Silencing Consumers

This is really disturbing – the review site TripAdvisor has given consumers the opportunity to provide real advice and reviews of hotel properties. I have personally have made over 425 contributions to TripAdvisor (including over 150 reviews, 200 photos and several videos). I’ve had some reviews rejected as being too positive (such as a recent review of The American Hotel in Sharon Springs, New York) and I’ve had reviews rejected for being too negative (such as a review of a restaurant in Peru where I got sick). Overall, I think Trip Advisor does a good job of ensuring reviews are accurate.

You do see some fake reviews, but you can sort that out by only believing recommendations from travelers that have a minimum of say 25 reviews. Hotel and restaurant owners have the opportunity to respond. The Homewood Suites East in Harrisburg, PA does a very good job of that – they respond to every review – good, bad or otherwise (probably a reflection of how conscientious the management is there, something I noticed during my stay).

Yet now, a British company (the same folks who brought you the BP Deepwater Horizon) are trying to shut down TripAdvisor and silence consumers. The company is called KwikChex. Their logic is that, if customers don’t have a voice, their clients get to make more money. It’s a “screw consumers at all costs” approach. So far, the company has signed up over 700 hoteliers. I think KwikChex should publish its client list - that way, we know what properties to boycott. They obviously have something to hide, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing this. As a legal strategy, I think TripAdvisor should publish the list of every property that engages in this lawsuit.

We saw this same trend in the medical industry. A group of doctors (some of whom had been sanctioned by state medical boards for causing unnecessary patient deaths) teamed up with a slick lawyer and created a firm in the U.S. called Medical Justice. The organization not only tries to silence consumers voices, but has also worked to ensure the disciplinary proceedings from State Medical Boards remained sealed so consumers don’t know if their doctor has been sanctioned.

My feeling has been for one of transparency. And good business owners know this. If you offer a good service, provide good customer service and deliver good value, you don’t need to sue your customers or issue gag orders. Companies like Medical Justice and KwikChex are nothing but shields for individuals (physicians) and companies (hotels) that are out screwing customers – nothing more, nothing less.