Passionate about technology, media and chocolate eclairs, I've worked in web and print for over twenty years and now run a digital media consultancy in Scotland.
How much do we trust testimonials? On brochures and websites, they might be taken with a pinch of salt. A selection of the most glowing remarks hand-picked to serve a purpose.
It’s overt marketing and people know that.
Enter review sites. They allow totally independent reviews, good and bad, to appear against an establishment’s listing on a third-party site. It’s a good system, but open to abuse, and users need to watch out for key clues.
I’ve had my attention drawn to a couple of high class establishments in Scotland recently who have absolutely no need for fake reviews, but yet they are paying ‘consultants’ to raise their profile, and this is the approach they take.
Genuine businesspeople who wait patiently for their reviewers to build up their credibility are fuming that this is going on. The person who pointed out these reviews to me said:
“This practice destroys the value of independent review sites. Review sites are building a good reputation of their own, but it only takes a few stories like this to get into the media and spoil it. Anybody who thinks it is easy to trick review sites is short-sighted.”
Consultants should be giving the advice that this practice is potentially extremely damaging and possibly illegal. They should not, under any circumstances, be condoning it, or worse, creating fake profiles to post their own biased reviews. Yes, they’ve probably stayed in the property, and yes they probably did enjoy it. It still doesn’t make it right.
In fact, TripAdvisor publishes a lengthy list of penalties for anyone caught in the act. It includes the posting of a large red panel warning readers of the discovery. And it offers this advice for establishments who have found themselves blacklisted: check what your staff and marketing agents have been up to!
Review sites rank well in search engines and it may be that unscrupulous agents are posting fake reviews to get better rankings for their client. Could they perhaps be unaware of the damaging consequences.
My advice for travellers who use reviews to make decisions is this:
It’s important of course to remember that most operators do not solicit or approve of fake reviews, and this only affects a minority, but if you are a business owner employing marketing consultants to raise your profile on such sites, test them by asking if they’d post fake reviews, then walk away if you’re not 100% sure they won’t.
Social media consultants are making their mark, legitimately, by bringing together review sites like TripAdvisor and customer-focussed establishments.
It’s not fair when a bad apple comes along to spoil it.
Hi Mark,
I do agree that their are some unscrupulous practices going on regarding hotel review sites and have heard some stories ourselves about the practices being put in place by some hotels to get reviews. We have also been the victim of malicious reviews from people that have never stayed here, but the likes of tripadvisor has been a a godsend to us and we can genuinely say that all the reviews on our heading are genuine. Yes we have people that have asked us were to put a review and these guests may often or not be the first time on tripadvisor and they have enjoyed themselves enough to want to leave a review. We have also just recently had someone leave a review saying 5*. If we have not had a review placed for a while may e-mail some of our guests with the tripadvisor link (which is actively encouraged by tripadvisor).
We do work extremely hard to ensure our reviews are good and this could make other people think our reviews are not genuine.
Hi Julia
I understand your concern and I applaud you, and people like you, for doing it right. Genuine people do sometimes only leave one review, and it is important that visitors take everything on balance.
In the case of your establishment, if you take away all your single contributions, you are still left with an equally merited record of five-star reviews from visitors with 4,5,9,25 and even 65 contributions. There’s no question they are genuine.
I wanted to make a point that reputable establishments were unnecessarily, and maybe unknowingly, putting their reputations at risk by taking advice from people willing to take chances; people who could just walk away.
Highlighting this practice helps to make operators aware of potential dangers.
TripAdvisor has a good reputation and is a trusted source of independent reviews that’s why it’s important to alert the minority to bad practice.
Marc