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Feature request : Prevent Guests from making anonymous reviews
Remove the anonymous option for guests permanently.
This circus has got to stop.
This would quickly resolve alot of fake reviews.
Its been long enough and said enough for it to be an urgent requirement.
make it so, please.
.gb
Yes I agree
So turns out on my usa Partner Hub copy of this a community staff guy replied saying this has already been done.
https://partner.booking.com/en-us/get-regional-support/feature-request-…
B.
Edgard Yamamoto54 minutes ago
Hi BookAve,
I hope all is well!
We've recently stopped guests from leaving anonymous reviews. Check out the article below for more information.
"Anonymous reviews have historically been a pain point for many of our partners, so we’ve recently updated our policies to remove this option. Going forward, any reviews your property receives will be left under the guest’s name and you’ll be able to see the associated guest reservation details. What’s in this article: 1) Why we allowed guests to leave anonymous reviews 2) Why we no longer allow guests to leave anonymous reviews"
https://partner.booking.com/en-gb/help/guest-reviews/general/anonymous-…
Thanks for your partnership
Sorry Edgar, not true at all. We received one, asked to the customer assistance to have it removed and we've been denied this option. We are absolutely furious about the way you are dealing with this. I spoke to this girl (Geraldina) in Italy where we are based to have it cancelled and she said she could not. We don't understand why you come up with a new policy that in fact doesnt work!!!! Please give us a feedback about this all, we feel let down to say the least,
Hi Edgard, this is actually not working because I just received an anonymous review and that is really not fair. Please pay attention to your tests when you are changing the codes and putting the system live. The reviews are giving lots of trouble to us as hosts and I am wondering why is this not taken into consideration?
The same features are available on Airbnb platform, why can booking.com not provide it?
Why are the IDs of guests not checked? and why are we as hosts no able to also give our reviews on guest's behavior? and why can the irrelevant comments be deleted by your system and many other whys that are well explained by other members here.
I personally have contacted the BDC agents so many times and they were very willing to help as they could see the problem clearly but their hands were tight because of the limitations of the system. But all they could do was to apologize for the inconvenience.
I am sure BDC has the capacity to solve this problem. It is a matter of changing some features and it will be a win.-win situation for all parties. Yet, it has been open and unsolved.
What do we have to do to bring it to the attention of the responsible department? any idea? please let us know. Thank you for your support.
All we need now is comment-less reviews to be disallowed, if we cannot answer in our defense they cannot score us.
Let's be rid of these nasty little keyboard warriors!
Totally agree, when they got rid of anonymous reviews not so long back I thought they'd have done the same for these types of review too as very unfair to the hosts.
This is a move in the right direction. Still more to do .....
There is the "no comment" issue as mentioned by Fluff.
There is the "overall score not matching elements scores" issue.
There is the dishonest / unreasonable / unfair / racist / sexist / homophobic / abusive reviews issue.
There is the issue of reviews being posted by the person who booked even when that person didn't stay.
And another issue ...... "while ensuring guests had enough options to comfortably report problems".
Reviews are NOT the place to report problems. Guests should always report problems as soon as they happen, during their stay. This will give hosts/partners the opportunity to resolve problems quickly and give the guest a better stay. It also ensures that the next guests are not inconvenienced.
Asking guests to report problems publicly in a review, which they might not post for 3-4 weeks, is just plain wrong.
BDC must understand that hosts / partners do not sleep in the beds, do not shower in the rental properties, do not cook their dinners in the rental properties. The first we will know about something being broken or not working properly is often when a guest tells us. We need guests to tell us immediately so that we can fix it. The last thing we want is guest after guest saying nothing until a review goes live several weeks later.
As Fluff says, if we as hosts cannot reply to a review then scores should be disallowed. Simple as!
It is interesting to see the amount of demand on the review issues and yet it is not solved. I personally made couple of requests with specific examples but have no feedback or "unfortunately it cannot be changed". This is provided on Airbnb platform and I find it very important for various reasons:
1. We as hosts should be able to check the reference of the guests by other hosts to know who are the people that are entering our premises.
2. Their IDs and references are not checked by booking.com (only name, phone and address) and we run after some of them to get the copy of their ID (in some countries it is an obligation by hosts to provide it to the authorities). some guests even hesitate to send their IDs and don't provide it unless you face them and ask them directly by explaining why they should do so.
2. Some of us go out of our way to make guests feel at home and provide what we find necessary or pleasant to make their stay comfortable and enjoyable, yet some guests for whatever reason or personal issue they might have, can give any review, even some totally irrelevant with invalid expectations.
3. The reviews even invalid cannot be changed yet they impact the scores.
4, Bad behavior guests get away with it and the next host has no idea who they are inviting to their place.
5. Last but not least, this could be a matter of security. Some guests could be really disturbed people and we have no way of knowing this ahead of time until they are at our place :( for example Airbnb guests provide previous references from other hosts.
I really hope that the responsible department in Booking.com understand the importance of these features and respect the rights of hosts. If it has been provided by other platforms why can this not be provided on booking.com? Do we need as hosts to make a collective request?