Travel review site Tripadvisor was in the news last week when a british hotelier threatened to sue the service over a subscriber’s poor report that alleged, among other things, a dead mouse was found in their suite.
Online review sites are changing the way we do business, particularly in the hospitality industries where sites like Tripadvisor, Urbanspoon and Eatibility are becoming the first places people check when planning a meal or holiday.
The value in these sites are the user reviews, people trust others opinions and experiences far more than they trust marketing material or even the world of professional reviewers.
For customers and the industry this is a good thing, however there is a downside as anonymous reviewers can’t always be trusted to tell the truth.
So how do we separate the false reviewers, be they positive ones placed by the establishments or negative ones places by competitors or people with an axe to grind?
Reviewer profiles
All review sites show the reviewers’ history. If a reviewer has only one review then the credibility is suspect, particularly if that one review is overly critical or complimentary. Trust reviewers with multiple, fair minded posts.The nature of the reviews
Real reviewers rarely score ten or nine out of ten on all aspects. So treat gushing reviews with suspicion.Mixed reviews
Even the best establishment has a bad day and even if they are perfect there is always a customer who is never happy. Real reviews vary across a range where a venue with top service might see the review scores ranging from 7 to 10 out of 10.Review length
Long rambling reviews praising or criticising everything from the online booking facilities through to the dining room’s cutlery are either the work of plants or a nutters. Most genuine reviews are a paragraph or two.Age of reviews
Establishments change over time, some get better and some go downhill. Newer reviews deserve more weighting although some managements decide it’s easier to fix a problem by making their own reviews so be cautious of a recent wave of positive reviews.
Regardless of whether managers and business owners like them or not, review sites are here to stay and they are spreading out of hospitality into almost every industry.
So for business owners, it’s important to take reviews seriously and use the legitimate ones as a reality check to make sure you and your staff are delivering the best possible product.
For customers, these sites can be a really useful service but they rely on real people giving genuine reviews. If you do use one of these sites to research your travel and dining, give a little back to the community by adding your own honest reviews.
Review sites are part of the information economy that’s developed around the Internet and we expect trustworthy data to be at our fingertips. Time will tell just how much we can trust these sites
Insightful article Paul, as this is precisely the way I travel …online.
I research online, book online, and review online; and with out much ado. In fact, I’ve found the businesses interested in your opinion, before you go online, usually rate better than the average bear.
The downside of online reviews is within the social media community. I once read a tweet from a top end social media gooroo in a restaurant with her partner. The service wasn’t up to her standard, therefore she tweeted a bad review was about to hit the press.
My question is valid are reviews from the social media crowd, as many review products they can keep, and
Has the social media community become a community of peer indexed bullies?
Cheers
Catherine
Forgive me, there is a word missing in the first question, which should read …
My question is, how valid are reviews from the social media crowd, …
You raise a good point about online communities, Catherine. There is a tendency for them to become echo chambers where people follow and listen to only those they agree with.
I suspect this is the limiting factor for social media channels as they try to spread into broader markets.
The big review sites themselves tend not to have that problem as thousands of people, most of them casual users, are contributing.
A weakness for them are the tendency for fake reviews and one off posters and I suspect the answer is a Google like algorithm that gives weight to more frequent posters and balanced reviews.
Your point about businesses that listen is spot on, in today’s environment those who listen have the competitive advantage over those who don’t.