Bad reviews from bad reviewers

[HotelMinion]

So, sometimes when I'm bored I like to look up reviews for a business other than mine and read the customers' reviews on them. Especially for industries I've worked in, which is practically anything with customer service.
Most of the one star reviews I find I'm on the customers' side. But occasionally I see one that I think, OMG is s/he really for real? It must be a joke, right?

Example 1: "The staff here is horrible, and their purple suit uniforms make them look like gangsters!" Um ok. The staff doesn't pick their uniforms, their company does. And since when do gangsters wear purple suits? Maybe in movies, but...any way no need to give a business one star just because of the uniforms being ugly.

Example 2: "I asked for a freebie for my kid, and they said that I had to PAY! So I went all Momma Bear on them and demanded that they give my kid what she wants! Don't mess with a Moomma Bear and her cubs! " I thought Momma Bear was when your child was being threatened by something and you defend him or her, not when your kid doesn't get something for free? Over zealous parent much?

And the worst I've seen: "The staff was nice and the place clean. Don't come here, poor service and poor upkeep." Huh??? The staff was nice but poor service? The place was clean but poor upkeep? Dude are you high?

So what are your bad reviews from bad reviews that you've seen from other businesses that didn't make any sense?

[Teefies2]

We had a person put on a survey for our business that our floors were "too shiny, it hurts my eyes". Really????? You gave us a 1 (out of 10) for that???????

[prjkt]

We had a person put on a survey for our business that our floors were "too shiny, it hurts my eyes". Really????? You gave us a 1 (out of 10) for that???????

someone was a little too high

[NecessaryCatharsis]

My favourite was one I read in advance of going to hotel I was already booked at. It was a few years ago, so I don't remember exactly, but the gist was:

There was WAY too many cats around the pool area, they were a nuisance, begging at people's food, and begging for pets and yowling. It made me really uncomfortable. I asked the staff if they could do something about the cats and was told they are wild stray cats, and that the staff traps and disposes of them once a week, and that there should not be any tomorrow. I was really uncomfortable that they let wild cats around the pool area. There could be diseases we got from the cats or anything, so I went down and told the front desk about the problem and they said the same thing. They said that the stray/wild cat problem in country is so bad there is nothing else they can do. It's like they don't even care. So I called the town office to complain that they were just killing all these cats every week. How heartless! Never coming back until they deal with the cat problem!!!

So you don't approve of the cats near you, and don't approve of staff getting rid of them? And they are a problem through the whole country, so it's not like the staff at the hotel can just keep them away from the area. Any other paradoxes you'd like to explore in your hotel review?

NB - my trip there was lovely, and there was two cats hanging out near the pool, who were very friendly and nice. I gave them 4/5 on a couple categories and 5/5 on the rest for my review.

[icmedia]

"Best service I've ever had at a cellphone store! Staff was helpful, definitely telling everyone I know! 8/10"

Thanks so much. Anything less than a 9 or 10? Counts as a zero for us. Thank you so much for tanking my score.

[EricKei]

Anything less than a 9 or 10? Counts as a zero for us.

Ahh, NetPromoter surveys x.x

[notalwaysright]

I hardly read reviews anymore. Yes, I can waste a ton of time sorting through the valid reviews and the stupid reviews, or I can just choose and hope for the best. Maybe if I was going on vacation I'd read more, but for a restaurant? Just try it and see for yourself. Jeez. I'm looking at you, Yelp. Honestly, I'll just ask friends if they've been to a restaurant. It's old school, but it works. Then there are the people who never give 5s on principle.



Nobody's mentioned the voicemail complaint/review of Alamo Drafthouse in Texas. Classic idiot who shouldn't be taken seriously.

[Mr Hero]

Nobody's mentioned the voicemail complaint/review of Alamo Drafthouse in Texas. Classic idiot who shouldn't be taken seriously.

That's a classic. We have an Alamo Drafthouse here in Denver as well and I adore the place! They were showing the entire BttF trilogy last October 21st.

[WishfulSpirit]

I had one review where the guest was OUTRAGED (OUTRAGED I TELL YOU) that we keep clean pool towels in a....laundry hamper. Huh??? It's never been used for dirty clothing, it came directly from <department store near us> and got placed by the pool. The things some people get stuck on...and he was stuck...this guy ranted for two paragraphs about the mortal sin of placing towels in a hamper.

[Rosco the Iroc]

Yelp for my range-

You do need to wear eye protection. Not just to make sure that you don't hurt yourself but also since the bays are fully enclosed at the top and area fairly narrow the casings from the handgun always seem to wind up hitting you

Yea that why we make you wear it and duh that's how guns work.

But at least somebody has our back on their review-

@the guy above.
Sorry if this sounds like im calling you out but you dont know anything your talking about if your casing are hitting you in the face your not shooting properly. I am a NRA INSTRUCTOR AND RSO. Note number 2 these are out door ports and you have alot of room at the same time i work at a indoor range that allows Mag cal rifles and so on its alot louder and the ports are even closer. NOTE 3 you go to a shooting range cause you want to try new things and learn you become a member of a R&G Club if you own and want to have a solo time. Plz dont under rate a place cause your ignorance. ... Heres a secret for you NY and NJ dont go to PA cause they dont have firearms they got cause LESS restriction on what they can shoot FYI

[Stormraven]

"Best service I've ever had at a cellphone store! Staff was helpful, definitely telling everyone I know! 8/10"

Thanks so much. Anything less than a 9 or 10? Counts as a zero for us. Thank you so much for tanking my score.

In some measure of fairness to the customer (and I'll note that I'm in the same boat - 9 or 10 is passing. Anything else counts as a 0) they may not know that. If they're given a 10 point scale, they're likely thinking that an 8 is really pretty good.

[Racket_Man]

I know I posted about this "review/customer feedback" a few years. The "review/feedback" is in the first story

(Please note that at the time I was the only male driver with a ponytail working on that particular shift so the "feedback" could only have been about me. and YES I do properly restrain my hair with a ball cap and about 5 hair rubber bands so nothing is "flying wild". and yes I do know who exactly made the complaint and where they worked)


http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ight=long+hair

[MrSmiley]

In some measure of fairness to the customer (and I'll note that I'm in the same boat - 9 or 10 is passing. Anything else counts as a 0) they may not know that. If they're given a 10 point scale, they're likely thinking that an 8 is really pretty good.

Yeah frankly that seems more of a problem with the math and the survey itself. But of course, managers live in Bizarroworld.

[EricKei]

If it's a NP-branded survey, they're done that way by design. It's a widely-used surveying group. They basically operate on the assumption that anything short of perfection just isn't good enough. IIRC, client companies DO have the ability to tweak how the scores work, though. The normal default is to have weighted scores, where 10 is positive, 8/9 are slightly better than neutral, and 1-7 are negative -- it's just that a 1 or 2 HURTS your overall score much more than a 9 or 10 HELPS. e.g. a single 2 might effectively cancel out half a dozen 9's. As with most surveys, I seriously doubt they have any proper means of dealing with survey trolls.

The result of this is that an overall NP rating of over 70-75% (which realistically means 90% 10's) is considered pretty damn good, and anything above 90 is next to impossible. That being said, a software vendor I used to do 3rd-party support for has had 95%+ for over a decade. of course, that could simply be because they only send their surveys out to paying customers, and the average survey trolls generally ain't gonna spend $300 (at the low end) just to troll them.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

The swamp uses Net Promoter for its customer surveys. Don't know our current score offhand, but it usually hovers in the 60s or low 70s. However, I should also note that the computer program that handles the surveys is probably FUBAR, because there will be responses on our weekly recap that reference other stores, or people we know are from other stores because we don't have anybody by that name working at our store.

I do know that an alarmingly large number of respondents can't use spell or use basic grammar to save their lives. There's usually at least one comment that either makes you scratch your head or bust a gut because it's so poorly-written.