No receipt, no review? Top gastropub operators weigh in on TripAdvisor debate
The already-contentious issue made headlines earlier this week when restaurateur David Moore, owner of Michelin-starred Pied a Terre and L'Autre Pied, London, slammed TripAdvisor as a "monster spiralling out of control" in the Daily Mail.
The site desperately needed to introduce some kind of structure to satisfy both the customer and the business owner, he urged.
Karen Errington, co-owner of the Rat Inn, Hexham, which came 13th in this year's Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs, echoed Moore's feelings.
She said: "If we get bad reviews on there that's fair enough – if someone doesn't like what you do they are entitled to their own opinion. But the thing that really annoys me about it is people can go on there and publish something that bears no resemblance to what's actually happened on the day.
"[Moore] is absolutely right, people need to have a receipt. It would also make sure that people aren't just going on there because they've been out, they're annoyed with what they've had or it wasn't what they expected and they can get quite vindictive."
Time to think
Requiring users to provide receipts for their reviews could also lead to customers taking more time to think about their experience at the pub before posting rather than, in some cases, posting from their smartphone while still at the pub, potentially after having a few drinks, she added.
However, she said, replying humorously to certain reviews had played well with some guests who turned up and were curious to meet the person behind the responses.
Hayley Coleman of TripAdvisor told the Publican's Morning Advertiser: "We value the insights of the business owners as well as travellers and both are given an equal opportunity to speak to the TripAdvisor community – in fact, owners always have the last word with the management response tool, which allows them to respond to each review on site."
She cited a 2015 study that reported 65% of TripAdvisor users said seeing management responses to reviews made them more likely to book a visit. Some 80% said thoughtful responses to bad reviews improved their impression of a business while 80% said it made them feel the business cared more about its customers.
In late 2015, campaigners took to social media to call on TripAdvisor to introduce a no receipt, no review policy to combat fraudulent reviews.
Prominent advocates of the #noreceiptnoreview campaign included Peter Borg-Neal of Oakman Inns, anonymous food writer TomEats, Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner and The Guardian restaurant critic Marina O'Loughlin.
Penalizing genuine customers
Coleman said: "On the topic of verifying reviews, requiring a receipt or bill to write a review would unfairly penalize the many genuine customers who don't have one – we think that is neither fair nor useful to consumers, since the effect would be to reduce the volume of genuine reviews on the site.
"It is also important to note that a receipt verification model wouldn't prevent the most common type of fraud attempted – property boosting – because nobody has better access to receipts than a property owner themselves."
Anton Piotrowski, chef-patron of Michelin-starred pub the Treby Arms in Devon, said rather than asking contributors to post receipts, it would be better for the site to make users sign in via Facebook or a similar social media account so as to make them identifiable and accountable.
He said: "That way, you would know who it was that was in the restaurant that evening."
The Treby Arms had also struggled in the past with staff from competing businesses posting defamatory comments on its TripAdvisor profile and the profile of its recently opened sister site the Springer Spaniel, he added.
"Living in the countryside, you can get slandered by your local boozer up the road and the one down the road. You have to take it with a pinch of salt.
"When I opened the Springer Spaniel, I had loads [of bad reviews] – when you open your second property everyone wants to hit you hard. We got a lot of abuse."
"Hopefully when certain guides come out, people that really do understand food and drink will look at those rather than something that's not really true about the industry."
Read the PMA's full-length feature on responding to TripAdvisor reviews
