Your Five-Star Reviews Aren't Building Loyalty
Why good reviews don't mean they're coming back.
When Everything Goes Right but Nothing Sticks
When your repeat rate stays flat, you’re paying to acquire the same guests over and over. People who already stayed with you, already left happy. And never came back.
Your satisfaction scores climbed. Reviews stayed positive. Everything worked. So why does your repeat rate look the same as it did two years ago?
You deliver a stay that works, guests leave happy, and then... nothing sticks. Six months later, your property doesn’t even cross their mind. That’s memory debt.
This week, do this: Pull your last 20 five-star reviews. Count how many mention something specific they’d miss—a smell, a sound, a moment, a feeling. Not “great stay.” Something that could only happen at your place.
Short on time? Five reviews. Three minutes. You’ll see it.
If that number is low, you’ve found the leak.
Your implementation trigger: When I open my review dashboard this week, I will count how many guests mentioned something sensory.
Why Satisfaction Doesn’t Stick
Bain & Company found that 60–80% of customers who leave for a competitor said they were satisfied right before they left. They weren’t unhappy.
They just didn’t have a reason to stay.
That’s the uncomfortable part. You can do everything right and still watch guests disappear.
A four-star hotel in Barcelona tested scented versus unscented rooms. Same room, same bed, same view. The scented rooms triggered higher happiness and positive emotion. The only difference? What guests smelled when they walked in.
You don’t need a renovation. You need one consistent sensory detail guests actually encounter.
Smell has one of the most direct links to the brain’s memory and emotion centers. Odor-triggered memories tend to be more vivid and emotionally intense than those triggered by sight or sound. That’s why a scent can bring back a place instantly, years later.
And that’s the part no one talks about. Memory, debt drains your revenue before you ever see it.
Why Guests Shrink
When guests arrive and nothing breaks, they settle. The stay feels handled. Complete.
And once that happens? They stop exploring. Not because they’re disappointed, but because nothing is pulling them forward. They live smaller inside the stay: fewer questions, fewer discoveries, less to take with them.
You’ve seen it. The guest who glanced at your welcome guide and closed it two seconds later. The couple who planned to walk the neighborhood never left the room.
Nothing went wrong. Nothing invited the next step either.
What does that look like in your numbers? Less word-of-mouth. Fewer spontaneous repeat stays. The same acquisition spend, quarter after quarter.
Here’s the thing: you’re not losing to chains because they’re better. You’re losing because they’re familiar. Guests already know the rhythm, so the mental work is lighter before they even check in.
You have something more interesting. You just haven’t given them anything to take with them.
The opportunity isn’t to fight predictability. It’s to create predictable texture. The same smell of coffee every morning, the same sound of the courtyard every evening. Something guests can count on that feels like yours and nowhere else.
This doesn’t require a courtyard or a signature scent. It could be the specific way you fold the towels. The playlist that’s always on at breakfast. The view from one particular chair in the lobby. The point is consistency. Something guests encounter every time that feels like yours.
The Math
Kahneman’s peak-end research found that people judge experiences by the most intense moment and the ending. Not the average of every minute. A flawlessly average stay? Gets filed under “fine” and quietly forgotten.
Here’s what that actually costs you:
Repeat guests spend 13–29% more than first-timers, depending on segment and stay type.
Harvard Business Review found emotionally connected customers are around 50% more valuable on average than merely satisfied ones and in some categories, up to twice as valuable.
Every guest who doesn’t remember you is a guest you’re more likely to pay to acquire again.
Satisfaction keeps you in the game. Memory is what brings people back.
What to Do This Week
1. Audit your reviews for memory signals (10 minutes - or 3)
Pull your last 20 five-star reviews. If you’re short on time, pull 5. Mark any line where guests mention:
A smell, a sound, a view
A moment that surprised them
Something they’d actually miss
Anything that couldn’t describe the hotel down the street
Success this week: 5+ sensory signals from 20 reviews. If not, you’ve confirmed the gap.
If you find the gap and don’t know how to close it yet. That’s fine. Seeing it clearly is the first step. Most operators are competing blind.
2. Ask one repeat guest the real question
Next time you see someone who’s come back, don’t ask what they enjoyed. Ask: “What kept coming back to you after you left?”
Listen for the difference between “it was nice” and “I kept thinking about...”
That gap is where your leverage sits.
3. Map one moment that already has texture
Walk your property. Where does light hit differently at a certain hour? What can guests smell before they see it? Where do people naturally pause?
Pick one. Protect it. Make sure guests actually encounter it.
If You Want to Go Deeper
Run a 30-day sensory audit.
Pick one sensory moment that already exists: morning coffee smell, courtyard acoustics, evening light in the lobby. Something consistent, something most guests encounter naturally.
For 30 days, note whether that moment shows up in reviews or departure conversations. If it doesn’t, you’ve found friction worth removing. Not by adding the moment, but by making sure guests experience it clearly enough for it to land.
Run This on Your Reviews
Paste this into Claude or ChatGPT with 10–20 of your recent five-star reviews:
“I run a [PROPERTY TYPE] in [LOCATION]. Below are [NUMBER] five-star reviews.
For each review, tell me:
Does it mention anything sensory (smell, sound, light, texture)?
Does it mention a specific moment or interaction?
Could this praise apply to any hotel, or is it specific to my property?
Then tell me:
What patterns do you see across all reviews?
What’s missing that guests never mention?
One simple thing I could make more consistent so guests actually notice it.
Here are the reviews: [PASTE REVIEWS]”
The Thread
Sunday’s piece was about why satisfied guests don’t come back. Monday’s blog explored what happens when nothing goes wrong: how guests settle in, stop exploring, and leave without much to remember.
This newsletter is the 10-minute version: here’s how to check whether it’s happening to you.
If your five-star reviews lack sensory details, the leak is real. And this week you can start fixing it.
Did you run the audit? Hit reply and tell me what you found. I read every response.
Until next time,
Kay