reputation management | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

TripAdvisor is increasingly coming under pressure from KwikChex, a reputation management company representing major hotels in the United Kingdom and the USA. Not only has the company threatened to take TripAdvisor to court over its unauthenticated ‘customer reviews’, taken TripAdvisor to the Advertising Standards Authority in the United Kingdom and successfully been able to get its overstated advertising claims removed, but now it has introduced a system whereby hospitality establishment rating systems are rated on customer feedback authenticity, giving Trip Advisor a paltry 2 stars, reports Tnooz!

On TripAdvisor ‘reviewers’ rate restaurants and accommodation establishments on a five point scale. The KwikChex rating evaluates the customer authenticity, a rating system earning 5 stars if the customer’s real name (and not an anonymous name as on TripAdvisor) is revealed, and verifying that a booking was made at the establishment. A one star rating reflects that the system has no means of checking the authenticity of the content, one of the biggest complaints against TripAdvisor, given that reviews can be written by owners and their friends and family, or at the opposite end, by competitors, ex-suppliers, and ex-staff. A rating of 2 out of 5 for TripAdvisor by KwikChex therefore is the second worst rating that the rating website could achieve, sharing the rating with Yelp. Booking.com achieved a 5 star rating from KwikChex.

KwikChex has also made a submission to the USA Securities and Exchange Commission about its concerns about TripAdvisor’s ability, or lack of, to authenticate reviews on its site, and it has made a submission to the European Court of Human Rights, in that ‘individuals are unable to defend themselves against defamation and harassment online’, when personal attacks against named individual staff members are made in TripAdvisor reviews.

Even though no South African hotels are unlikely to subscribe to KwikChex, the accommodation and restaurant industry worldwide should be grateful for the dogged determination of this company to make TripAdvisor a much more credible source of travel information.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter:@WhaleCottage

The recent poor publicity about pending court cases has motivated TripAdvisor to clean up its act, and to review its own reputation and credibility. The world’s largest travel review site has announced that it has appointed Andrew Marane as Director of Content Integrity, a job title that emphasises how seriously TripAdvisor is taking its reputation management! Accommodation establishments listed on TripAdvisor received the notification two weeks ago.

The new Director’s background in law enforcement, and organised fraud investigations, which included the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, fraud analysis and organised fraud investigations in the insurance industry, and the management of fraud within eCommerce and financial markets sounds intimidating, and puts out a clear signal to establishments to not cheat by posting false reviews about their own or competitor establishments. Hopefully it will also signal to customers of establishments that they should be fair and honest in their reviews of establishments, something that would be far harder for TripAdvisor to check. Marane says that he and his team will evaluate their ‘tools, policies and resources … to level the playing field against those who try to impact the TripAdvisor community‘. They are also looking to develop their fraud detection abilities, he said in an interview. Not only does TripAdvisor use its tools to detect violations, but it will rely on its ‘TripAdvisor community, who (sic) alerts us to any suspicious content’. The goal is to uphold TripAdvisor’s pay-off line: ‘Real reviews by real people about real experiences’.

A day later TripAdvisor sent all listed establishments an e-mail, asking “We want to know what you think”. It seemed an excellent opportunity to give the company a piece of our mind! There were no questions relating to the credibility of TripAdvisor, and the questionnaire was more focused on decal design choices to put up in one’s establishment, which would encourage guests to review it. Some questions were leading, which will influence the results negatively. One last question did allow one to tell TripAdvisor what one thinks of them. TripAdvisor is clearly on a mission to increase the number of reviews it receives, and it asked if one would allow TripAdvisor to contact one’s clients, by providing their e-mail addresses, to invite them to review the establishment. This surely would raise important data privacy issues, if one were to hand over guest information to TripAdvisor, especially in America.

TripAdvisor’s attempt to clean up its reputation is commended, as it influences the reputation of its listed establishments too.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter:@WhaleCottage