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Remember when I said how happy I was about having ten great Trip Adviser reviews? Recently that went up to twelve great reviews and I was feeling very chuffed and pleased that people were so happy with my Sevilla Tapas Tours. But the thirteenth review proved to be very unlucky and left me feeling upset for several reasons.
I know that all Trip Advisor reviews need to be taken with a huge grain of salt and that they often don’t reflect reality. I mean, for ages now the third best restaurant in Sevilla on Trip Advisor has been – are you ready? – A Slice of New York Pizza! Which isn’t even a restaurant but a tiny take-away joint next to the Cathrdral. Considering we have two Michelin star restaurants here in Sevilla I’m guessing they are probably serving up slightly better grub than pizza slices.
But I digress. The bad review that came in yesterday was from someone who had taken a tapas tour with Peter one night when I was already booked with a group of six people. I was clear about this before she booked, and she was fine about doing the tour with someone else. On the night of the tour I actually got to meet the two women for a few minutes as we coincided at the same tapas bar, and when I asked how their evening had been they told me they’d had a good time. But then they wrote this very negative review which complained about Peter being boring, about having to make all the conversation themselves, not learning much about the city … AND … that “the majority of the tapas that we tasted were not very tasty”. WTF?
Trust me, I have taken Peter to task about this particular tour and, as a result of this bad review, he probably won’t be doing any more tapas tours for me. Which is a shame because it means I will now have to start turning people down when I’m either double booked or unavailable.
On the one hand I do know that some people cannot be satisfied, and in this case one thing I find it very suspicious is that the only food these people liked were two very non-Spanish dishes: Argentinian beef and chocolate cake. I also know exactly where they went and what they ate because those had been my personal choices for them. And so if they didn’t think that food was “tasty” then I don’t know what they would have liked. On the other hand, Peter is much more laid back than me and, if they were also passive types, perhaps they felt they hadn’t been entertained enough. It almost sounds like my twelve fabby reviews made them feel like they’d missed out on something, but perhaps they also wouldn’t have found me entertaining enough. I don’t know.
A friend of mine who has a very popular restaurant here said to me “welcome to the club” when I told him about my first bad review. But you see, it’s different for him. He clearly runs a thriving business with several staff members so there are many different ways a customer might be “disappointed”. But with my personal tours, well, it’s personal. I’m not some big company with lots of employees and a big profit margin. As you all know, it started off with just me trying out something new after going through all the cancer stuff. But then when I had that emergency operation last year, Peter stepped in and did the tours I already had booked while I was recovering. Later on he started doing some tours that came in when I was already booked, out of town, or otherwise unavailable. I thought this was a great thing and hadn’t received any negative feedback about Peter until now. Already, just a day later, I’m getting emails asking me to confirm that I will be the guide.
What I don’t understand is why these two women didn’t just write me an email after their “disappointing tour” so that I could deal with this privately. Surely they must have realised this is just a small personal project, not some big company trying to rip them off with bad or indifferent service. Instead they wrote this awful very public review, which not only damaged my reputation (which is kind of all I’ve got) but also cost someone their part-time job. Frankly, I’m very disappointed in them. Why tell me to my face they had enjoyed their evening and then publicly back-stab me like this? Not nice.
casa azahar 
Hmm. If they reported to you in person that they’d had fun, it does come as a bit of a shock to read this review. Did you need to stop Peter doing tours after one review? As you say the food eaten and the route is chosen by you. It sounds like a personality clash. Keep going, you’ve worked very hard on your Seville Stuff!
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Valuable lesson there. Anyone you send out as a “replacement you” will undoubtedly be met with immediate disappointment, regardless of who it is. It’s not YOU. Upholding your personal reputation is not only a challenge, it’s also a big ask. Imagine if the chef at the cook school with Gordon Ramsay I’m going next month wasn’t Gordon, but one of his graduates. I’d be furious. But at least I would make my complaints known face to face. And, I would tell them that if they did not offer a discount, or rescheduling, I would post a negative review.
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I see what you mean, but I am hardly in the same league as super-famous multi-millionnaire Gordon Ramsay. And these people had been told in advance I couldn’t do the tour that night, and had agreed to go with Peter. In time I will reply to their TA review publicly, but I’m giving them the chance to reply by email first. Yes, I know my blog is public too, but hardly viewed by millions every day…
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It makes no difference. Personal reputation is just that. regardless of fame.
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Replace Gordon with local fisherman renowned for his knowledge of a river. Same disappointment if he sends his rookie. Meeting the person is part of the experience.
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Yes, but they had AGREED to take the tour with Peter. And they did meet me later. And said they’d had a pleasant evening.
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Of course. And that’s why I explained that if I were them, I would ask for a discount, or reschedule. I’m unsure what you want people to say here. That the people are just horrible? OK, they’re horrible, two-faced and unfair. That they should have done things differently? OK, they should have. But you can’t single-handedly change people – you provide a service and people will flippantly criticise. You learn and move on.
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Seems we’re talking at cross purposes here. I misunderstood that you would want a discount or reschedule even if they’d told you beforehand. Bleurgh. Long day. Long week, actually. And it’s only Wednesday!
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It’s hard not to take these things personally but some people are impossible to please. Having met Peter on our tapas tour with you I can vouch for his charm. They should have used my experience-enhancing technique: another glass of wine.
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why are you penalising Peter? It looks to me that these people woud be the sort that would complain for any reason, just to get free stuff (cos they have learn’t that complaining will get free stuff *sigh*).
*huggles* to Azar ((and sunbeams for Loki and Luna)
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I can see your concern, but if I had booked with you, and then agreed to take a tour with Peter, it might have seemed second best to me.
If you then spoke to me, I might well have been all stiff upper lip and the British, “no, It’s fine, really.”
If I was disappointed though, I’d have told by mail personally before posting a duff review.
Although I do think that, yes you do have to take these with a pinch of salt – when I’m reading the reviews for something, I take very little notice of the top and bottom ones, and try to come up with an average of those in between.
I understand why it hurts though, but in time you will get a range of reviews (however good you are) and anyone with half a brain, if they see lots of good ones, knows what they are getting, especially if the alternative as in their case, was cancelling.
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*sigh* They didn’t book with me. They’d asked about availability and I told them I was booked on the day they wanted, but gave them the option of taking the tour with Peter instead. Which is what they agreed to. So it wasn’t a surprise. The only time I’ve made a last minute change was last Sunday because I wasn’t feeling well. Have sent them an email asking how the tour went.
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I think that’s what I meant, though I didn’t say it.
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You are standing at 11 ‘excellents’, one ‘good’ and one ‘poor’. That is a mighty good average! And to be objective, if there wasn’t one mealy-mouthed group out to be bored and succeeding, the whole site would be less credible. Firing Peter on this basis seems like an over-reaction.
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It is really unfortunate that they decided to leave the negative review instead of addressing things directly with you when you gave them the opportunity to do so. Unfortunately, this type of situation was probably bound to happen eventually since the tours are taking off. I agree that, as a potential client, I weigh the combination of good and bad reviews. Sometimes you can tell from the review itself that people are just being ridiculous or that their review just is not that meaningful. I don’t know that I would cut Peter out just yet but rather treat it as a learning experience for everyone.
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I just finished reading the review, and it didn’t come across to me as badly as it did to you. However, I am not the one receiving the review, so I can understand why you are upset.
I took your tapas tour, and as you know I loved it. Every word I wrote in my Trip Advisor Review is the truth. When I write a review I talk about the good, the bad and even the ugly.
Readers can view my reviews and see that I don’t only report the GOOD or GREAT. That being said, if I had been going to say anything bad about the tapas tour I would not have told Peter or you that everything was great, and then turn around an trash you in public.
That is just plain wrong.
There are times when I even refrain for writing a review if I can see the person is well meaning, but the class or tour maybe didn’t come off as planned.
I have spent time with both you and Peter when I was in Seville, and I found Peter to be extremely charming and a nice person to chat too. I don’t think you should penalize Peter for this negative review. Perhaps these two women would have been better suited to a tour with other people. Maybe it wasn’t Peter they were bored with, but each others company!
I think most people who read 12 good reviews will put the one negative review in perspective, and your business will not suffer over the long term.
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“There are times when I even refrain for writing a review if I can see the person is well meaning, but the class or tour maybe didn’t come off as planned.”
Well, that’s because you’re a responsible person, Nancie. If I write a negative review of a place or service it’s to warn others, or at least to let people know that I wouldn’t recommend it. Clearly this woman wanted to warn people about taking a tour with Peter, which seems more like a personal grievance as the review is mostly about that she didn’t have as much fun as the previous reviewers seem to have had. But I’m still not letting Peter off the hook until I get feedback from some of his previous clients.
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I think I should point out that I’m not penalising Peter, unfairly or otherwise. He had a responsibility to give a great tour and I understand that he might have done his best with possibly unresponsive clients. But just like the two women, when I asked Peter later on how the tour had gone he said “very well” or words to that effect. After reading the review he admitted that it had been a bit flat. Well, that’s not right either. He should have told me honestly at the time that he didn’t think the tour had gone well. I would have then got in touch with the clients and asked them if they had any grievances, etc. I mean, who knows, they still might have written this review, but it wouldn’t have come as such an unpleasant shock.
As I said before, I’ve already had one booking request from someone who read the review, and who wanted to make sure they were getting me as their guide, saying “I just wanted to be sure we have a great time”. So you see, damage has already been done.
I’ve written to the last few people who’ve taken tours with Peter asking them for some feedback about their tour and giving them a short checklist to rate 1 – 5 along with any additional comments they’d like to make. Still haven’t heard back from any of them, so I still don’t know what to think of the quality of Peter’s tours. Up until now he’s always told me that they have gone well, and I haven’t received any complaints. But clearly, at least in this one instance, he wasn’t being honest with me. So I am waiting to hear back from the others to get a better picture of how his tours have been in general. I mean, anyone can have an off day, but if so they shouldn’t lie about it.
Also, I’ve had clients that just sit there and wait to be entertained, don’t ask questions or show a lot of interest in what’s going on. Luckily there have been very few like this, but it’s REALLY hard to get through an evening like that. But you see, I don’t know how these women were because I wasn’t there. If someone did write a negative review of my tour after they’d just sat there all evening like a lump I would kindly inform them that this sort of tour isn’t a spectator sport. It’s very personal, usually with 2-4 people. Also, if they’d written a bad review after having said they’d been pleased with it…
This is what I don’t get. My tours are obviously a small personal project. And clients book directly through me by email, with usually a fair bit of correspondence before the actual tour because I have to send info, answer any questions, ask questions about preferences, etc etc… so it’s not like dealing with a “faceless” hotel or restaurant where you don’t know who to contact if you have a grievance. I still don’t understand why this woman decided to write a negative review on Trip Advisor (all the while saying it pained her to do so…) instead of contacting me. What purpose did it serve other than to allow her to publicly complain about not having got me as her tour guide? Anyhow, I’ll wait until I hear back from other clients about Peter’s tours before I make a public reply to her there.
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Sometimes it is impossible to please some people….
I am reminded about when the upstairs neighbours from New York called and said they would be in town for a week. They wanted to see us.
I thought that, since we were working, we’d meet up a couple of times and do a few things together. Apparently, though, we were supposed to entertain them. When asked what they would like to do or what sorts of things they liked to do, they said “anything”. Since they had intimated that their big source of entertainment was to go to the movie theatre on $2 night, I figured that ANYTHING might be entertaining.
My ex and didn’t go out much, ourselves, except to pubs (his choice, not mine) and we didn’t have a car, I was forced to make up a list of possible things that ranged from going to the casino to going up in the Gatineau Hills to the theatre to Bluesfest. I suggested that they get a few pamphlets from the hotel and see if there was something they fancied… Nope! We had to decide.
Everything I managed to get them to do (with the exception of the casino – which was unutterably boring for ME!) was “boring” or was dismissed when suggested as “boring”. And the husband had rented a van which had an automatic transmission. I drive automatic, he was used to standard and he wanted me to drive. Every time we got out of the car, he would put the Parking brake on. And because I was driving and hadn’t put it on, he’d yell at me for forgetting to release it.
Finally, three days into their visit they announced they were leaving. “Ottawa is too boring”.
They decided to go to Pennsylvania, instead, to go outlet shopping.
Surprisingly, I never got a reply to my last letter and we never heard from them again.
I wouldn’t take one bad review entirely to heart. If the have any specific complaints that can be addressed, address them. The rest can be put down to their own personal tastes not being met and, really, there is only so much you can do, there.
The fact that they didn’t enjoy the tapas that you know reccommend because you know it is good and representative tells you quite a bit.
Some people simply find it hard to like anything that is new to them.
Years ago, when we were in Greece, I recall a discussion by hotel guests on “the best food in the world”. N
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Oops…
Not a single person said that they likes anything thatvwasn’t an American staple… “Boston baked beans!” one of the declared… I mean, out of all the millions of possible dishes in the world, the epitome of cuisine was “Boston baked beans!”
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I’ve been getting messages and emails from people in the hotel and restaurant here in Sevilla telling me the same thing – there’s just no pleasing some people.
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As easy as it is to be hurt or angry over negative reviews, you have to break the review into its components and dort the parts into subjective and objective (and possibly subj/obj).
What are the things that you, specifically have control over and what can you personally imporove on.
What you, specifically have control over
1) the choice of venues
2) the choice of menu items
3) the length, price, or scope of the tour
4) your personal involvement (personality, engagement, enthusiasm)
4a) if you were not the person giving the tour, the same as above for them
If anything about the complaint fell within what you have control over or are responsibility for objective or subjective complaints.
If the complaints was about the taste of the food, quantity, choices, ambiance of the venue, prices, etc., you should review them – has the venue fallen short? No? It is a subjective complaint by the client. But do review them… Maybe the service was off that day, maybe the service is slipping at the venue.
Once you’ve weighed the balance of everything, establish what was your responsibility and if something could be improved, do so. Your response should be measured. Don’t dismiss the complaints but Respond ny saying “I’m sorry that your experience wasn’t what you hoped it would be. And we hope that If you are in Seville, again, you will book with us again so we can have the evening that you really enjoy”.
By being gracious in the face of a bad review may soften their opinion and they may give you another chance. They may even suggest that a friend try it.
There’s no benefit in going over the review and rebutting point-by-point their complaint. If the had nit-picky complaints, it won’t help to nit-pick back.
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I find this to be very rude, too. Having read the review, they are not describing a “poor” experience, but perhaps a lackluster one. Nothing went wrong, there was no poor customer service, no actually *bad* experiences. The food wasn’t bad, but “not that tasty” in their estimation. They were just disappointed at not being blown away by the fun of it given their high expectations. The “poor” rating seems terribly unfair. Really, what they were saying is that they felt they got an “average” experience when they expected an “excellent” one.
I also agree that it was rude of them to first complain in such a public way.
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I heard back from the client yesterday. Apparently the reason she didn’t say anything to me at the time was because she didn’t want to say anything negative about the tour in front of my guests.
Except my guests (the group I had taken out that night) were well out of earshot.
Nothing else she added was useful in terms of finding out how to improve my service, just more complaints about Peter similar to those in the review. I think I agree with alejna that the real complaint wasn’t because the tour was bad, but because she didn’t have enough fun, and so rating the tour as “poor” was unfair. But I guess as a “top contributor” on Trip Advisor she clearly thinks her opinions are important and so wasn’t content to just have them read by me.
For the record, here is some of the food she didn’t find tasty: jamón Ibérico de bellota, caña de lomo ibérico, manchego cheese, venison chorizo, spinach with garbanzos and cumin, tender stewed pork cheeks, grilled mushrooms with garlic and parsley…..
I also heard back from someone else who had Peter as a tour guide recently and was told that she and her family had a great time. They thoroughly enjoyed the food and wine, and she thought that Peter was a delightful person, albeit “a bit demure”, so probably best suited for people or groups with strong personalities (like hers). In other words, people who aren’t just passively waiting to be entertained. Apparently they asked Peter lots of questions that night and he had all the answers.
So…. Peter has been “reinstated”. I’ve been giving him a bit of a “refresher course”, talking him through the various bars we go to, getting him to tell me everything he knows and then “filling in the gaps”. There’s actually not that much info missing in terms of his food/wine/Sevilla/Spain knowledge but I’ve been giving him some tips on how to fill those “dead air moments” when everybody clams up or otherwise stops participating. He’ll be helping me out again next week.
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My public response to the review is up.
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I think that is a balanced response – after all, as you say, assuming anyone had real grievances you would want to know about it there and then.
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When you’re a business, this comes with the territory. People prefer not to say negative things to your face, and that’s one reason review sites have grown as much as they have. It’s easier to type it to an audience of strangers than to say it to someone at the time. I can’t tell you how many sub-par meals I’ve had where I’ve told the waitress everything was fine, and then told my friends something different.
Customers don’t exist to help you fine-tune your business. They generally won’t help you do that even when asked, unless they’re Americans (Americans seem to love that sort of thing, for some reason). These two had an evening they didn’t think was stellar, they griped about it on the internet, and that upset you. Because your business is so personal, that’s natural on your part; but it’s also natural on theirs. I’m not saying there is a solution or a comeback, except to do your best as you always have. Over time, the bulk of the reviews will speak for themselves.
And remember when YOU were talking about writing a negative review? I said that people naturally distrust things where all the reviews are positive (often for good reason). One sour grape shows the rest of the bushel to be pretty stellar. I wouldn’t worry about this. Just offer them a discount if they re-book with you next time, and make sure it’s you who takes them around.
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The above ascii characters pretty much cover it. Nice one Raincoaster. Although I doubt your will be the last word.
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*yours*
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Pingback: back to good reviews « casa az
There’s also the psychology of the review process to consider…some people go into elaborate negative reviews, for the discernment and quality they think it shows in *them*. I think that the two ladies were maybe expecting a much more boisterous and exciting evening, and the courtesy it would have required for them to tell you directly was lacking. I’ve seen photos of your tapas tours guests…they seemed to be having a great time.
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