Common guest complaints in hotels, by stage of the stay

Complaints by stage of the stay

Common guest complaints in hotels make most sense when organised by the stage of the stay in which they happen, because that is how a hotel guest experiences them. That is also how operations are organised, so each stage has a natural owner.

Before arrival

• Booking not found or wrong dates.
• Room different from what was booked or shown.
• Hidden charges not mentioned at booking.
• No information about closures or events.

Arrival

• Room not ready at check-in time.
• Long check-in queues.
• Unwelcoming or slow front desk.
• Parking and luggage problems.

The room

• Cleanliness: bathroom, linen, dust.
• Maintenance: AC, hot water, lights, TV.
• Comfort: beds, pillows, temperature.
• Size and view versus expectation.

During the stay

• Noise from events, corridors, traffic.
• Wi-Fi coverage and speed.
• Slow response to requests.
• Housekeeping timing.

Food and facilities

• Breakfast variety, refills and crowding.
• Room service speed and temperature.
• Pool, gym or spa closed or crowded.

Departure

• Slow checkout.
• Billing errors and unexpected charges.
• Delays in refunds or deposits.

Tracking them

• Use these stages as top-level themes and the items under each as sub-themes.
• Tag each mention in each review, with sentiment.
• Report negative share by stage, property and month.
• Look for timing patterns where reviews mention days or times.

Common questions

Who owns each stage

• Before arrival: reservations and revenue, who control what guests are told and sold.
• Arrival and departure: front office.
• The room: housekeeping for cleanliness, engineering for maintenance.
• During the stay: front office and guest relations for requests, IT for Wi-Fi.
• Food and facilities: food and beverage, and facility managers.

Naming an owner for each stage means every complaint in a review has someone who can act on it, and a monthly view of their stage's negative share.

When complaints cluster

Hotel complaints often follow the calendar. Room-readiness complaints cluster on days when many guests check out late and others arrive early, often Fridays. Breakfast complaints cluster on full weekends. Noise complaints cluster on event nights. Checkout and billing complaints cluster on Monday mornings at business hotels. When reviews mention the day or occasion, tag it; the pattern usually points straight at a rostering or allocation fix.

An example

A group of twelve hotels finds that "room" is its largest negative stage overall. Split further, most of it is maintenance at three older properties, not cleanliness anywhere. The fix is an engineering budget for those three, not a group-wide housekeeping campaign. Without classifying by stage and sub-theme, the group would have spent effort on the wrong problem.

Do not forget the praise

The same stages carry praise: a warm welcome at the desk, a spotless room, a breakfast guests rave about. Track positive share by stage too, and protect what guests value when budgets or rosters change.

Doing this with Falcon

Falcon classifies every Google Maps review of every property into themes such as check-in, rooms, cleanliness, staff, food, facilities and value, with the sentiment of each mention. Negative share by theme, property and month shows which parts of the stay are slipping where, and every number opens the reviews behind it.