Medallia and TripAdvisor Partner to Help Hospitality Companies Encourage More Online Guest Reviews

PALO ALTO, Calif., March 14, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Medallia® (www.medallia.com), the global leader in SaaS Customer Experience Management (CEM) solutions, has partnered with TripAdvisor® (www.tripadvisor.com), the world's largest travel site*, to enable seamless and timely engagement with guests who can now post a review on TripAdvisor during the survey process. The solution allows participating hospitality companies to collect candid guest reviews and opinions on TripAdvisor to help future guests choose the right accommodation, while at the same time helping the company gauge guest satisfaction in more detail.

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The recent agreement with TripAdvisor expands the capabilities of the Medallia solution so that participating hospitality companies are automatically alerted when traveler reviews become available on TripAdvisor and can easily respond to and engage with customers who write reviews from the Medallia interface.

Medallia serves some of the largest hospitality companies in the world with a full Customer Experience Management solution (www.medallia.com/solutions/hospitality-feedback), which includes capturing, analyzing and acting on customer feedback no matter where or how it takes place, including in surveys, social media and review sites and via mobile devices. With online traveler reviews making up such a large portion of guest feedback in the hospitality industry, Medallia wants to provide its customers, including Best Western Hotels, Omni Hotels & Resorts and other major hospitality companies, with a seamless integration with TripAdvisor. Using the interface, hotel employees both centrally and at specific locations can easily encourage guests to post reviews and engage with those guests quickly as they are automatically notified when reviews are posted. This process naturally increases engagement with customers after their stay.

The agreement enables a "one click" posting process whereby participating Medallia hospitality customers invite their guests to post to TripAdvisor during the survey process. This expands the existing Medallia Promote™ offering (www.medallia.com/resources/item/social-media-promotion), so Medallia can send reviews to TripAdvisor via a direct feed. Jointly collected reviews are subject to TripAdvisor's submission policies and are attributed to the participating hospitality company on TripAdvisor. Respondents can also immediately "like" the property on Facebook or "follow" it on Twitter through Medallia Promote.

"TripAdvisor is pleased to partner with Medallia, as a growing number of hospitality companies look to increase their engagement with guests, listen to their feedback and respond effectively," said Severine Philardeau, vice president of global partnerships for TripAdvisor. "A recent TripAdvisor survey reveals that 51 percent of accommodation owners worldwide indicate that they invite travelers to share feedback about their guest experiences via email¹. TripAdvisor's goal is to make it as easy as possible for businesses to leverage online reviews as a megaphone for traditional 'word of mouth' advertising."

"Many hotels invite their guests both to fill out a survey and to post a review about a stay, double work which can be taxing and annoying for guests," said Medallia CEO Borge Hald (www.medallia.com/about/executive-team/#borge). "With this agreement in place, hotels will be able to elegantly combine their guest survey and TripAdvisor review form so that guests who provide feedback can, with minimal extra effort, also share their thoughts online. The benefits for hotels are better guest experiences and more online reviews."

About Medallia
Medallia is the customer experience management company. Founded in 2001, the company is trusted by the world's leading brands including Best Western, Four Seasons, Gold's Gym, Sephora, Sony, and Verizon to improve customer experiences. Medallia provides a cloud-based software platform, which captures feedback across Web, social, mobile, and contact center channels, analyzes it in real-time, and enables companies to take action to drive customer delight. Learn more at www.Medallia.com and follow the company at blog.medallia.com, on Twitter @Medallia, and on Facebook.com/MedalliaInc. 

About TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor^® is the world's largest travel site,* enabling travelers to plan and have the perfect trip. TripAdvisor offers trusted advice from real travelers and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features with seamless links to booking tools. TripAdvisor branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world, with more than 60 million unique monthly visitors*, and over 75 million reviews and opinions. The sites operate in 30 countries worldwide, including China under daodao.com. TripAdvisor also includes TripAdvisor for Business, a dedicated division that provides the tourism industry access to millions of monthly TripAdvisor visitors.

TripAdvisor, Inc. (NASDAQ: TRIP) manages and operates websites under 19 other travel media brands, and together the sites attract more than 75 million unique monthly visitors.**

*Source: comScore Media Metrix for TripAdvisor Sites, Worldwide, January 2013

**Source: comScore Media Metrix for TripAdvisor, Inc. and its subsidiaries, Worldwide, January 2013

©2013 TripAdvisor, Inc. All rights reserved. 

¹ TripBarometer by TripAdvisor, Global insights from tourists and accommodation providers, conducted online from Dec. 7 2012 to Jan. 7 2013. The total sample for the total business sample is 19,447.

©2013 Medallia, Inc. Medallia and Medallia Promote are trademarks or registered trademarks of Medallia, Inc. Omni and Omni Hotels are registered trademarks of Omni Hotels Management Corporation, Inc. TripAdvisor is a registered trademark of TripAdvisor, LLC. Other brand names may be trademarks of their respective owner(s). Information is subject to change without notice. All rights reserved.

Contact:
Michelle de Haaff, Medallia, (650) 321-3000, [email protected]
Lisa Hawes, Sterling Communications, (408) 884-5155, [email protected]

SOURCE Medallia