8 years
A little sunshine to brighten your day.
Travellers admit to threatening a bad review to get discounts or upgrades
“A survey of over 2,500 travellers has seen one in eight saying they have bribed a travel brand with a bad review in order to get what they want.
…
Some 13% said they bribed a brand, but almost a quarter (23%) said they had lied or exaggerated a bad experience.
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Of those that had admitted bribing a travel service with a bad review, 47% said they did it to save money or get a discount, whilst 38% were looking for an upgrade of some kind.
Just over half (51%) claimed to have been successful with their endeavours.”
This doesn’t come as a shock to anyone who works in the service industry, but it’s nice to see some research that confirms what we already know.
Sadly, aside from AirBnB which allows us to review the traveler and call out this behavior, none of the other major OTAs have tools in place to protect us from this tactic. In my own experience however, no negative reviews have ever been posted after I reported them to Hostelworld, Booking, or TripAdvisor. I cannot say if this is because the guests didn't follow through with their threats or if the sites removed the reviews.
When reporting a guest who tries to threaten you with a bad review, these tips will help you limit the damage:
1) Stay calm and maintain your composure. Losing your cool will only aggravate the situation and potentially give the guest a legitimate reason to leave a bad review
2) Record the details of the incident:
Name of the guest and other members of their party
Time and date of the incident
The circumstances leading up to the threat
Specific threats that they made, using their own words if possible
The resulting action (Did you refuse? Give the guest what they wanted? Ask them to leave?)
Guest’s check-in and checkout dates, along with the confirmation number of the reservation
Guest's email address if you have it
3) Contact the OTA that the guest used to make a booking to alert them of the situation as soon as it happens*
4) Contact other review sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp to submit the same information, as upset guests will frequently lash out through as many channels as possible.
5) If the guest DOES write a negative review, contact the review site once again and referece your original blackmail report
*Reporting the threat only works if the site is informed BEFORE the guest leaves a review. Requests to remove a negative comment after it is posted will most likely be refused.
See also:
Review Blackmail
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