How good is that review, really?
OPINION: The hotel staff had seen the look that was in my eyes before.
‘‘Behind the bar and to your right.’’
It was there I found a clean Western-style toilet that flushed and had oodles of toilet paper. I couldn’t have been happier if someone had gifted me a palace. In this small town in Nepal, the threestar hotel was clearly used to desperate travellers with all sorts of ailments, yet they still managed to make me feel like I was the most special sick guest they had ever hosted.
As I languished in bed, fresh towels and bathroom supplies arrived regularly. When a fellow guest asked staff to keep an eye on me, I realised the whole hotel – embarrassingly – knew of my plight.
Customer service takes on a whole new importance when you’re sick in another land.
And on a recent trip to India and Nepal, I also discovered that customer feedback had been taken to the ‘‘next level’’.
The willing acceptance of tips in India was often followed by a request to ‘‘please write a review about me on TripAdvisor’’.
Staff now seem to need to show their worth to their employers by the ravings of happy travellers, but likewise they are equally paranoid of bad reviews.
This seems to be because, in this customer-centric world, employers are using feedback to manage their staff.
Our tour guide, who was amazing, was quick to inform us how our customer feedback would impact on his rankings within the company.
While I am the first to want to give good feedback, some of the standover tactics felt more than a little disingenuous.
Surely part of a good review is
Staff now seem to need to show their worth to their employers by the ravings of happy travellers.
the fact that the customer has been compelled to give feedback in the first place? And how genuine is the information on TripAdvisor and similar sites?
TripAdvisor says its words are from ‘‘trusted members of the travel community’’ and yet no checks are made on the identity of the people who post them and no proof they were really there is needed.
A friend recently discovered her photo posted next to someone else’s name reviewing a restaurant in Dubai. She had never been there.
Someone had merely lifted her picture and used it in a fictitious writeup.
Hotels can easily write their own reviews, or pay others to do so.
In fact, there is an entire industry of ‘‘reputation management’’ companies which can be hired by businesses to create highly believable fake appraisals, ‘‘fix’’ their reputation if they’ve received bad reviews, or sabotage their competitors.
And, it is too easy for staff to use strong arm tactics – or other forms of enticement – to get customers to write glowing recommendations.
TripAdvisor used to call itself the ‘‘world’s most trusted travel site’’ but after countless lawsuits in multiple countries, it removed the words ‘‘trusted’’ and ‘‘honest’’ and is now simply the ‘‘world’s largest travel site.’’
There is no doubt though that customers have a lot more power to influence than ever before and I have little doubt that if I’d written a poor review in India, the staff member I’d referred to would have ‘‘disappeared’’ the next time I visited.
But having been hustled into completing reviews I wouldn’t normally have written, I’m feeling very dubious about the value of these sites for making future travel decisions.
That said, there should always be a place to give good feedback where it will positively impact on those who provided great service.
Like when you’re wide eyed with the onset of Delhi-belly in a small town in Nepal and it’s the very simple elements of service that really count.
❚ Cas Carter is a marketing and communications specialist.