13 years
Definitely yes. :)
Guests should have to leave a comment if they leave a very bad rating.
HB "anonymous" reviewers and more ...
Hostel Reviews, Booking Engines, and Directories
I just noticed today when I spoke to one of my colleague that, when I open reviews on HB Back Office I can't see who give me review. I can only see for witch room booking was made and when the review was given?!
On top of that, I received on HW one very bad rating from customer that never show.
I know that this is a problem that we all have but I think about it and I want your opinion. What do you think about proposition for booking sites that every rating less than 65% should be commented by review before it get posted? With no less than 100 words. Bad rating marks without comment should not be considered overall.
What do you think about this?
- Comments
13 years
On top of that, I received on HW one very bad rating from customer that never show.
Email Hostelworld. If that person never actually stayed in your hostel, they´ll delete the review.
What do you think about proposition for booking sites that every rating less than 65% should be commented by review before it get posted? With no less than 100 words. Bad rating marks without comment should not be considered overall.
Why make a difference? You could just as well argue that a 100% rating without comment shouldn´t be considered.
13 years
Email Hostelworld. If that person never actually stayed in your hostel, they´ll delete the review.
Why make a difference? You could just as well argue that a 100% rating without comment shouldn´t be considered.
Regarding the no shows traditionally and I believe still, HW will remove reviews for non-stays/no-shows but recently they have stated that this may change with their new guaranteed booking program. I know of hostels that abuse this as a way to prop their average, especially the grotty, desperate motel type ones with few positive reviews.
I feel strongly that no show= no review so we will see how this develops.
I agree with Santa that no comment low score reviews should NOT be removed as they are the same as no comment high score reviews. (and many people don't leave any review at all because, of their reticence to use, or understanding of, English or even to poorly word a comment and cause undue offense or misinformation).
Remember reviews serve many purposes, from ranking of the hostels in a community/market, demographic satisfaction (HW please fix this on the new site), timeliness and time of year considerations for the area, staff training (beer and pizza for the staff too), seasonal trends and issues, improvement tracking and most importantly, for commented reviews, MARKETING.
But importantly the OP is right on the money as I do not like the relatively new way HB has "anonimized" their reviews. A anonymous no comment review is very limited as a training/correction tool for a hostel.
13 years
Why make a difference? You could just as well argue that a 100% rating without comment shouldn´t be considered.
I agree with Santa that no comment low score reviews should NOT be removed as they are the same as no comment high score reviews. (and many people don't leave any review at all because, of their reticence to use, or understanding of, English or even to poorly word a comment and cause undue offense or misinformation).
I don't mean that any reviews should be deleted, only that if a reviewer gives 20% for any attribute, the review form should require them to add a comment in order to submit the rating.
I think that for hostels with a small number of reviews, it is extremely frustrating to get a bad rating with no explanation. Hostels that genuinely care about their quality won't be able to use that bad rating to improve their services because they have no idea what why the guest was unhappy.
I think constructive criticism is appreciated by good hostels, but revenge criticism with no explanation doesn't serve any purpose for anyone. It's like having a friend you have known your whole life (the guests) who one day says, "you're a jerk and I never want to see you again," but doesn't explain why (the 20% rating without a comment). At the very least, one would expect an explanation. :)
I think if booking engines are going to make a system that has the potential to harm a small business, there should be checks in place -- like ensuring that the worst criticism is constructive.
I see 100% ratings as being a slightly different issue: the danger there is fake reviews which can be dealt with in other ways, like making better algorithms.
13 years
First Santa, thank you, I already did that, it will take some time I think, but that rating will be removed I am pretty sure.
Second, I believe in ratings and reviews first as a tool that I can see in what way and how the hostel is growing and developing. Marketing and the results on the country or any other scoreboard is nice, but it is more for showing off :) Call me old-fashioned but I still believe more in happy guest who will spread the word around (and I'm going pretty good with that).
Bad ratings without comment doesn't help me to improve. To correct potential mistake. The review without possibility to see who gave it to me (HB engine) again is no help for me.
What is the point of anonymous reviewers?! What, someone will give me low ratings and I will go chase him/her around the globe?! I mean ...
And finally, is there a difference between 100% without comment and 20% without comment. Well, Santa, you are right, we can argue about that, but we won't :) My point is that ratings and reviews should more serve hostels to learn and develop. People I know in this business work very hard and why should we be left on the mercy of some unsatisfied people who think that with 5 clicks they will be released from their frustration.
When I get bad rating and the comment from the customer I know, than I can fight.
If that means that booking engines should have that any rating should be given with additional comment, why not. There is always a way.
13 years
Low rating with no written explanation should not be allowed.
3rd party booking sites should state on the review sheet "If your review rates a property lowly (60% or less?) a text response- stating the reasons you feel -must be added or your review will not be considered."
Anyone using the ratings to help other travelers should not have a problem with this.
13 years
In today's "connected" world a first person review is "word of mouth". The fact that it is written down strengthens the impact positively or negatively, unfortunately, without the nuance of conversations. This is worrisome particularly when the vast majority of the no-comment reviewers have English as a second language.
If a reviewer does not leave a review they generally have no interest in helping fellow travelers they are just interested in leaving a direct, (often painful) point of view for the hostel, using the scoring matrix only.
No doubt the implications for small hostels with a low number of reviews is very serious and believe me the overall % for a hostel with a large number of reviews that is very highly rated (above 90%) will suffer too. One of our hostels does not get a lot of reviews and as such the scores for this hostel can and do flucuate dramatically at times. Our other hostel gets a very large amount of reviews every year so we see the impacts of abnormally low scores first hand. Both of our hostels are generally rated over 94% on hostels.com and over 92% on Hostelworld.
HB's recent change to anonymous reviews where the hostel can have a hard time understanding who left the review is worrisome and in fact limiting in usefulness for a hostel. It makes it more difficult to prevent re-occurrence and leads to easier denial of issues that were mentioned, particularly when a passage of time has occured and everyone's memory is dimmed, including the reviewer, if the guest waits till the end of their holiday to submit their reviews. (this happens a lot)
I understand the motivation to have commented reviews only but I disagree completely that a low scoring reviewer should be forced to leave a commented review.
A low scoring reviewer had a bad experience, from their point of view, whether it was percieved or actual. Forcing them to comment will then lay bare forever the issues in this well archived industry we are serving. Having a person with poor English skills scratching their head a week later trying explain their bad experience brings up all kinds of issues. They may even start to invent things to justify their feelings, or which is worse not leave a review score at all. I want more of our guests to review us, making it harder will reduce the number of reviews overall. This will help a hostel in more ways.
Google index's all reviews, forever. Many affiliate booking sites do not age or date the reviews they harvest. If a "revenge" review occurs it is now much, much worse, long lasting and often indefensible as HW affiliates generally don't have a respond function.
As I earlier stated, reviews serve many very useful purposes. They are not just for the traveler. I believe a low scoring, non-commented review HELPS hostels. While limited the scoring matrix does help to correct issues by forcing the hostel to investigate the low score very closely when it happens to us we talk with our staff and ask them if they remember the guest so we end up looking harder at the individual scores in the matrix than if we had the guests comments to go by. Cavalier, low scoring reviews really do disturb us, but forcing the low scorers to justify publicly can even give future bookers more negative things to look for especially if the hostel decides to publicly refute the issue.
We have chosen to very, very rarely reply publicly to reviews it is very hard to do with finesse or without coming off self serving. Many hostels and hostel chains have taken the ego approach of commenting on every review! Even going so far as to use the guests first name! Incredibly self serving and even a humorous endeavour.
It is human nature to put less onus on the opinions of the hostel and more onus on the opinion of the reviewer. Bad comments stick, bad explanations and whiny defenses by hostels draw more attention to the issue. If a person leaves a trash score so be it. Deal with it and try not to let it crush your day. With force comments it will disturb you a lot longer. We still have reviews (including "revenge" reviews) that continue disturb us from years ago.
If you get a HW score lower than 75% from a guest there is more than one serious negative issue that the guest had with your hostel. If it is lower than 60% overall it is a review that is a stark, pointed warning that things were very bad for the guest and one issue might have been overwhelming for the guest. A bad experience will drive down all areas just as a good experience will support all areas. We consider a hostel with a HW score of 78-80% (with at least 40 recent reviews) as merely an average hostel. This is due to the scoring system matrix and the very subjective nature of what constitutes a great experience by a traveler. Sure it is skewed higher than an average hostel being 50%. But you will never stop someone from giving a 100% score when they have an awesome time or a 40% when they have a horrible time, regardless of the conditions of the hostel.
When a backpacker scores 100% they are saying go there! The reverse is true as well. Just like the facebook "like" and the youtube "thumbs up". That will never change. You can get a bad review if someone farts in the dorms (especially staff haha) and you can get an awesome review if someone hooks up in there too. (maybe even if staff do too haha). That is why reviews are subjective in nature using a loosely objective styled system.
We all know that there are ways to improve the review systems, many have been debated in other threads on this site. All are great sources of understanding by the esteemed dragons on this site. The review system is the single best, low cost/free business building/course correcting resource that is available to a hostel and the most powerful resource for a backpacker/traveler/consumer.
By the way a 20% across the board no-commented review may in fact be an error on the part of the reviewer (yep it happens) and FYI seems to come up from once in a while from certain countries so check that out if it happens to you.
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