Shenton's View : The Stage: I recently wrote about how punters enjoy bad reviews – and how those that draw attention by objecting publicly to them can end up attracting more publicity than they bargained for.
Just last week a hotel, described by a couple of its customers as a “rotten stinking hovel” in a TripAdvisor review, attracted national newspaper headlines when its owners charged the guests £100 on their credit card, citing the hotel’s policy: “For every bad review left on any website, the group organiser will be charged a maximum £100 per review.”
8 comments:
Bad reviews are essential to our industry. Without bad reviews, companies wouldn't strive to become better at what they do.
Charging patrons at a hotel a bad review fee is outrageous. That was in Europe, I can't imagine that happening here. Charging theatre patrons a bad review fee is even crazier. What's the point of seeing a show if you can't express your opinion afterwards.
I just feel like the entertainment industry is always so quick to express our opinion, so why shouldn't we be accepting of people who want to criticize us.
This is a little ridiculous. Charging people for bad reviews is a huge overstep into the right to free speech. While people have always been able to "pay for reviews" via bribes, but charging people for bad reviews is absurd. It is the responsibility of all companies to provide their product or service in a way that makes it appeal to customers so they can get money, it is absurd to expect customers to pay for the right to discourage others from having the same terrible experience they did. As someone who relies heavily on reviews when making purchasing decisions, I find this sick, twisted, and stupid.
It's absolutely ridiculous that a hotel is charging for bad reviews, and even more so for theatre. People should have just as much right to criticize bad experiences as they have to commend good ones. Granted, reviews are opinion by nature and not the best system by which to judge, but they they still have a significant impact. If anyone is charging for people to give reviews, they at least have to charge for both good ones and bad ones, which might even help cut down on the amount of useless commentary that tends to populate the internet.
The idea that this hotel charged a fee for a customer's posting of a bad review is really disturbing. The integrity of online reviewing in completely shattered by practices like this. I remember I was disappointed by a purchase I once made on Etsy, so much so that I actually gave a bad review. But Etsy has some kind of "kiss and make up" policy where the shop you gave a bad review to can offer you a ten dollar refund in exchange for the deletion of your review. I think I did it, mostly because I felt so guilty about posting a bad review in the first place, but I also felt uncertain about doing so. Any policy that discourages honest online reviews is a bad one and knowing that policies and fees like this exist only further emphasize how little trust one can put in an online review. It is silly to even consider this in context of reviewing theatre.
I mean, of course they could... but in that instant they'd undermine any possible credibility they would have with patrons, critics, or the world at large. Hotels charging for bad reviews sounds pretty stupid, especially if the charge was only in the fine print. Also, can they only charge that once? Now you have a royally pissed off patron who can take to social media AGAIN, this time picking up fans and news outlets along the way. Soon, you're the asshole who can't take criticism, and even if the customer was a lying troll, he's been vindicated. Any attempt to shield yourself from bad reviews rather than to address problems is going to backfire, whether you're a hotel, a theatre, or other business. No one is so unique that customers can't find someone else to provide the same service, and by getting defensive, you're giving them incentive to do so. Ultimately, no, theaters should absolutely not charge bad review fees. The industry is precarious enough as it is, we don't need dishonesty and underhandedness to topple it further.
I agree with most of the comments above. This seems kind of silly to me. If you're going to introduce a bad review fee, you have to introduce a good review fee. You can't essentially fine people for saying they did not like your show. It reduces the creibility of both the theatre company and of the reviewers. Who is going to believe somebody if they think they are just being paid off to say what they are saying? Reviewers need to be able to review a show honestly without fear of being chastized. And here's an idea for the theatre companies: instead of using money to pay off the reviewers, why not use it to create a better product? If there were more quality in performances, perhaps bad reviews would dwindle down anyway.
Okay so i think that the whole concept of being fined for a bad review is completely ludicrous. It is also going to make me and everyone I tell not give you any business. Besides just that, the way of enforcing it must be a nightmare! What actually defines a bad review versus a good one? All reviews that i have written contained aspects of both sides. Bad reviews in any industry are completely necessary. Like getting feedback in school is also. Bad reviews help you fix problems and get better. Also as a consumer, it helps you choose where to spend your money. I also just in general think this wouldnt fly in america due to the whole free speech thing.
Charging for a bad review is essentially putting a price on free speech. How does any organization/business think that you can charge people just because they don't like what they have to say? Using that same line of reasoning, every time I say something critical about a television show I watch, or a restaurant I ate at on my Facebook, I should be fined? Where does the line get drawn? What's to much? Also what happened to no publicity is bad publicity? And instead of wanting to further deter people from your establishment, shouldn't you maybe think of addressing their complaints and contacting them to soothe out the mishap? What will you accomplish by creating a fee for someone to say something less than positive, but than for people to further not want to support you? Where is the logic?! Come on people.
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