Camp Ground Owners' Response To Review

I have been a watcher of this site for several years and look forward to the reviews....especially the reviews of my park !
We have been fortunate to receive good reviews over the years and work hard to try to correct any issues identified ( issues we can correct ) and we work hard to make our park a place campers look forward to returning to.
My issue is the one-in-a-hundred camper that just doesn't have a good experience and slams the park with reviews that aren't fair and reasonable. Sometimes, despite honest attempts to please, you run across customers that just don't really want to be pleased....they seem like they like to fuss !
I subscribe to the saying that the customer is always right. Everyone has their opinion and the right to express their opinion. I would like to see some process or forum, or even a way to respond to a review, where an owner can offer a reasonable explanation to reviews that may be unfairly negative.
We have an overall rating somewhere just north of 9, but every once in a while, we'll get a 4 because the lake was rough or the wind blew too hard. That is an obvious exaggeration, but I think you get my point.
Has there been any consideration given to a reply or response feature for the reviews ?

Thanks for any feedback. I would be interested to hear what other park operators thing about this topic.

 

I think your idea has merit, but instituting it may be difficult to integrate into the workings of campgroundreviews.com.

Perhaps park owners such as yourself could add an "campgroundreviews.com comment" section on their own website. There, they could make rebuttals to those rogue reviewers who dis your park for no good reason. You could mention the month and year of the review, and then give your rebuttal.

Personally, the way I use campgroundreviews.com, is to take the average rating as my clue. I have seen many parks that got a string of 8,9 and 10's, then one real low review, and then a bunch more 8, 9 and 10's. Who am I gonna believe? I think most of us would realize the low reviewer had an axe to grind doe to unusual circumstances. Or, he's just a jerk. One of the two . . . :blink:

 

QUOTE(DOTLDaddy @ Nov 1 2013, 07:34 AM) [snapback]35193[/snapback]

I think your idea has merit, but instituting it may be difficult to integrate into the workings of campgroundreviews.com.

Perhaps park owners such as yourself could add an "campgroundreviews.com comment" section on their own website. There, they could make rebuttals to those rogue reviewers who dis your park for no good reason. You could mention the month and year of the review, and then give your rebuttal.

Personally, the way I use campgroundreviews.com, is to take the average rating as my clue. I have seen many parks that got a string of 8,9 and 10's, then one real low review, and then a bunch more 8, 9 and 10's. Who am I gonna believe? I think most of us would realize the low reviewer had an axe to grind doe to unusual circumstances. Or, he's just a jerk. One of the two . . . :blink:




I do the same thing as stated above. I even go one step further, I will look at the negative review's author's history of parks they have reviewed. Some times they have a slew of bad reviews, then I just ignore anything that reviewer states.

 

I agree with the others, in that I typically ignore a singular bad review for an otherwise well rated park by many. An exception to that might be when the poor review refers to some element of the park that is new or recently changed, in which case I would give it more consideration if that element is important to me.

 

QUOTE(jimbob07 @ Oct 31 2013, 10:10 PM) [snapback]35192[/snapback]

I have been a watcher of this site for several years and look forward to the reviews....especially the reviews of my park !
We have been fortunate to receive good reviews over the years and work hard to try to correct any issues identified ( issues we can correct ) and we work hard to make our park a place campers look forward to returning to.
My issue is the one-in-a-hundred camper that just doesn't have a good experience and slams the park with reviews that aren't fair and reasonable. Sometimes, despite honest attempts to please, you run across customers that just don't really want to be pleased....they seem like they like to fuss !
I subscribe to the saying that the customer is always right. Everyone has their opinion and the right to express their opinion. I would like to see some process or forum, or even a way to respond to a review, where an owner can offer a reasonable explanation to reviews that may be unfairly negative.
We have an overall rating somewhere just north of 9, but every once in a while, we'll get a 4 because the lake was rough or the wind blew too hard. That is an obvious exaggeration, but I think you get my point.
Has there been any consideration given to a reply or response feature for the reviews ?

Thanks for any feedback. I would be interested to hear what other park operators thing about this topic.



I agree with the previous posters although it would be nice to hear park operator's views on us every once in a while.

It's good to hear that you "listen" to your customer's concerns. That and making sure you meet, or exceed, what you advertise will make sure your ratings stay high. There is always going to be the one bad apple.

Darrell

 

We were in the lodging business for 10 years and trip adviser had this feature and I believe it was the opinion of owners that it did more harm than good. I think most of us realize that there are some nuts out there. The bad thing is when it isn't a real camper, but a competitor who writes it. We had that happen and he told a friend of mine about it who immediate told me. They wouldn't remove it. I had a short talk with him and he never did it to me again, but did do it to others and even stupidly forgot to use a fake email address.

 

A couple bad reviews can happen.

But there is never an excuse for running out of toilet paper though!

 

When we were in the lodging business, people used to take the toilet paper sometimes. We knew it when changing over the rooms, but in a campground situation, it could easily happen. I once walked into a campground bathhouse at about 6:30 AM and all the showers and sinks were running wide open. Somebody, probably a kid, just came in a thought it was funny. Anything can happen.

 

QUOTE(NorthernIllinoisPlumber @ Nov 5 2013, 04:33 PM) [snapback]35226[/snapback]

A couple bad reviews can happen.

But there is never an excuse for running out of toilet paper though!


I agree, as long as the park's restrooms are well stocked with TP, you are never far from a supply for your RV.

 

I usually bring a roll with me....

 

QUOTE(DOTLDaddy @ Nov 1 2013, 08:34 AM) [snapback]35193[/snapback]

I think your idea has merit, but instituting it may be difficult to integrate into the workings of campgroundreviews.com.

Perhaps park owners such as yourself could add an "campgroundreviews.com comment" section on their own website. There, they could make rebuttals to those rogue reviewers who dis your park for no good reason. You could mention the month and year of the review, and then give your rebuttal.

Personally, the way I use campgroundreviews.com, is to take the average rating as my clue. I have seen many parks that got a string of 8,9 and 10's, then one real low review, and then a bunch more 8, 9 and 10's. Who am I gonna believe? I think most of us would realize the low reviewer had an axe to grind doe to unusual circumstances. Or, he's just a jerk. One of the two . . . :blink:



I ALWAYS love the people who slam a park because of weather, "whether" it was rain, wind, hot temperatures, cold temperatures, whatever the case may be. My second favorite is the complaint of WiFi being too slow. I have given one poor review to a campground, I have read nothing but great reviews since then. The problem we had was dirty/sloppy conditions of the rest rooms/shower area. Seriously, there were mushrooms the size of my fist growing in the shower area. T/P was actually piled on the stall floors for the 2 days we were there. Again, nothing but 8, 9, 10's for this park since then. I don't think I was unreasonable and certainly not making stuff up, I work in construction and sometimes need to resort to "job-johnnies" and THEY are cleaner than the rest rooms were that time. You also have to look at some of the ones that are 8. 9. 10's, I know around here anyway, the seasonal camper can manipulate the ratings as well. A bad CG can seem to be a great place, until you get there and are met by truth and reality. Been there too.

 

I've never owned a park, but can imagine I'd feel frustrated after spending a fortune to refurbish the restrooms, having an employee check every couple hours to keep them spotless, then see a bad review because someone walked in to use the shower right after the camper from hell who was covered in mud, and dropped his empty shampoo bottles on the floor took his turn.

However, as a camper, I'm sure most of us look at the bigger picture, and tend to look at the general opinion more than one specific review. I stayed at one campground that was known as being in an area that had the best night sky in the country. It even had permanent telescopes and star parties. Most people staying there commented on the beauty of the park, and the wonderful night sky. One reviewer however slammed the park and gave it a poor rating because it was too dark, and needed more pavement and lighting.

Also the exact number assigned to the rating varies with not only what is most important to the reviewer, but how they see the numbers. Some people have never rated a park with a 10, and others seem to hand them out all too frequently. I find it helps to wait a couple days after leaving a park to write the review as I can be more objective, and see how it contrasts to what I have rated other campgrounds and make sure I'm not being influenced too much by the wonderful host, or loud neighbor.

 

I like what newegg.com has done with their user reviews. Here is a random newegg link. If you open it and click on the Reviews tab and scroll down, you'll see several reviews where the manufacturer replies in a quote at the bottom of the review.

A park owner could send a review link and response to the admins for vetting. Admins would then edit the review to post the park owner's response.

I really like the idea of newegg has done, though I don't know how this could be implemented successfully here. It might cause for peeing contests between reviewers and park owners.

 

Thank you all for the wonderful feedback in this thread. We are currently working on a new foundation for RV Park Reviews and will be building in features to address most of the issues mentioned. For example, we plan to have a process for a campground to "claim their listing" and once verified they can unlock features such as responding to reviews, update campground/park info, etc). We don't have any exact details but we are working hard to get the technology running our review community to a place where we can more quickly develop/expand on features.

We also plan to aggressively monitor for unethical usage and be as transparent as possible. Some other review sites use a "Wall of Shame" to expose those trying to game the system. We might do something similar. We have developed some tools to identify most of the people who are not authentic. So don't be sketchy, be honest & if you feel positive about the community we are trying to build here on RV Park Reviews, help us spread the word.

 

I think the Wall of Shame is a great idea.

 

I don't think it would work to allow owners to respond but there have been a few I would like to question just as a reader. I read one yesterday made me want to ask them why they saw a certain rule as a negative. That rule is one that at least 90% of people that camp with us would love.

 

Hi,

I hate the wall of shame idea.

 

I understand what you are saying, but I doubt they would allow it. however I have read several parks with 8`s 9`s and 10`s and the occasional 1 or 4. those I ignore. you can usually figure out which reviews to ignore and which ones are honest.

Good luck with your campground!