Hospitality Matters: Reviewing the Reviewers – An honest take on TripAdvisor from the business perspective
In this issue of Hospitality Matters, I delve into the topic of online reviews that I believe have disrupted the consumer journey in the F&B space and impacted us restaurateurs and business-owners just as much, if not more than it has the average consumer. We often see the world “ooh” and “aah” over customer review sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp and other websites making a living out of user-generated content, however no one talks about its implications on us business owners, representing our side of this mega-movement of ‘sharing customer experience’. I figured someone’s got to shed light on our side of the situation and well today, I am.
TripAdvisor attracts an approximately 340 million unique visitors every month giving review sites like it the potential to make or break a business. It is a great platform that finally gives consumers a voice of their own. Instead of a one-way marketing model, platforms such as TripAdvisor has given consumers a chance to share their experiences and feedback to allow other consumers like them to make more informed choices and hear from their peers instead of being subject to one way advertising by businesses. It has also allowed for businesses to generate more revenue through TripAdvisor’s reach in the F&B space with diners, especially tourists able to be exposed to our restaurants and make reservations well in advance giving businesses like ours greater reach and more business. On the other hand, sites like TripAdvisor have also impacted businesses like ours unfavourably. Let’s explore how :
- There’s no opting out
Review sites can be tricky for businesses because there is no option to opt-out. Businesses can be listed on these sites without your knowledge (or permission) and there’s nothing you can do to stop that from happening. Since businesses are already listed on this site, most businesses have reported to have felt pressure to purchase a ‘pro’ account or invest in some sort of advertising to have a more favourable placement on the site or to simply be able to respond to reviews about their businesses on the platform. This “pay to play” model can be very frustrating for businesses who have no choice but to cough up the dollars.
- Astroturfing
As great as it is that there are spaces on the internet where real consumers are able to share real experiences (positive or negative), we would be lying to ourselves if we said we believed that all this content was genuine. TripAdvisor and other sites have come under fire multiple times for being unable to combat fake-reviews and astroturfing (The act of creating a small organization and making it appear to represent something popular for the purpose of promoting a particular entity). Apparently each review on TripAdvisor passes through about 50 automated filters before being assessed by a content-analysis team and yet, The Shed was voted number one restaurant in London…and it didn’t even exist.
For those of you who don’t know, In 2017 , a freelance writer named Oobah Butler listed his restaurant called ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ on TripAdvisor. He bought a burner phone, created a website, created a menu and added photographs of delicious and artsy looking dishes that were made out of bleach tablets and shaving creams and listed it on TripAdvisor. An iconic photo shows an egg on a plate that’s being balanced on the sole of his foot that was cropped out of the frame. He listed the restaurant as an appointment only restaurant and had a couple of his friends write reviews on TripAdvisor (including some vaguely negative ones to enhance its credibility) and Voila! The Shed ascended to No 1 ranking on TripAdvisor in all of London all thanks to fake reviews!…A restaurant that didn’t even exist. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the 21st century.
- Biasedness
Obviously their financial valuations are based on the number of monthly active users so regardless of what they say TripAdvisor is definitely more biased towards it’s reviewers rather than the restaurants. The Communications Decency Act in the United States protects sites like TripAdvisor from being held liable for third party posts as they are considered ‘neutral third party hosts’ but are they really? TripAdvisor is often unwilling to remove questionable reviews from its site even when flagged by restaurants. Neither does it agree to delete older reviews (what happens when the management at a business changes? Or if the business has been around for over 10 years and things have changed?). TripAdvisor has also come under fire for screening owner’s responses more vigorously than member comments. Often times when businesses dispute certain reviews, TripAdvisor shows bias towards the reviewer by asking the reviewer to reconfirm their experience instead of removing the review or exploring other ways to settle the dispute. What are the chances that the reviewer is going to change his mind about his experience at the restaurant once he’s already written a one-sided biased review? What happens if a restaurant or hotel has a legitimate case to dispute the review?
- Inconsistency
Apart from being biased, there is a huge mountain of inconsistency on how disputes are handled by TripAdvisor. Some reviews that are highly questionable are allowed to stay despite businesses refuting the absurd claims multiple times. We once had a guest who was not allowed to enter Above Eleven because of our strict dress-code policy that is made clear on our website, social-media and even sent to the diner along with our reservation confirmation. Even without entering our premises, the diner gave us a 1 star on TripAdvisor. We lost out on the ratings simply because the diner was unaware of the dress-code and did not even give us a chance to service them when they entered the restaurant. Through no fault of our own, we received a negative rating on TripAdvisor and there’s absolutely nothing we could do about it.
This is very frustrating for restaurants and hotels because the Standard Operating Procedure for TripAdvisor is at the discretion of the customer service representative who is looking at the particular dispute and each agent does not approach each review consistently. This creates an unfair advantage to the reviewer.
Having said that, as a consumer, I think TripAdvisor is a great platform that does have benefits for consumers, restaurants and other businesses alike. However, TripAdvisor needs to up it’s game and facilitate a platform that is unbiased and fair to both the reviewer and the business in order to create a truly open platform where businesses and consumers are able to close the communication gap and strive to deliver and savour excellent experiences – as they should.
