competitors steal guests

[MooseTrax]

I guess I would ignor the other innkeeper. People are very turned off by that behavior. We refer people all the time because we often have our 2 rooms booked and still have wine tour seats open. When people call to try and book both, we refer them to the other B&Bs after checking what they are looking for. If they want an inn in town we refer them. If they want something out of town in the country we refer them.
We are lucky in that the other inns refer our wine tours and would never do other than compliment the guest on their accommodation selections.
There is however the occasional inn here that misleads people into thinking they are just "15-20 minutes from town" and we receive complaints about those all the time. We can't say anything about them. This happened again right now on graduation weekend. A guest asked if their family could gather at our inn for an hour or so until their dinner reservation as some of the family arrived here to find out they were actually 45 minutes from town instead of the 20 minutes they were told. She said this had so turned off the husband he was turned off from B&Bs totally and she wanted him to see ours. When they left he asked for a card since they want to return during a football weekend.
Riki.

Now you see why the association wants to list all membership by their ACTUAL addresses and map it as such. We got lots of complaints from guests who were lied to literally about the distance and time they were from actual cities.
.

Now you see why the association wants to list all membership by their ACTUAL addresses and map it as such. We got lots of complaints from guests who were lied to literally about the distance and time they were from actual cities.

This is a common problem with association sites. They all want to make their members happy and have in the past been willing to list people in whatever town the people wanted...which was often the town they thought was the biggest draw ... some would even get PO boxes so they could make it official. Finally many are starting to come around..misleading travelers comes back to reflect badly on the site.
I fight this battle with my own regional directory fairly often...they want to be listed some place else instead of where they are. They get annoyed with me because I usually won't do it (I don't make the decision arbitrarily I have a time of travel limit).
It's annoying..people live on a creek and want to be listed as lakefront, or they are 20 miles from a town and they want to be listed in it.

I stick to my decisions that I have to provide the best site to travelers in order to provide the best site for inns.
.

Now you see why the association wants to list all membership by their ACTUAL addresses and map it as such. We got lots of complaints from guests who were lied to literally about the distance and time they were from actual cities.

This is a common problem with association sites. They all want to make their members happy and have in the past been willing to list people in whatever town the people wanted...which was often the town they thought was the biggest draw ... some would even get PO boxes so they could make it official. Finally many are starting to come around..misleading travelers comes back to reflect badly on the site.
I fight this battle with my own regional directory fairly often...they want to be listed some place else instead of where they are. They get annoyed with me because I usually won't do it (I don't make the decision arbitrarily I have a time of travel limit).
It's annoying..people live on a creek and want to be listed as lakefront, or they are 20 miles from a town and they want to be listed in it.

I stick to my decisions that I have to provide the best site to travelers in order to provide the best site for inns.

people will call us with an inquiry and ask if we really have the water views that we claim we have. YES, we REALLY do have the water views we claim to have. the folks who ask that will usually say," well, i stayed at this one place one time and they said they had h2o views but there was only a view if you looked way out the window & there was no leaves on the trees, etc." unfortunately 1 innkeeper misrepresenting their location, view, etc. puts doubt in the minds of potential guests for other innkeepers who really are portraying their view, location accurately.
.

people will call us with an inquiry and ask if we really have the water views that we claim we have. YES, we REALLY do have the water views we claim to have. the folks who ask that will usually say," well, i stayed at this one place one time and they said they had h2o views but there was only a view if you looked way out the window & there was no leaves on the trees, etc." unfortunately 1 innkeeper misrepresenting their location, view, etc. puts doubt in the minds of potential guests for other innkeepers who really are portraying their view, location accurately.

this is a problem here as well. except there are no views of water at all at any time of the year. a guest will call me and ask if there are water views here *too* and then i know where they called first. we don't have water views. telling the guest that usually gets dead air on the phone as they calculate how far away can this address be from the other one. if i showed up at a place that said water views and there were none i'd be peeved.

 

[Tim_Toad_HLB]

What an unfortunate situation for Moosetrax to deal with.
We've found honesty and being cooperative towards similarly appointed and ethical colleagues is in everyone's best interest. The guest wins, businesses that share a set of values and approach to offering a quality experience win, and it makes for good karma, if you believe in it.
Our biggest problem here is the manipulation of the review process by several local innkeepers on TripAdvisor. We have nothing against telling a guest when we are asked "We had an awesome time and really love your place, how can I help you get more guests?" about the various ways they can share their experience, but some of our "colleagues" have taken it to the extreme.
In fact, for years I have suggested to TA that they broaden the listing and ranking options to include a statement that owners can sign off on:
"This lodger solicits reviews from all of its guests as a standard practice."
"This lodger respects and honors the intended honesty and inherent objectivity of TripAdvisor and does not."
I see no reason why those of us that don't gild the lily on sites like that should be relegated to second class rankings because competitors have hijacked the system due to the lack of review policing capability there. When caught they knock the offender down a few notches in the rankings and within a week, they move right back where the were and usually the owner helps that by soliciting even more reviews. Vicious cycle and it really does hurt the more ethical operators.
I have witnessed the following for years by a few operators near us.
Former employees writing reviews, former employees we know telling us about rewards being offered for glowing reviews, suspicious "rebuttal" type reviews posted within 24 hours of a negative review being posted, reviews laden with just too many glowing adjectives from posters with locations in the same or very close town.
How many innkeepers do you all know who get guests living in the same damn town? And I don't mean qualified reviews like "my parents stayed there while visiting me because I didn't have room for them.
Instruction sheets for how to write to reviews, what to write to best benefit the B&B in search engine rankings via certain keywords, badgering writers of negative reviews via telephone and email until they removed a review, etc. And if anybody doesn't think that stuff doesn't help, run a Google of your place's name and see where you find the first reference to TripAdvisor, its usually in the first few listings under your own website.
Long and short of it, we won't send a referral to anybody who doesn't share our ethical approach but also won't bad mouth anybody, even the worst place in town.

 

[MooseTrax]

What an unfortunate situation for Moosetrax to deal with.
We've found honesty and being cooperative towards similarly appointed and ethical colleagues is in everyone's best interest. The guest wins, businesses that share a set of values and approach to offering a quality experience win, and it makes for good karma, if you believe in it.
Our biggest problem here is the manipulation of the review process by several local innkeepers on TripAdvisor. We have nothing against telling a guest when we are asked "We had an awesome time and really love your place, how can I help you get more guests?" about the various ways they can share their experience, but some of our "colleagues" have taken it to the extreme.
In fact, for years I have suggested to TA that they broaden the listing and ranking options to include a statement that owners can sign off on:
"This lodger solicits reviews from all of its guests as a standard practice."
"This lodger respects and honors the intended honesty and inherent objectivity of TripAdvisor and does not."
I see no reason why those of us that don't gild the lily on sites like that should be relegated to second class rankings because competitors have hijacked the system due to the lack of review policing capability there. When caught they knock the offender down a few notches in the rankings and within a week, they move right back where the were and usually the owner helps that by soliciting even more reviews. Vicious cycle and it really does hurt the more ethical operators.
I have witnessed the following for years by a few operators near us.
Former employees writing reviews, former employees we know telling us about rewards being offered for glowing reviews, suspicious "rebuttal" type reviews posted within 24 hours of a negative review being posted, reviews laden with just too many glowing adjectives from posters with locations in the same or very close town.
How many innkeepers do you all know who get guests living in the same damn town? And I don't mean qualified reviews like "my parents stayed there while visiting me because I didn't have room for them.
Instruction sheets for how to write to reviews, what to write to best benefit the B&B in search engine rankings via certain keywords, badgering writers of negative reviews via telephone and email until they removed a review, etc. And if anybody doesn't think that stuff doesn't help, run a Google of your place's name and see where you find the first reference to TripAdvisor, its usually in the first few listings under your own website.
Long and short of it, we won't send a referral to anybody who doesn't share our ethical approach but also won't bad mouth anybody, even the worst place in town..

asking for legitimate reviews is not a problem for me.
having a computer available for guests, a handout on where to go to write a review, how to write it, what to say, a forceful request or a manipulative request - "you don't know what tricks other places get up to, we have to stay on top of these things" - is absolutely wrong. having employees write reviews is wrong. giving bonuses or kickbacks for reviews is wrong. guests who say they found us on TA never write reviews. our guests grade hard. 4 stars are common with glwoing comments. as we just read, it's the overall rating tha counts, not the grades for the individual items.
when getting my car fixed reulsts in getting a lecture from the frint desk on how to answer when the independent assayer calls i'm no less than annoyed. then they ask if i am going to answer every question with a responde of *excellent* and if not they go on to explain how if i don't they will lose dealership dollars or whatever. if they want 5's across the board then the service better be wroth it.
we send a thank you email to every guest. in there it is mentioned that if they had the idea they wanted to share anything about the stay with the world at large this is where we would like them to do so. the referral links go to 2 different places. it has been so long since we've been in the #1 space on TA that even oj simpson couldn't try hard enough to get us back there. we do try to stay above the advertizements. beyond there it's a no mans land. unless the top 3-4 are full that night. there is nothing in there that might be thought of as manipulation. no one gets a followup email asking where th e review is didn't they like there stay?
in the past year 400 orso emails have been sent. no requests for reviews go out to guests who are repeats and have shown a reluctance to *get involved* in reviews. those emails got 30 reviews. not setting the wrld on fire with those requests. i'm in total agreement with you on the forced reviews. waht i don't think works is waving that particular flag in the guests face. guests don't care unless they've been hoodwinked by false reviews into going somewhere where they did not have the same wonderful experience all the employees said they would.
if all of a particular place's reviews use the same few descriptors and it's not about the views most readers get a feeling that something, not sure what, but something, is not right.that gut feeling often leads them away. now not all of them. we've had some guests say that having a bunch of 4 stars is why they chose us over the places with all 5 stars. they didn't want to be disappointed because who can keep up that kind of promise on a day to day basis?
that was a lot more than i meant to say. it's a fine line everyone walks every day when it comes to reviews. in a place where there are a lot of options, placing well in google is great, placing well in TA is great, placing well in both is a bulls eye. some would say that manipulating the system is good business. all i did was change one thing on google, and not a big thing either and my listing went from 10 to 4 almost overnight. manipulation? or good business practice? if you were the business i bumped down the line by the change i made, you might think it was manipulation. going up 5 spaces was a good business practice for me.

 

[happykeeper]

What an unfortunate situation for Moosetrax to deal with.
We've found honesty and being cooperative towards similarly appointed and ethical colleagues is in everyone's best interest. The guest wins, businesses that share a set of values and approach to offering a quality experience win, and it makes for good karma, if you believe in it.
Our biggest problem here is the manipulation of the review process by several local innkeepers on TripAdvisor. We have nothing against telling a guest when we are asked "We had an awesome time and really love your place, how can I help you get more guests?" about the various ways they can share their experience, but some of our "colleagues" have taken it to the extreme.
In fact, for years I have suggested to TA that they broaden the listing and ranking options to include a statement that owners can sign off on:
"This lodger solicits reviews from all of its guests as a standard practice."
"This lodger respects and honors the intended honesty and inherent objectivity of TripAdvisor and does not."
I see no reason why those of us that don't gild the lily on sites like that should be relegated to second class rankings because competitors have hijacked the system due to the lack of review policing capability there. When caught they knock the offender down a few notches in the rankings and within a week, they move right back where the were and usually the owner helps that by soliciting even more reviews. Vicious cycle and it really does hurt the more ethical operators.
I have witnessed the following for years by a few operators near us.
Former employees writing reviews, former employees we know telling us about rewards being offered for glowing reviews, suspicious "rebuttal" type reviews posted within 24 hours of a negative review being posted, reviews laden with just too many glowing adjectives from posters with locations in the same or very close town.
How many innkeepers do you all know who get guests living in the same damn town? And I don't mean qualified reviews like "my parents stayed there while visiting me because I didn't have room for them.
Instruction sheets for how to write to reviews, what to write to best benefit the B&B in search engine rankings via certain keywords, badgering writers of negative reviews via telephone and email until they removed a review, etc. And if anybody doesn't think that stuff doesn't help, run a Google of your place's name and see where you find the first reference to TripAdvisor, its usually in the first few listings under your own website.
Long and short of it, we won't send a referral to anybody who doesn't share our ethical approach but also won't bad mouth anybody, even the worst place in town..

asking for legitimate reviews is not a problem for me.
having a computer available for guests, a handout on where to go to write a review, how to write it, what to say, a forceful request or a manipulative request - "you don't know what tricks other places get up to, we have to stay on top of these things" - is absolutely wrong. having employees write reviews is wrong. giving bonuses or kickbacks for reviews is wrong. guests who say they found us on TA never write reviews. our guests grade hard. 4 stars are common with glwoing comments. as we just read, it's the overall rating tha counts, not the grades for the individual items.
when getting my car fixed reulsts in getting a lecture from the frint desk on how to answer when the independent assayer calls i'm no less than annoyed. then they ask if i am going to answer every question with a responde of *excellent* and if not they go on to explain how if i don't they will lose dealership dollars or whatever. if they want 5's across the board then the service better be wroth it.
we send a thank you email to every guest. in there it is mentioned that if they had the idea they wanted to share anything about the stay with the world at large this is where we would like them to do so. the referral links go to 2 different places. it has been so long since we've been in the #1 space on TA that even oj simpson couldn't try hard enough to get us back there. we do try to stay above the advertizements. beyond there it's a no mans land. unless the top 3-4 are full that night. there is nothing in there that might be thought of as manipulation. no one gets a followup email asking where th e review is didn't they like there stay?
in the past year 400 orso emails have been sent. no requests for reviews go out to guests who are repeats and have shown a reluctance to *get involved* in reviews. those emails got 30 reviews. not setting the wrld on fire with those requests. i'm in total agreement with you on the forced reviews. waht i don't think works is waving that particular flag in the guests face. guests don't care unless they've been hoodwinked by false reviews into going somewhere where they did not have the same wonderful experience all the employees said they would.
if all of a particular place's reviews use the same few descriptors and it's not about the views most readers get a feeling that something, not sure what, but something, is not right.that gut feeling often leads them away. now not all of them. we've had some guests say that having a bunch of 4 stars is why they chose us over the places with all 5 stars. they didn't want to be disappointed because who can keep up that kind of promise on a day to day basis?
that was a lot more than i meant to say. it's a fine line everyone walks every day when it comes to reviews. in a place where there are a lot of options, placing well in google is great, placing well in TA is great, placing well in both is a bulls eye. some would say that manipulating the system is good business. all i did was change one thing on google, and not a big thing either and my listing went from 10 to 4 almost overnight. manipulation? or good business practice? if you were the business i bumped down the line by the change i made, you might think it was manipulation. going up 5 spaces was a good business practice for me.
.

You know you can't say something so titillating without at least one of us saying,
WHAT ONE THING?!

 

[egoodell]

What an unfortunate situation for Moosetrax to deal with.
We've found honesty and being cooperative towards similarly appointed and ethical colleagues is in everyone's best interest. The guest wins, businesses that share a set of values and approach to offering a quality experience win, and it makes for good karma, if you believe in it.
Our biggest problem here is the manipulation of the review process by several local innkeepers on TripAdvisor. We have nothing against telling a guest when we are asked "We had an awesome time and really love your place, how can I help you get more guests?" about the various ways they can share their experience, but some of our "colleagues" have taken it to the extreme.
In fact, for years I have suggested to TA that they broaden the listing and ranking options to include a statement that owners can sign off on:
"This lodger solicits reviews from all of its guests as a standard practice."
"This lodger respects and honors the intended honesty and inherent objectivity of TripAdvisor and does not."
I see no reason why those of us that don't gild the lily on sites like that should be relegated to second class rankings because competitors have hijacked the system due to the lack of review policing capability there. When caught they knock the offender down a few notches in the rankings and within a week, they move right back where the were and usually the owner helps that by soliciting even more reviews. Vicious cycle and it really does hurt the more ethical operators.
I have witnessed the following for years by a few operators near us.
Former employees writing reviews, former employees we know telling us about rewards being offered for glowing reviews, suspicious "rebuttal" type reviews posted within 24 hours of a negative review being posted, reviews laden with just too many glowing adjectives from posters with locations in the same or very close town.
How many innkeepers do you all know who get guests living in the same damn town? And I don't mean qualified reviews like "my parents stayed there while visiting me because I didn't have room for them.
Instruction sheets for how to write to reviews, what to write to best benefit the B&B in search engine rankings via certain keywords, badgering writers of negative reviews via telephone and email until they removed a review, etc. And if anybody doesn't think that stuff doesn't help, run a Google of your place's name and see where you find the first reference to TripAdvisor, its usually in the first few listings under your own website.
Long and short of it, we won't send a referral to anybody who doesn't share our ethical approach but also won't bad mouth anybody, even the worst place in town..

asking for legitimate reviews is not a problem for me.
having a computer available for guests, a handout on where to go to write a review, how to write it, what to say, a forceful request or a manipulative request - "you don't know what tricks other places get up to, we have to stay on top of these things" - is absolutely wrong. having employees write reviews is wrong. giving bonuses or kickbacks for reviews is wrong. guests who say they found us on TA never write reviews. our guests grade hard. 4 stars are common with glwoing comments. as we just read, it's the overall rating tha counts, not the grades for the individual items.
when getting my car fixed reulsts in getting a lecture from the frint desk on how to answer when the independent assayer calls i'm no less than annoyed. then they ask if i am going to answer every question with a responde of *excellent* and if not they go on to explain how if i don't they will lose dealership dollars or whatever. if they want 5's across the board then the service better be wroth it.
we send a thank you email to every guest. in there it is mentioned that if they had the idea they wanted to share anything about the stay with the world at large this is where we would like them to do so. the referral links go to 2 different places. it has been so long since we've been in the #1 space on TA that even oj simpson couldn't try hard enough to get us back there. we do try to stay above the advertizements. beyond there it's a no mans land. unless the top 3-4 are full that night. there is nothing in there that might be thought of as manipulation. no one gets a followup email asking where th e review is didn't they like there stay?
in the past year 400 orso emails have been sent. no requests for reviews go out to guests who are repeats and have shown a reluctance to *get involved* in reviews. those emails got 30 reviews. not setting the wrld on fire with those requests. i'm in total agreement with you on the forced reviews. waht i don't think works is waving that particular flag in the guests face. guests don't care unless they've been hoodwinked by false reviews into going somewhere where they did not have the same wonderful experience all the employees said they would.
if all of a particular place's reviews use the same few descriptors and it's not about the views most readers get a feeling that something, not sure what, but something, is not right.that gut feeling often leads them away. now not all of them. we've had some guests say that having a bunch of 4 stars is why they chose us over the places with all 5 stars. they didn't want to be disappointed because who can keep up that kind of promise on a day to day basis?
that was a lot more than i meant to say. it's a fine line everyone walks every day when it comes to reviews. in a place where there are a lot of options, placing well in google is great, placing well in TA is great, placing well in both is a bulls eye. some would say that manipulating the system is good business. all i did was change one thing on google, and not a big thing either and my listing went from 10 to 4 almost overnight. manipulation? or good business practice? if you were the business i bumped down the line by the change i made, you might think it was manipulation. going up 5 spaces was a good business practice for me.
.

asking for legitimate reviews is not a problem for me.
having a computer available for guests,

Be careful - I've heard that if the reviews come from your computer you can get in trouble. They can tell and they will think you are writing them, not your guests.
Riki