an excellent first impression, you need to focus on the various ways and places in which a guest first interacts with your brand – including your website, your lobby and the staff members who interact with a guest before and at the very beginning of their stay.

Here are 5 ways to make sure you create a favorable first impression on your guests:

1. Make your website attractive and user friendly. Think of your website as a “virtual lobby” that guests are stepping into before they set foot on your property. Consider pleasing colors and design, along with ease of use, to make guests feel welcome in your virtual space. Check your loading time too, as a too-slow website can cause frustration before your guests even have a chance to book a room at your property.
2. Cultivate a flow of great reviews. Many prospective guests look at reviews before anything else. In addition to the quality of the reviews, three factors matter most in creating a good impression, according to “The Lasting Impact of First Impressions for Hotels,” a white paper from Travel Media Group. These factors are: recency of the latest reviews, a steady stream of reviews and hotel response. You have the most control over the last factor, so make sure to leave responses that sound professional and gracious. If a guest complains, show that you tried to reach out to fix the problem.
3. Work on your social media presence. Keep in mind that social media is another place a prospective guest might first interact with your brand. Take advantage of your social media channels to showcase what your hotel has to offer via excellent content and pleasing images. But also make it a place to show off your great service. This means answering questions, offering help and responding graciously to complaints or issues. Consider this statistic: 90 percent of millennials expect businesses to respond on social media within a day or less.
4. Create an inviting lobby. Your lobby is one of the most important pieces of real estate you own when it comes to making a first impression. Evaluate your lobby imagining that you’re a new guest stepping in for the very first time. Consider the colors, design, sights, sounds and smells. Adding a signature fragrance in your lobby is one easy way to make a guest feel at home, and even bring back pleasant memories, which will then be associated with your brand. Consider working with a designer to employ the principles of lobby design, including scale, zoning, lighting, style and sound.
5. Greet guests like a host. Create options that allow guests to check in and arrive how they want to with as much, or as little, interaction as they’d like. Remember that some guests will love being able to check in on the hotel app or at a kiosk, breezing straight to their room without talking to anyone. Others may want to be greeted with a smile and some friendly chit chat. Like a good host, try to cater to their preferences to create a good impression from the start.

“If you lose them at the beginning, it is very hard to recover,” hospitality designer Douglas Nysse has stated. “In their mind, they’ve decided it is a bad hotel.” On the other hand, if you win them over from the start, it can be the beginning of a long, and loyal, relationship.