Disappearing reviews
- Thread starter Morticia
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Aussie Innkeeper
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it hasn't happened to me personally, but two of my friends in our local association have had this happen. IF they're lucky enough to actually get in touch with a real, live person, they've been told that someone would look into it, but of course nothing is ever done.
Interestingly, one of my friends was just talking about this last night. Ever notice that if/when someone from TA is trying to talk with you about purchasing a paid listing, they provide you with their direct line phone number and their name, but after you've purchased the listing and have any issue, suddenly, when you call that same number, you never get anything but voicemail, and it's usually full? WHY?? She's convinced it's some sort of scam and I can't say that I disagree with her.
Add to this 'scam' the fact that there's never any set price for anyone's listing. For example, she's paying about 2/3 of what I am and we're in the same market but her inn is larger. I'll be the first to admit that she's a much better negotiator than I am. And then, they provide you with all kinds of 'statistics' about how many guests they've sent to you. What? How do they know?! Even my goo gle analy tics don't come anywhere near what they claim.
Interestingly, one of my friends was just talking about this last night. Ever notice that if/when someone from TA is trying to talk with you about purchasing a paid listing, they provide you with their direct line phone number and their name, but after you've purchased the listing and have any issue, suddenly, when you call that same number, you never get anything but voicemail, and it's usually full? WHY?? She's convinced it's some sort of scam and I can't say that I disagree with her.
Add to this 'scam' the fact that there's never any set price for anyone's listing. For example, she's paying about 2/3 of what I am and we're in the same market but her inn is larger. I'll be the first to admit that she's a much better negotiator than I am. And then, they provide you with all kinds of 'statistics' about how many guests they've sent to you. What? How do they know?! Even my goo gle analy tics don't come anywhere near what they claim.
Morticia
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We were talking with an innkeeper in Bar Harbor. The minimum business listing price up there is $5000. Taking Momma's advice, last time they called here I asked for the best rate and they knock off 15%. (We are NOT in the $5k category at all!)
Then again, signing up did not help our placement at all. I thought it would move us up past the folks with a lot fewer reviews but nope, that did not happen. So cross that off the list of possible positives for signing up. As far as I can see, 3 months in, it's a waste of money.
Of course, we keep losing reviews, so maybe that's the problem!
This morning I got an email for a good guest who was trying to post the review - "I will try again-they rejected my review last time, said it wasn't specific enough?!!". Is this a way to punish us for not renewing the listing? Last September they doubled our rate to $3000+. I haggled long and hard - no result and they never contacted me back after.And yes, withing 1 month our rating fell from 1st to 3rd without any negative postings - coincidence?
Morticia
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If you also didn't get any positive reviews and the other two inns did, then that's part of it. You have to get new reviews all the time.
Hard to get one when they defuse to post it
Morticia
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Arks
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I noticed a new old motel here (renovated and reopened under a new name) had about 80 reviews within their first few months, then I noticed the other day that it had dropped to 17 reviews. I'll bet TA's "robot" determined that most of the reviews were fraudulent.
Morticia
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Happened again. We got a new review, stayed at the same number of reviews. I'd like it if we got 10 reviews all at once to see if TA drops 10 reviews and we stay at 195. It's getting annoying but I can't say exactly which reviews disappear, just know it's not the bad ones!
We have never had a review disappear (and we have 510) except for one. The guest was so thrilled 2 days into their stay that they posted here from our wifi. TA doesn't allow that so they removed it - their software apparently scans and finds that stuff. So have any of the reviewers posted from your property? If so, that could be why they have been removed.
Morticia
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I do mention to guests to wait until they leave if they say they want to write a review. This is different. Last week we had 195 reviews. We got a new one that showed up 2 days ago. Should be 196, right? No. It's 195. Still.
Last month I asked guests via my newsletter to write a review. 3 people did. Those reviews are online. (There may have been more, but there are 3 new ones.) Should be up to almost 200, right? No, 195. 3 earlier reviews disappeared.
Mostly frustrating because we keep getting reviews, but old ones disappear meaning we never gain ground getting ahead of the bad review we got this fall. If good reviews keep disappearing, the weight of that bad review keeps us at the bottom of the list. Places with way fewer and way older reviews are ahead of us because of the bad review and the disappearing good reviews.
And, I hate the whole review process so it's even more annoying!
