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She Gave a Hotel a Mediocre Review. Then Came the Badgering

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Re: She Gave a Hotel a Mediocre Review. Then Came the Badgering

#11

Post by alejo »

justworkout wrote: post #3

I'm currently planning a trip to India. I've been to several countries around the world and never worried about reviews too much, but India really seems to align with this story. I'll see hotels with countless 5 star reviews (hundreds or even thousands!) that are overwhelmingly positive and get ready to book. But with one hotel my BS meter got triggered, since it was in a rather dingy seeming part of town but still h…

One strategy I use is to focus on negative reviews. Read as many and see what things they are complaining about.

Something you can see patterns of petty complains, and other times you can detect bigger issues that may make you look elsewhere instead

Re: She Gave a Hotel a Mediocre Review. Then Came the Badgering

#12

Post by smashed »

gnicholas wrote: post #4

I've heard from establishments after leaving reviews on several occasions. Typically they will either offer a free meal or a refund of the unsuccessful meal. I will update a review to let people know that I was taken care of, but I haven't ever taken down a review. I would consider doing so if my experience had been one-off, and I understood that it would not happen again (e.g., if an employee acted terribly and was…

That is also why Airbnb as a company is doing Ok, but not great. In other words, a terrible investment.

Re: She Gave a Hotel a Mediocre Review. Then Came the Badgering

#13

Post by kstrauser »

iammer wrote: post #7

Amazon seems to encourage this. I ordered a pair of cheap wireless headphones that were highly rated. I get them and they are crap. But, included in the package is a flyer offering an Amazon gift card for more than I paid for the headphones if I gave a 5-star review. My integrity is worth way more to me that that. So I leave a one-star review with a picture of the flyer, hopefully someone else will see that and reali…

Same with me. Amazon rejected my review that was similar to yours, so I blogged about it instead: https://honeypot.net/post/amazon-seller-tried-to-bribe-me/

If it happens again, I'll go straight to blogging without bothering to report it to Amazon. I may not have that many readers, but it's more than the zero that I'd have through a rejected Amazon review.

Re: She Gave a Hotel a Mediocre Review. Then Came the Badgering

#14

Post by irishloop »

I once gave an Airbnb 4 stars because I was annoyed they had no way to make coffee, even though it was basically a hotel being run as an Airbnb. Like, not even a cheap Keurig in the lobby

They DMed me and told me that was bullshit and if I wanted coffee, I should've filtered by that amenity

Which is amazing because coffee is so expected you can't even search by it

Re: She Gave a Hotel a Mediocre Review. Then Came the Badgering

#15

Post by CSMastermind »

kstrauser wrote: post #13
iammer wrote: post #7

Amazon seems to encourage this. I ordered a pair of cheap wireless headphones that were highly rated. I get them and they are crap. But, included in the package is a flyer offering an Amazon gift card for more than I paid for the headphones if I gave a 5-star review. My integrity is worth way more to me that that. So I leave a one-star review with a picture of the flyer, hopefully someone else will see that and reali…

Same with me. Amazon rejected my review that was similar to yours, so I blogged about it instead: https://honeypot.net/post/amazon-seller-tried-to-bribe-me/ If it happens again, I'll go straight to blogging without bothering to report it to Amazon. I may not have that many readers, but it's more than the zero that I'd have through a rejected Amazon review.

I know I'm not adding anything new but I just wanted to chime in and say I've had the exact same experience as another data point for how widespread it seems to be.

Re: She Gave a Hotel a Mediocre Review. Then Came the Badgering

#16

Post by Eisenstein »

fsckboy wrote: post #9

Ratings should always be on a curve for the rater, and on a 10 point scale, with no official meaning attached to the number of stars. If you rate everything 10 stars, you just gave everything 5 stars. If you want your 10 stars to mean 10 stars, you need to rate a bell curve of other stuff too. (you might say "but if I only select the best places, and the ratings are always confirmed, that would be downvoting them." N…

> if you wish to attack my plan, I'll only listen if you offer a defense of the status quo, or offer a better improvement plan.

Sorry but you don't get to set the terms of your own critique. If you refuse to listen then that impugns your character, but it doesn't make the critique invalid.

You method is flawed because some people only leave reviews when they good service or only when they get bad service. Everyone has a different reason why they do things, and what motivates them to do things. This will only work if you force people to leave reviews, and in that case your chances of getting a legitimate rating is much smaller.

You system would be better suited to de-rate the importance of people who leave a lot of reviews that are consistently skewed towards one end, but apply such a system to everyone is not going to make the results more fair.

Re: She Gave a Hotel a Mediocre Review. Then Came the Badgering

#18

Post by neilv »

fsckboy wrote: post #9

Ratings should always be on a curve for the rater, and on a 10 point scale, with no official meaning attached to the number of stars. If you rate everything 10 stars, you just gave everything 5 stars. If you want your 10 stars to mean 10 stars, you need to rate a bell curve of other stuff too. (you might say "but if I only select the best places, and the ratings are always confirmed, that would be downvoting them." N…

> If you want your 10 stars to mean 10 stars, you need to rate a bell curve of other stuff too.

If you want your positive rating of something to have the most impact (for whatever reason), then you need to give negative ratings to other things (even if they deserve better)?

Re: She Gave a Hotel a Mediocre Review. Then Came the Badgering

#19

Post by 6DM »

iammer wrote: post #7

Amazon seems to encourage this. I ordered a pair of cheap wireless headphones that were highly rated. I get them and they are crap. But, included in the package is a flyer offering an Amazon gift card for more than I paid for the headphones if I gave a 5-star review. My integrity is worth way more to me that that. So I leave a one-star review with a picture of the flyer, hopefully someone else will see that and reali…

Your comment made me go lookup my old reviews. It's crazy, most of them were deleted. I would have expected to receive some kind of notification.

I thought I could sift through the rubble to discern fake from real but now I know Amazon reviews are absolutely worthless.

Re: She Gave a Hotel a Mediocre Review. Then Came the Badgering

#20

Post by ryandrake »

Honestly, I can't believe it is 2024 and people still believe/trust user-generated reviews of any sort. Isn't it widely known that these are always gamed, manipulated, algorithmically distorted and just totally unsuitable for making any kind of judgment about a product? I'm shocked that people and companies still pay attention to these streams of garbage.
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