The problem using an extra yahoo or whatever email address is that they must at least check it for the verification emails that TA and the others do. If all they do is give it out and then once in a while go out and just delete, there reviews will never get posted.
I was reading a forum on TA regarding reviews never being posted. There seem to be a good many that do not, for one reason or another. TA's replies state that they are behind on posting to the site. They check for verification of email and they review the review for 'fraud' - one employee even stated if the review was too good they would consider it fraud, there were several other reasons given.
TA is getting out of control. They are now 'recommending' hotels & B&B's. See my other post on this..
Copperhead said:
The problem using an extra yahoo or whatever email address is that they must at least check it for the verification emails that TA and the others do. If all they do is give it out and then once in a while go out and just delete, there reviews will never get posted.
I was reading a forum on TA regarding reviews never being posted. There seem to be a good many that do not, for one reason or another. TA's replies state that they are behind on posting to the site. They check for verification of email and they review the review for 'fraud' - one employee even stated if the review was too good they would consider it fraud, there were several other reasons given.
TA is getting out of control. They are now 'recommending' hotels & B&B's. See my other post on this.
If you post a review then obv you have to go to that email acct to verify.
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well, to me, the review cards look like the inserts in magazines that i throw away.
many of my guests are not taking them, they are leaving them behind or just dropping them in the trash.
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Hmm...
I wonder if there would be a better format to put them in? We did them on postcards so we could afford to pay for production and postage... they were already expensive, but going larger puts them in a different class on postage both outbound and inbound, and they are borderline unaffordable.
One idea we had was to create a nice looking full-color 8-11 PDF for innkeepers. We could even create one for every inn - with the name of the inn already on it, etc. Innkeepers could print them whenever they wanted, hand them out to guests and collect them - then just mail them back to us after you get 5-10 or so, keeping costs to a minimum. That way we solve the problem of them looking like magazine inserts, we give more room to write on them as well.
With regard to collecting email addresses - I would love to drop that requirement. I am in the same camp - hate giving mine out. We do it for obvious fraud reasons, but there could be a way that we could drop it... We could make it "optional" for a guest to enter it... but if they didn't enter it, we would reserve the right to request a receipt for proof of stay from either the guest OR the innkeeper... so we could validate them that way.
Thoughts on these?
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JBanczak said:
With regard to collecting email addresses - I would love to drop that requirement. I am in the same camp - hate giving mine out. We do it for obvious fraud reasons, but there could be a way that we could drop it... We could make it "optional" for a guest to enter it... but if they didn't enter it, we would reserve the right to request a receipt for proof of stay from either the guest OR the innkeeper... so we could validate them that way.
Thoughts on these?
Verifying STAY is a good idea anyway. I know you would do that if it were a negative review. Not per the guest, but per the innkeeper, but then you know that wouldn't happen either. I think those who want reviews WOULD DO IT.
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Ooohh.. I like the idea that swirt had... it would take some doing, but we could make each form with a photo of each inn I believe. I need to check on it, but I think we designed an automated tool for custom GC's that might work this way. I think duplexing would be tough, but I believe the tri-fold method with tape would work. We could even send out a sticker to use instead of tape... So the innkeeper could print it, pre-fold or crease it at least, put the sticker in the right place - give it to guest and guest could drop in the mail - we'd pay for postage. Or the innkeeper could just collect them and send them in.
As far as printing full-color or not, if we were going to do this via pdf, we could make a few versions. One that is B/W, one that is full-page no/fold innkeeper mails in, and one that is tri-fold/stick with tape/consumer sends in.
As far as printing them out on your own, color always looks nicer, and it should cost less than $1 or so/copy. My HP printer says landed print cost of .50/copy, but there are online printers that do copies for under .20/color copy as well as places like kinkos now are pretty cheap. Sure - it will be a small expense, but for $20-50 you would be pretty flush with copies of these, then we could have the B/W to economize.
As far as verifying stay - we reserve the right to do that on any review and have done it for plenty of positive and negative reviews alike. If we didn't require email - then we would just need to take it one step further so we avoid cheaters. Although if someone wants to cheat - there is not much anyone can do about. Unethical people are going to find a way around a system no matter what we do.
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