One of the biggest gripes among and hospitality or tourism-based business is the anonymous online review.
We’ve helped many people over the years with trolls who have defamed venues and individuals just because they were refused entry or kicked out for being drunk – or just because they are competitors. It’s a real pain and emotionally draining for owner operators who care about their businesses.
Now Restaurant & Catering Australia is in discussions with the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission on the operation of restaurant review websites – in particular Urbanspoon and Trip Advisor. The issue they are tackling is fake reviews and fake testimonials and the impact this has on restaurants and cafes in the industry.
“The scope of the project by ACCC involves online reviews or testimonials which do not reflect the reviewer’s honestly held belief about the product reviewed, but are instead based on an ulterior motive. The reviews may be authored by the business whose product is reviewed, a competitor, ex-staff or a paid intermediary such as a marketing firm or casual labour. The ACCC are looking into fake negative reviews, fake positive reviews, as well as the manipulation of review results as a consequence of undisclosed commercial relationships,”
says Restaurant & Catering.
“However, with most of these review platforms they do not ask a complainant to leave contact details allowing for an owner or manager to contact the aggrieved customer and these platforms are not compelled to pass the complaints information on to the business as it breaches the privacy laws.”
“Most members who have dealt with complaints about food quality and/or staff complaints have dealt with these issues when they arise, by dealing directly with the complainant if they have chosen to leave a name or contact email.”
They are right to be concerned but I think there is a basic misunderstanding of how online reviews work and the significance of isolated fake reviews and about how people complain.
I think it is a restaurateur fantasy that most people complain at the time a problem occurs. Most people are non-confrontational and would prefer to finish their meal without agro as you never know what the reaction of staff or the owner will be. Some are terrific in dealing with service and quality issues but many can be abrupt and rude (like the owner of a St Kilda bar where I was recently threatened with violence for no reason).
Many friends just don’t want to complain as they don’t want to ruin an experience by complaining so they do it online after the fact.
For the big sites such as Urbanspoon, Yelp, Google, Foursquare, Facebook, Tripadvisor you do have to sign-in. And with most sites – in food I think only Urbanspoon really counts in terms of web traffic – if a venue claims its listing then they can communicate directly with complainants in public or privately.
Also the restaurant industry needs to realise that online reviews are really about the wisdom – or some would say foolishness – of crowds. That is a handful of bad reviews out of dozens – or hundreds – do not affect the overall perception of a venue. Or the score if the site gives one.
In fact, research shows that people find that negative reviews give credibility to positive ones.
These online reviews are the new word of mouth and I don’t believe these discussions are likely to affect the larger sites, not to say anonymous blogs. Increasingly in the future reviews are going to be driven by recommendations on sites such as Facebook where the new graph search shows friends and family likes of venues.
The real answer is to manage your online reputation properly and learn to read the subtext of reviews – whether they are competitors, genuine problems or isolated incidents – and respond to them appropriately.