Customers’ reviews are essential for growth of your business

By Jumia Travel Tanzania

The coming of the science and technology era, in specific the internet sphere has changed tremendously how companies advertise their products and services worldwide.These new media platforms have granted power to customers to testify, criticise and comment on what their experiences with products and services.

A while ago majority of advertisers concentrated predominantly on traditional modes of advertisement such as television and radio, a one-way communication stream. This did not provide room for customers to share their experiences, question, criticise or comment on products.

However recently, companies have shifted their focus to online advertising and more engaged based approaches. Most companies have invested a lot on website building as well as their official social media pages such as facebook, twitter and instagram.

Investing in online media has helped thousands of brands grow because of the reasonable number of followers, likes, viewers, engagements and influence it has within the digitized community. Customers are attracted to companies with a huge influence in their community encouraging them to purchase its products and services.

The travel and hospitality industry has seen this movement towards technological advancement recently. Online marketing platforms allow customers to survey hotels online as though they are physically there. Moreover, it enables customers to share their experiences towards the services they were provided with.

Jumia Travel (www.travel.jumia.com), Africa's No.1 hotel booking website, allowing you to get the best prices for more than 25,000 hotels in Africa and more than 200,000 hotels around the world, has encouraged several hotels by awarding certificates for Customers’ Selection due to higher number of positive reviews their received from their customers throughout 2016.

Speaking on the importance of these awards Jumia Travel Tanzania country manager, Ms. Fatema Dharsee noted that, “These awards are crucial to the growth of business as they keep one aware on how customers rate your hotel and services when they visit. For many years now, word of mouth has been the dominant tool considered when purchasing a product or service because people are highly convinced with the experience felt by their friends or close ones. Through our online hotel booking platform, customers are able to share experience of the hotels they stayed, comment on the services provided to them, criticize as well as offer suggestions to areas in need  of improvements.”

“Now it is the time for hoteliers to recognize how powerful customers’ ratings through online media platforms are for the growth of their business. Online media engagements, especially positive reviews from the customers who experienced good services are enough to market your business since they are authentic and genuine. Therefore, i would like to urge hotel managers who received these certificates to make sure they are following very closely and working effectively on customers’ reviews to improve their services.” Concluded Ms. Dharsee

Hotels which received the certificates for Customers’ Selection are such as Jafferji House & Spa Hotel and Garden Lodge both from Zanzibar Island; while from Dar es Salaam are Peacock Hotel, Butterfly Hotel and Golden Tulip Hotel.