Blogs
There are now an abundance of peer review websites on the internet pertaining to the hospitality industry and people often use them to decide where to eat, stay or visit. As such plenty of restaurants, bars and hotels want to ensure that their establishment does not just have a blank space on such sites.
So what is the way to get round this? Post a review yourself perhaps? Well this is actually an exercise in futility and won't do the proprietors any favours. Further to this, a move is being made to try and name and shame which companies undertake such practices, which could be very bad for business.
Review site Yelp has started to roll out technology which identifies behaviour which is leading to fraudulent recommendations and in some cases negative reviews on competitors' sites. It is thought that other sites such as TripAdvisor will follow suit in future, which will help to improve customer experience. Fake reviews degenerate the faith that potential customers have in such platforms and can mean that clients do not get the experience which they expected when booking. An average 70 per cent of new business comes from recommendations and the traditional word-of-mouth route is falling behind such review sites, but repeat business is just as important.
HospitalityGEM supports initiatives which crack down on fake reviews and suggests that businesses communicate with their customers through a branded online feedback site. This allows them to canvass the opinions of a wide cross section of their client base and get informative and constructive responses to specific parts of the service. Not only does this help to improve that vital reputation, but also allows hotels, restaurants and bars to understand areas where they can improve and put things right.
Taking to the computer and typing out a fake review is not productive, as the public can often see right through them, they are frowned upon and can lead to customers expecting a level of service which they simply will not be given.
