Review scoring system
I have read many posts about Booking.com’s scoring system, which I believe is unfair . Guests could be awarding 10/10 for each of the 6 categories: Facilities, cleanliness, VFM, Comfort, Location, Staff and yet the overall score, which would be the one guests search on and see when looking at properties is purely based on an emotion. For all we know the weather could have been bad during their stay or they could have had a row with their partner - all of which has nothing to do with the accommodation. I have had many 10/10 scores for the 6 categories and then a lower score than 10 for the overall stay and yet a comment to say what a great time they have had and they will be returning .......
and yet the only thing this does for me is drag my score down!
Surely an average of the 6 categories would be more meaningful?
Welcome to the Partner Only Forum, addressing only us not BdC support team.
Posting an action request will not result in any action at all, here.
Hi
Indeed we all do but 12 months later its stil lthe same, so it is what it is.
Nothing we can do about it.
If you want phone BdC Support directly for this type of enquiry. Guide below or :
1) In the extranet, go to the ‘Inbox’ tab.
2) Select ‘Booking.com messages’.
3) Click on ‘See Contact Options’.
Topic : Account
Subtopic : Other, then phone number is revealed on right
Kind Regards,
Be Safe, Be Well
Dedicated Partner Contact Options - Visual Guide
Reminder your profile here is missing your listing link, please add it.
How & Why Add your Listing to your Partner Community Profile
And we also received many scores where they put an overall 10 but lower scores in categories.. There are pros and cons in each review system but in the end the property score will be more or less the same. Small properties with little amount of reviews will always struggle to keep a solid score regardless of the review system type.
Pleasing guests is always hard....sometimes even though you think you have done your best...they just think you have not.
Keep on doing your best.... excellent reviews will come....
We've had the same - 10/10 for all the scores but a global score of just 8, and a write up telling us how everything was so amazing. Just doesn't make any sense!
We can live with that, but today we get a 1 score review, anonymous, and no text. Just full low scores across every check. Puzzled are we really that bad that we missed something? How didn't we know?
We can only assume its the group of young lads that turned up last week, turned our apartment into a night club, then were disappointed when we intervened to remind them of our house rules. Just a retaliatory review as they did not get to do what they wanted!
We cannot add a response as the guest did not write anything. Guest has a voice but we are silenced! Considering we are 'partners' with booking.com surely there should be a fair and balanced approach here.
I'm sure many of you are having the same issues since March weeding out the stays that are the most risk of turning your place into a party house. We send multiple messages on booking, on arrival, to make sure our booking rules are clear.
For booking.com its fine to leave the review there and damage our glowing reputation that we work hard every stay to maintain and improve
BOOKING.com - if you're going to be impartial and unbiased then you have to let us know which stay it was, and also allow us to leave a response.
Has anyone else had similar experience, what did you do to overcome this?
Imran, very sorry to hear about your struggles with your guests and reviews...
I can understand your frustration but leave it behind you and go on...
You can always report guests as misconduct in your Reservation tab.
Better guests and reviews will come...
Hi Imran,
Most mature logical adults as Guests, seeing that crappy review and how its marked anonymous, would ignore it, and not think anything of it.
As its clearly been done in spite.
I would just ignore it and move on.
Kind Regards
Be Safe, Be Well
We all have been in similar situations which you described. It is just part of this business that we are in. And the answer to your qestion? As M Adampolou said:
"Pleasing guests is always hard....sometimes even though you think you have done your best...they just think you have not. Keep on doing your best.... excellent reviews will come...."
I know its part of the business, and thanks for your response. Just asking BCOM to have a fair totally unbiased system where we can have a voice as well as the guest.
"An anonymous review is when a guest leaves a review without including any personal details.
We respect our customers’ right to privacy, so it’s important to give them this option. If a guest chooses to leave an anonymous review, it is also Booking.com’s responsibility to protect their privacy, so we’re not able to share any details about such guests.
All reviews on our website, including anonymous ones, are 100% verified. We check and make sure that every review is submitted by a genuine guest who booked and/or stayed at the property (unless their reservation is reported as a no-show)."
So we need to accept it as it is..
I understand there are policies and rules we have to follow but that does not mean we should remain silent when we think there is an imbalance that needs to be addressed.
It is elected to show only one side of the story, so really nothing should be shown at all in these instances. If the guest wishes to remain private then fine tell them when they leave a review but that will also remain private....fair?
I would always like to know if we have failed and relate it directly to a stay and persons in my team involved so we can evaluate our own performance and see if there was anything we could or should have done differently.
If I read that right you are suggesting :
When a Guest uses Anonymous option, that the rating and review not be public on booking.com listing. But you as a Partner can privately view it in Extranet.
Is that a fair interpretation?
Yes exactly, would you agree?
I personally am not bothered about anonymous reviews because majority of them are positive, and I would preffer them to be shown publicly. Although your suggestion sounds fair I would approve it if we would receive only bad reviews which we don't. But because of one or two negative scores comparing to many positive ones it would be not in my interest. :)
We all love great reviews, and accept fair reviews when and if a guest is not entirely satisfied during their stay. Its what keeps us on our toes to be able to earn a decent revenue from Booking.com
Maybe if the review is anonymous, less than 4 stars, and has no comments then booking.com can consider it should not be displayed as we will not have a fair and equal opportunity to tell our side of any story if we wanted to.
Sure, we would all support this feature. Who wouldn't want a negative score to not be displayed. :)
Ditto to all you point out above, Caroline, and thank you for airing this issue. We have just recently had the same experience. A guest rated us 10 on all 6 categories but then 8 for the overall score. We do not see the logic in firstly getting guests to rate the 6 categories and then asking them for an overall score.
The scores in the 6 categories should be sufficient. They provide useful and ample "info that helps people make booking decisions." (https://partner.booking.com/en-us/help/guest-reviews/how-my-guest-revie…)
Requiring guests " to give the property an overall score out of 10 as part of their review " undoes all the good that their 6 previous ratings do as can be seen in the cases described on this page. To the 'partner' it is most unfair, as you point out Caroline, since the overall scores are what determine our 'public' score.
At the same link above, it states: "We built this review system based on feedback from guests and partners, and we use their ongoing input to continually improve it. We designed it to help gather constructive feedback in a transparent way, and to be fair to all properties."
This new system is not 'constructive' for it is NOT 'transparent'. The overall score only muddles up the picture that the other ratings so helpfully paint.
You couldn't be more right! The Booking.com review and scoring system is as broken and dysfunctional as their non-existent Host Support system. Booking is well aware their scoring system is broken, that it damages the income and reputation of hard working hosts, and makes certain the worst guests are protected over the best hosts.
Bottom line, Booking.com has zero f's to give where the well-being of their hosts is concerned.
The scoring system is extremely unfair. Yet another full set of 10’s and overall 8. This is not helpful at all but whenever I contact .com to air my frustrations all they can do is ‘explain how it works’. As if I need to be told again. I know exactly how it works and it is not fair. Having spoken to one returning guest who had left us a full set of 10’s and overall 8, they had been under the impression that they had scored full marks overall?? Very frustrating.