Brilliant idea - I hadn't thought of that. I got a quote from a builder - 47 million GBP - but it didn't include replacement of trees - so I said 'no thank you' what am I - a mug?
I had one couple who stayed - their shower developed a leak which could not be repaired during their stay but they had access to a shower in another room for their exclusive use. We automatically offered them a 50% discount on their room without being prompted... they ungraciously came back and asked for a FULL refund... but worse... they added that they would give us a 'good review' if we did so.
I call that blackmail. I immediately rescinded my 50% discount offer (quite rightly in my view) and reported the blackmail issue to Booking com - who did absolutely NOTHING... Thereafter the guest gave us a stinking review and a 1 score... somewhere in my brain I worked out that Booking com should have done something... but maybe I am a bit odd on things like 'the integrity of guest's reviews.' I did take this up with Booking com - I thought it was important to slam down hard on guests who use blackmail to extract refunds from hosts. Booking com's response was 'Guests are entitled to leave a review' - holy cow - they actually ignored the fact that the guest attempted to use 'a good review' tactic to extract a refund. Now THAT I call unsatisfactory.
I had a guest that gave us a 9 score because we were on a hill. I wrote to the council and asked if they could shift it... so we could improve our score - but they declined to do so. 'Councils" - so unhelpful.
I had a very very large lady guest who complained about the mattress... You should have heard what the mattress had to say $%@#! - you get the picture right?
I agree with you entirely - We had maintained a good score of 9.5 but as soon as the new scoring system came in - guest who found one tiny issue to moan about would give a final score of 9, the equivalent of 10 x 9 category scores.
The new scoring system was a very bad bad decision by Booking com. Ever since it was introduced our score has fallen from 9.5 to 9.3 - the reason being that despite guests mostly giving us 10s in the individual scores - the general habit was to mark us overall as 9. causing our score to decline progressively. Thank you Booking com for your negative input on this issue.
Previously if we got 5 x 10's and 1 x 9 our overall score would be 9.83
or 4 x10 and 2 x9 = 9.66
or 3 x10 and 3 x 9 = 9.5
or 2 x 10 and 4 x 9 = 9.3
or 1 x 10 and 5 x 9 = 9.16
So despite most of our guests giving us mostly 10s the final overall mark of 9 is the equivalent of getting 6 x 9s - which is not a good representation of what the guest actually thinks.
Interestingly the opposite happens with poor performing establishments - their overall score is usually higher than than average of the individual scores - so their scores are going up whilst the better establishments are going down.
I think whoever came up with this final overall score system is not very good at maths. We have to live with the knowledge that our best efforts are being undermined by the Booking com idiotic scoring system.
Privacy Laws? Legal team? There is nothing in my suggestion that has anything remotely to do with privacy etc - that is muddying the waters. This is a straight-forward, easy to digest, common sense policy suggestion.
Let's keep is simple. Guests (for common sense reasons) are asked to provide a means of contacting them and are expected to be contactable by their host within a respectable time frame - say 36 hours. How simple is that. I do not think I have to explain the multitude of events that might make it essential to contact the guest before arrival. At present if a host is unable to contact a guest - you know who gets hit with any financial consequences don't you? - the host that is who, despite best efforts to avoid a problem. This is blatantly unfair and unreasonable on the host. I hope Booking com will see that this as a very sensible policy upgrade that will make the Host's job easier to satisfy the demands of the travelling public.
Brilliant idea - I hadn't thought of that. I got a quote from a builder - 47 million GBP - but it didn't include replacement of trees - so I said 'no thank you' what am I - a mug?
On a more serious note:
I had one couple who stayed - their shower developed a leak which could not be repaired during their stay but they had access to a shower in another room for their exclusive use. We automatically offered them a 50% discount on their room without being prompted... they ungraciously came back and asked for a FULL refund... but worse... they added that they would give us a 'good review' if we did so.
I call that blackmail. I immediately rescinded my 50% discount offer (quite rightly in my view) and reported the blackmail issue to Booking com - who did absolutely NOTHING... Thereafter the guest gave us a stinking review and a 1 score... somewhere in my brain I worked out that Booking com should have done something... but maybe I am a bit odd on things like 'the integrity of guest's reviews.' I did take this up with Booking com - I thought it was important to slam down hard on guests who use blackmail to extract refunds from hosts. Booking com's response was 'Guests are entitled to leave a review' - holy cow - they actually ignored the fact that the guest attempted to use 'a good review' tactic to extract a refund. Now THAT I call unsatisfactory.
I had a guest that gave us a 9 score because we were on a hill. I wrote to the council and asked if they could shift it... so we could improve our score - but they declined to do so. 'Councils" - so unhelpful.
I had a very very large lady guest who complained about the mattress... You should have heard what the mattress had to say $%@#! - you get the picture right?
Well actually - allowing for Covid - yes it is new.
I agree with you entirely - We had maintained a good score of 9.5 but as soon as the new scoring system came in - guest who found one tiny issue to moan about would give a final score of 9, the equivalent of 10 x 9 category scores.
The new scoring system was a very bad bad decision by Booking com. Ever since it was introduced our score has fallen from 9.5 to 9.3 - the reason being that despite guests mostly giving us 10s in the individual scores - the general habit was to mark us overall as 9. causing our score to decline progressively. Thank you Booking com for your negative input on this issue.
Previously if we got 5 x 10's and 1 x 9 our overall score would be 9.83
or 4 x10 and 2 x9 = 9.66
or 3 x10 and 3 x 9 = 9.5
or 2 x 10 and 4 x 9 = 9.3
or 1 x 10 and 5 x 9 = 9.16
So despite most of our guests giving us mostly 10s the final overall mark of 9 is the equivalent of getting 6 x 9s - which is not a good representation of what the guest actually thinks.
Interestingly the opposite happens with poor performing establishments - their overall score is usually higher than than average of the individual scores - so their scores are going up whilst the better establishments are going down.
I think whoever came up with this final overall score system is not very good at maths. We have to live with the knowledge that our best efforts are being undermined by the Booking com idiotic scoring system.
Ailyn,
Privacy Laws? Legal team? There is nothing in my suggestion that has anything remotely to do with privacy etc - that is muddying the waters. This is a straight-forward, easy to digest, common sense policy suggestion.
Let's keep is simple. Guests (for common sense reasons) are asked to provide a means of contacting them and are expected to be contactable by their host within a respectable time frame - say 36 hours. How simple is that. I do not think I have to explain the multitude of events that might make it essential to contact the guest before arrival. At present if a host is unable to contact a guest - you know who gets hit with any financial consequences don't you? - the host that is who, despite best efforts to avoid a problem. This is blatantly unfair and unreasonable on the host. I hope Booking com will see that this as a very sensible policy upgrade that will make the Host's job easier to satisfy the demands of the travelling public.
Hilarious - say no more, I understand the point you are making.