Paid reviews on Tripadvisor

[Brother D]

I manage social media for a few businesses, and I've noticed a massive increase in restaurants using paid-for reviewers.

After mentioning to Tripadvisor this is blatantly against their terms and condition - they just don't seem interested or investigating businesses that have 20 - 30 5* reviews a week from users who's only single review is just that one crappy restaurant. (Plus complaints from genuine reviews who can't see why the restaurant is held in such high regard).

The issue is that puts them up the rankings (one is even now #1 restaurant in the county above several michelin stared places), so they gain from people who just see that as the #1.

So the question is how do you compete with a businesses that use paid-for reviews without resorting to using paid-for reviews - or do I just give up and use the service like many others are using?

[Hoofy]

Wouldn't worry about it. People are wising up to this kind of thing and go straight to the one star reviews to read what the complaints were about and what the business's response was.

Amazon is full of those "reviews" which are basically a product description with no substance written by someone who has tested it for 5 minutes because they got it free (which they state). I ignore those and go straight to the one and two star reviews.

[Sheepshanks]

Hoofy said:

Wouldn't worry about it. People are wising up to this kind of thing and go straight to the one star reviews to read what the complaints were about and what the business's response was.

I know someone who runs a restaurant and the one star reviews are often fake too.

Funnily enough I was thinking how useless reviews are today - while looking at dishwashers!

Edited by Sheepshanks on Tuesday 25th July 20:26

[Hoofy]

Sheepshanks said:

Hoofy said:

Wouldn't worry about it. People are wising up to this kind of thing and go straight to the one star reviews to read what the complaints were about and what the business's response was.

I know someone who runs a restaurant and the one star reviews are often fake too.

Yes, but that's why I said "and what the business's response was" because customer service is just as important as the product/service.

[Yipper]

Paid-for social media has been around for years. Nothing new. You can buy 10k Twitter followers for 50 quid. It is just something you have to live with.

If you can't beat them, join them...