Rating Services - Caveat

[imoldernu]

Y'all are more sophisticated than me, about the various rating services for lodging, food, places to see, and things to do, BUT... I wanted to bring up something that I just discovered when I went to see how the restaurants are rated in my (relatively) small town.

So it started when I looked up my favorite restaurant, and found that it only had a 3 star rating. Hey... this is an excellent rather large restaurant, clean, fresh, good food, and reasonable prices... good crowds of 50 to 150 patrons at a time. The rating came from 7 reviews. One 5 star. one 2 star, and five 1 star. Each of the 1 star reviews was similar... bad food, dirty, terrible furniture (it's all one year old) nasty waitresses, and cockroaches seen walking around.

Hmmm... So I looked for the highest rating restaurants, and the top three all had 5 star ratings... The top rated restaurant is in a very old building, and quite small... perhaps 6 tables of 4. Rating? 5 star... 241 ratings, 220 were 5 star.... go figure...

So, to look a little further...15 "raters" each of whom gave between 9 and 15 ratings of 5, over a period of two years. Janet K, Billie N., Joe Di, Maggie, etc.

So back to my favorite restaurant's top competitor... again 120 ratings almost all 5 star, and again... from 7 "raters"... three of whom were the one star raters of my favorite... "dirty, cold food, overpriced etc."

These ratings were on Trip Advisor which claims to have 500 million ratings, and an algorithm that accounts for recency and quality.... yet, when you look at an extended list of reviewers, you may see a review by John K, followed on the same listing by links to ten other reviews by the same person with the same rating stars... staggered over a one year period. Obviously a business that is gaming the system.

I don't expect that this would occur with major corporations, but after seeing this in my town, I would be inclined to trust (maybe), but verify.

Do you use rating services? Have they been accurate? Any that you implicitly trust?

 

[FIREmenow]

I remember someone quoting some time ago that if a person has a good experience they will tell 1 person. If a person has a bad experience, they will tell 10 people....

 

[imoldernu]

Just one of the multiple reviews by one person... All count towards the high rating.

 

[Fedup]

I had this problem in Italy. We stayed at a nice place with view of the Chianti hill and the reviewers gave some of the best ratings. Even one mentioned Tony Blair, ex UK PM ate there. Well I thought to myself, if it's good enough for Tony Blair, it's good enough for my husband and I. It turned out it was ok, great views but ok food. Breakfast was spectacular though.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Good detective work! You should click the little flag that says "report" on the reviews you suspect, imoldernu. They are purposely misleading and obviously steering folks away from one place and toward another. Hopefully TripAdvosor will delete them.

 

[Scuba]

I rely on Yelp for restaurant reviews. Haven't often disagreed with the overall consensus. Used to like Amazon reviews for items I was thinking of buying, but have noticed in the last year or so that many reviews are written by people who got a free product in exchange for writing a review. Don't feel I can really trust those.

 

[Amethyst]

I read the reviews themselves carefully, and decide if they sound like real people wrote them. It's hard to say how I know, but I'm pretty confident I can tell the shills from the real customers.

Also I tend to discount lengthy, overly detailed rants. I figure those people hate everything and everybody, and this particular product or service was today's trigger for them.

 

[misshathaway]

I rely on Yelp for restaurant reviews. Haven't often disagreed with the overall consensus. Used to like Amazon reviews for items I was thinking of buying, but have noticed in the last year or so that many reviews are written by people who got a free product in exchange for writing a review. Don't feel I can really trust those.

If it's for a household tool, I go to the recent negatives first to find out about products that will stop working or have some other fatal flaw.

 

[athena53]

Thanks for the warning and I agree that you should report the people who appear to be gaming the system. They're not exactly fake reviews but they're stacking the deck. At the very least, they should require a minimum time interval (6 months?) between reviews of the same place.

I use TripAdvisor a lot and have over 200 reviews of my own, so I'd like to see it remain credible.

 

[euro]

I'm highly suspicious of ANY ratings. Here is a recent example to make my point.
I'm in need of a new roof. I looked up local roofers on Angie's list and found a highly rare one. Composit "A" rating with 24 outright A reviews and one "C". So, I gave them a call - call was answered and I was told that the "Admin" or the "owner" would call back later that day. Well, after 3 days, no call so I decided to investigate a little. I googled the company and found Google Ratings. There the company had a 1.8 STAR (out of 5 stars) rating with 9 individuals giving one star, and one individual giving 5 stars.

So, how can a company have a near perfect rating on Angie's List and a near zero rating on an other rating system? Your guess is as good as mine - but after my personal experience, I'm inclined to trust the Google review data..... it looks to me like AL are cooking the books

 

[Midpack]

That's been going on for a long time, not just TripAdvisor, Yelp, Amazon but almost all open review sites. Restaurants, hotels and others have been caught paying for or submitting positive reviews, and employees have done it on their own too. The ratings themselves are suspect, you have to read reviews to get a sense of how good, bad or to your liking a place is. A few years ago a decent but not extraordinary Chicago restaurant won an online magazine poll for best restaurant in a complete landslide - it was obvious voters were somehow organized to make it happen. No one in Chicago was fooled, but visitors probably were.

Paid or planted reviews aside, I've seen folks who loved a place leaving 1 star ratings thinking they were helping, where 5 stars was the highest rating, or vice versa. And I've seen people trash upscale places where it's evident their idea of a great night out is Pizza Hut or Denny's. Or folks who only like upscale places trash a TGIFridays without acknowledging their far lower price point. Rating a $ place using $$$$ criteria, or vice versa, is totally unfair. Lots of people go to restaurants looking for the most food for the lowest price (e.g. Olive Garden) - nothing wrong with that but that's not what all restaurants or patrons are looking for.

Again, unless all the ratings are high or low, you really have to read the reviews themselves to low which ones might be real. Even then, read the actual reviews, and apply your own filter. Caveat emptor...

I write sincere reviews on Yelp, TripAdvisor and OpenTable. I've even had one pulled - even though it was perfectly honest and objective IMO...

 

[MichaelB]

These ratings were on Trip Advisor which claims to have 500 million ratings, and an algorithm that accounts for recency and quality.... yet, when you look at an extended list of reviewers, you may see a review by John K, followed on the same listing by links to ten other reviews by the same person with the same rating stars... staggered over a one year period. Obviously a business that is gaming the system.

I don't expect that this would occur with major corporations, but after seeing this in my town, I would be inclined to trust (maybe), but verify.

Do you use rating services? Have they been accurate? Any that you implicitly trust?

All online ratings need to be viewed with a skeptical eye. In our town there is a nice park / playground, a favorite for my visiting grandchildren. The playground closed for remodeling - for 1 1/2 years (the project took longer than planned). While it was closed there there were more than 100 new 5 star review on TripAdvisor. Most either wrote or implied they had visited during the time it was closed. Neither our town nor the county has funds to promote the park

Interesting that even though they could not have visited the playground as reported, the reviews themselves were mostly accurate, and they had many other reviews that looked legitimate. I think there is a new category of false review. Not paid or sponsored by the affected business, just people looking to create an "online persona" of someone more experienced and worldly. The read reviews written by others, and use them to craft their own.

Of course, real life is often no different.

 

[brett]

We are very careful about ratings on tripadvisor. There are clearly some reports that are issued by friends/relatives of the owner.

More than once we have discounted high ratings. In Turkey we saw five wonderful rating from people about at B&B. Looked good but we would not touch it. All the reviewers were from Turkey. Probably friends, relatives, or the owners themselves. Same in Thailand and Vietnam. The reports were similar, even used some of the same phrases and adjectives.

We find reports from Australians, Brits, and Scandanavians to be the most accurate. Tripadvisor is just one tool that we use. There are others.

 

[braumeister]

Tripadvisor is just one tool that we use. There are others.

Absolutely. I like TripAdvisor and have contributed a couple hundred reviews to it myself. I try to be as detailed and specific as possible, and only compare anything to very similar places.

When I read others' reviews on TA, I make it a point to read through as many as possible. I agree that it's usually pretty easy to separate the wheat from the chaff.

 

[Sunset]

I also like tripAdvisor, especially helpful to decide what to tour when visiting someplace.
Reading the comments is worth a lot compared to just the star rating.

We are planning a trip to Budapest, so I looked at things to see. There is a cafe there highly recommended in a bookshop. I'm glad I read the comments as it just closed in March due to bankruptcy, yet the 4.5 star rating remains..

 

[MRG]

I review every business I can in Tripadvisor. Agree that the comments are most of the value.

I also used Yelp to review the movers we used. Had a very bad experience and wrote about it. Six months later a person contacted me and explained they used the same company with the same terrible results. They explained our review had not been published, as many negative ones hadnt. Guy asked if I would do the not so obvious trick to get it published.

 

[braumeister]

Six months later a person contacted me and explained they used the same company with the same terrible results. They explained our review had not been published, as many negative ones hadnt. Guy asked if I would do the not so obvious trick to get it published.

I don't understand this. How did they know about your review if it wasn't published, and how were they able to contact you?

 

[MRG]

I don't understand this. How did they know about your review if it wasn't published, and how were they able to contact you?

I received an email from them associated with the account I had used. I think the review was waiting on me to approve it another time. Fellow suggested there were multiple negative reviews he'd found in the same state.

 

[braumeister]

Still makes no sense to me.
Some random person looked on Yelp and found a bunch of unpublished reviews. If they weren't published, how could anyone see them?

 

[JoeWras]

Used to like Amazon reviews for items I was thinking of buying, but have noticed in the last year or so that many reviews are written by people who got a free product in exchange for writing a review. Don't feel I can really trust those.

I am one of those people, but not for Amazon. Instead, for a well known Big Box Home store.

I've written about this before. We try to do our best. We do. But I have to tell you that psychology really gets in your brain! It is hard to be objective.

One other problem with reviews, free product or not, is that the manufacturers will put a pretty hard press on you for a bad review. Sometimes this is good, for example: I got a check from a paint manufacturer because there simply was something wrong with the paint. Other times, it is bad. They will nearly stalk you. I'm serious. I had one computer part manufacturer just keep pestering me with suggestions because I gave a 1 star on Amazon. They even sent me more software, etc. It became a real hassle. I finally just raised my rating to get them off my back saying: "If you have a problem, they will respond and engage you in a significant way."

The funny thing is for the Big Box store I review for, well they have a house brand. I've given plenty of 1 stars for that brand and they don't seem to care or respond. Go figure.

 

[ChiliPepr]

For a good laugh, check out these:

One Star Yelp reviews of National Parks
Responses to one star Yelp reviews
One star Yelp reviews of Texas Landmarks
The restaurant that wants to be the worst on Yelp

 

[Amethyst]

Hilarious! Thanks for posting.

For a good laugh, check out these:

One Star Yelp reviews of National Parks
Responses to one star Yelp reviews
One star Yelp reviews of Texas Landmarks
The restaurant that wants to be the worst on Yelp

 

[MooreBonds]

Other times, it is bad. They will nearly stalk you. I'm serious. I had one computer part manufacturer just keep pestering me with suggestions because I gave a 1 star on Amazon. They even sent me more software, etc. It became a real hassle. I finally just raised my rating to get them off my back saying: "If you have a problem, they will respond and engage you in a significant way."

The funny thing is for the Big Box store I review for, well they have a house brand. I've given plenty of 1 stars for that brand and they don't seem to care or respond. Go figure.

So let me get this straight - you gave a 1 star bad review on a product, and the manufacturer went out of its way to try and make it right, even sending you more software.....and you are pissed

If only half of companies acted like that one did, there would be many more satisfied customers!

 

[kgtest]

I often wondered why such busy establishments got reviewed highly. If I have to wait 40minutes for my reservation, and another 40 before the food shows up, it's certainly not a 5star experience. Yet these trendy places have lines out the door waiting.

 

[Amethyst]

I thought he was annoyed because his experience was 1 star, he rated it honestly, and the company pursued him to get him to change his honest rating due to their subsequent actions.

Perhaps Yelp needs to allow you to give a separate rating for "company tried to make things right and I appreciate that, but the original product/service was still bad."

Or maybe I am chopping logic?

So let me get this straight - you gave a 1 star bad review on a product, and the manufacturer went out of its way to try and make it right, even sending you more software.....and you are pissed

If only half of companies acted like that one did, there would be many more satisfied customers!