South Africans are famous for being tough customers. We’re also famous for never giving full marks - probably a result of the education system we grew up under, where you could never score full marks otherwise there would be no room for improvement.
The result is that to a South African, and 4 stars out of 5 review is considered excellent - South Africans only give 5 stars if the service is really “above and beyond”. This means that when tourists read reviews of South African establishments, they see places with 3 and 4 star averages, and don’t realise what that means - that’s the score of a really good establishment.
The purpose of this post is to come up with a set of simple criteria to guide South African reviewers with their scores, on Google Maps, and across other platforms like Tripadvisor, Booking.com, Zomato, KAyak, Airbnb, and others.
Ideally this should train South Africans to give 5 stars where 5 stars are due!
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To most of the world, 5 stars doesn’t mean the lap of luxury - it means that expectations were met, within the scale of the establishment’s value proposition, and there were no problems.
This means that even a really cheap roadside “pap en vleis” establishment can have a 5 star rating, provided the value is good, service is good and expectations are met. You don’t have to be a Michelin star restaurant to get 5 stars!
@Richard_Sherman hello from one South African to another - it’s awesome to find a fellow South African here in the Local Guides community.
Cool post - I often question my own reviews and the stars received and have come to the conclusion that as long as the place in review has 1, a clean setting, 2,friendly staff and/or employees and 3, does ‘that little bit extra’ to make me and/or my associates feel welcome then I rate it a 4 or 5 star.
I also didn’t know it was a thing that South Africans complain a lot - I find that quite funny and a bit of an eye-opener now that it’s been said out loud.
Cheers
Hello Lee!
Yes I work in the hospitality space so I deal a lot with online reputation management, and quite often I find one star ratings with a review saying “it was good” - does the reviewer think that one star is still positive? And even more often a 4 star review saying “best in the city” or “really amazing, world class service” - what do you have to do to get 5 stars?
Good criteria - clean, friendly/helpful staff, and the “little bit extra to make you feel welcome”.
Maybe there’s also room for a “how well did they handle a problem” component.
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Awesome, where are you based?
Now I understand a bit more about what you mean - the star ratio for the rest of the world is quite different to ours.
I’ve seen places especially in Asia that are regarded as 5 star but that rating is actually equivalent to a South African 3 star.
I feel it’s something to do with the development of other countries - South Africa is considered a developed country even though we have a lot of civil work to be done. When it comes to infrastructure however we are one of the leading countries in Africa to have new resources.
I am based in Joburg (Bedfordview)
Yes the standards are definitely far different in different countries! And the way South Africans rate their own country puts us at a disadvantage when tourists are looking at our ratings. Some work to be done here!