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The Power of Reviews for Travel-Oriented and Other Sites
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About the Author
Frances Mary Krug (311 Posts)
Frances Krug has worked in market research since graduating from UCLA with an MA and CPhil in Latin American history. As an editor and online content provider for the last 7 years, she currently is Associate Editor at iNET Interactive, where she also directs Search Marketing Standard's email marketing program.
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We have it in our pipeline, but are a bit reluctant to the idea because it is so easy to make fake reviews unless controlled very strictly by the website owner.
As you mention in the article “if more than 10% heeded them and headed elsewhere, the cost only increases in terms of lost revenue”. Now say that you did not care much for the hotel owner so for personal reasons you made a bad review of the hotel.
It makes the hotel owner very fragile. Now some websites let hotel owners remove the worst reviews, but then the idea falls through obviously.
Hmm but we might still go for it…
I know there is risk inherent in allowing users to review your property, but even more risky is not registering your hotel at the free review sites (like TripAdvisor) and other places online that offer the ability for users to post reviews (like Google’s Local Business Center). These are free opportunities to get your name out there and reach people who may never have even known you existed, much less had an opinion of your property. Casual visitors to review sites may not even realize that a site allows the owner to remove bad reviews. However, you can also look at bad reviews as an opportunity to address real concerns (assuming they are not the result of a nasty campaign by a disgruntled worker, etc.) — some sites will arrange for the reviewer and reviewee to connect and if you solve the complaint through that interchange, sometimes the reviewer themselves will re-post about your excellent customer service in response, thereby dulling the effect of their first negative comments. Finally, it’s not unknown for competitors and the like to fraudulently “claim” your location at review sites and put up false information that may be way more harmful to you in the long run. All in all, it’s a huge subject, but I think you would be wise to investigate further and seriously consider looking at the available travel sites that offer free listings for businesses.
I always look at reviews when booking a hotel. I use trip advisor.