Unhappy customers don’t forget…
A few years ago on New Years Eve, I paid $150 to get into a club called Guastavinos for all you can eat and all you can drink. The club overbooked the place. So we waited on line a mile long for 3 hours in the blistering cold to get in only 15 minutes before New Years. By the time we got in, there was no food left. And only 2 bars, each with 1 bartender serving well over 1000 people for all you can drink. I left by 12:30 to go home and put something on my girlfriend’s frostbitten feet.
When I went to Citysearch to submit my review the next day, they promptly removed it. You see, the way Citysearch handles review is with a nice little ‘Request removal of this review’ link. Dozens of other people submitted reviews of Guastavino’s that day, yet all of them were taken down. Fortunately for Citysearch, they were the only free restaurant review site around, so at the time they could do what they want and not risk losing a customer.
Now Citysearch does not have all positive reviews on their site, and I’m sure they don’t take down every review that is requested, but they don’t have a review policy posted on their site, and they sure didn’t have any explanation for taking down my review.
I won’t forget my experience at Guastavino’s, but in my mind Citysearch is somehow associated with this bad experience. Guastavino’s really did a terrible job, but to be honest I probably wouldn’t have gone back there regardless. Citysearch simply took down a review, but they are the real losers in this experience.
You see, like many New Yorkers I loved Citysearch and would’ve been one of their biggest users and would’ve visited the site every day, but now I go there only when menupages.com doesn’t have my restaurant or sheckys.com doesn’t have my bar.
As the webmaster of a site that focuses on service reviews, I keep this experience in mind.
Taking down that bad review means you are associated with that bad service provider…