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A Written answer question, and the Ask for details question under a low score, give you the guest’s own words. Star reads every one of them a few minutes after it arrives, so a guest never waits on the reading, and turns them into the What guests wrote block on Results. This page explains what that reading does — and what it does not.

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One answer, read on its own

Every written answer is read separately, in the language the guest wrote it. The reading names each thing the guest talked about — a subject — and how they felt about it. One answer can carry several subjects: a sentence praising breakfast and complaining about the noise is two subjects, with two different readings.

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A fixed list of subjects

Subjects are matched to one fixed list of hotel topics — 69 subjects in 11 areas — so a towel complaint written in Russian and one written in German count as the same subject: When the words say something the list has no name for — a bike rental would be great — the subject is shown as Other, with the words the reading gave it, rather than forced into the nearest topic.

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Four readings

Each subject carries one of four readings: positive, negative, neutral, or mixed. Only a negative reading counts as a complaint. A wish, a remark, or praise is kept and shown, but it is never treated as a problem.

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The guest’s own words

Every subject carries a quote — the guest’s own text, checked against the answer before it is stored. A subject whose quoted words cannot be found in the answer is dropped, and the screen says how many were dropped that way. What you read under a subject is always what the guest wrote, never a summary.

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Which department

A subject is placed in a department by the guest’s own words alone. The department of the question they were answering does not decide it — a guest can complain about the restaurant inside a housekeeping question, and the complaint goes to the restaurant. When the words do not say which department a subject belongs to, it is shown under Not placed in a department — counted there rather than guessed into one.

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How the block counts

  • Responses counts answered surveys — one per stay. A guest who stayed twice and answered twice is two. It never counts sentences.
  • Mentions counts how many times a subject came up across those responses.
  • Was N is how many responses named the subject in the period of the same length before this one. It is shown only when both periods have been read in full; otherwise the screen says why it is not compared.
  • The line beside the heading says how many written answers were read, how many are still waiting to be read, how many said nothing about the stay, and how many could not be read. Every count in the block is over the answers that were read.
  • Under each department, subjects several guests named come first; subjects one guest named are folded under more subjects, each from one response.
Two sentences at the top of the block are chosen for you: Most complained about and Most praised — the subject the most responses complained about, and the one the most responses praised, each with last period’s number when the periods can be compared.

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When an alert fires

A low score alerts your team on its own — the overall question, or any department question at or below your follow-up threshold. Written answers add a second road: a negative subject with the guest’s own words alerts the same people, in the same way, even when the guest gave five stars — the air conditioning has been broken for three days under a 5-star answer reaches your team tonight.
  • Only complaints alert anyone. Praise, neutral remarks and wishes never do.
  • The alert shows the guest’s own words, with the subject and the department.
  • One alert per answer. The rating is never changed by the reading.
  • Feedback your team has already acted on, or that a low score already alerted, is left alone — the words were on that alert.
Who is alerted, and on which channels, is set under Alerts — the same people who hear about a low rating.

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What it is not

This is a count of what was said, not a measure of what matters most. A subject named by six responses is a subject to look at; it is not proof that it decided anyone’s rating. The same reading of a guest’s words also feeds Guest Pulse once, alongside your published reviews, so a survey answer is never counted there twice.