Negative Reviews vs Positive Reviews - which ones do you prefer reading / writing?

[SieuweM]

I always read other reviews after I written my own. That way, my opinion doesn't change. Positive or negative reviews doesn't matter. I just want to know what other people thought of it. Sometimes people write very negative review at a place I had a very positive expierence. Most of the time it is just nagging about little stuff. 

I've always learned to be positive first and then indicate the negatives. I try to write my reviews that way. If a place has some bad points, but I had a good visit, I try to give more positive feedback than negative, so it doesn't make the owner look bad. 

It doesn't matter to me if I have to be positive or negative as long as I can be honest about it, but I almost never give negative reviews. I am quickly pleased and some things other greatly dislikes, doesn't bother to me. 

[Keith A]

When reading reviews, if a place has a rating under 50%, then I ignore the place.

If a place has a rating over 50%, then I ignore the good reviews, as they don't help me, or are (I am cynical) paid for - only people's bad experiences will tell me the quality of a venue.

When reviewing, I will leave comments on a good review, but the cynic in me says not to be too detailed, as I don't want it to look like I have a *special* reason for reviewing it 😉

On the other hand, if they did not do a good job, then I will go into minute detail to explain 🙂 😉

[YK1001]

Reviews can be biased - as long as they are real - but they should be justified, and specific.

When service is bad, is that particular staff interact with you are bad?  Can you claim the whole shop is providing bad service because of one or two bad encounters?

When the food is good, is the paticular dish you get good?  Can you claim all foods are good from that shop without tasting all of them, all the time?

So reviews should be Real experience, Specific and Justified.

So when you give a single rating of 1 to 5 stars - it is not much useful without the context of a written review.

[F1ldor]

I think the term review is very misleading these days - especially the overly negative/postiive ones. Reviews should be objective and professional, they should provide valuable information regarding the product or service in question. What people actually write are feedback or complaints/praise. I get caught up myself in the emotion when I get horrible experience from a particular business so reviews always come up biased, but I like it when I give feedback to Google services because when they ask for feedback I know I can outline all my problems and frustration and when/if they read that it is less personal. I try to stay objective in my reviews to highlight pros and cons, and I am working on a system where I can do so consistently, but I always get caught up with the emotions.

When reading reviews I like to think about are the consistent things being mentioned. Yes, poor service can mean that waitress is just having a bad day, or some isolated situation, but poor service over many reviews over many months probably indicates poor/uncaring management and that will reflect on whether I want to bother trying out that business. I am also weary of places that have too many reviews too quickly, since there are paid services for that. 

As a follow-up, if you are visiting a business and it already has hundreds of reviews, do you contribute your own review (if more or less you are saying the same things as everyone else)? 

I do not, I feel like if I am not contributing new information I usually just check in, give a rating and leave the rest blank.

[YanniY]

@GregW very well said!

[YanniY]

@BlancheMc Business owners can claim their business on Google Maps and respond to reviews. They can even update businesss information such as hours and categeries and share updates with followers! 

[BlancheMc]

Thanks @YanniY my main issue is taking down old images that are no longer relavant to the business, e.g . an updated logo where the business owner is unsure who put up the logo in 2012 and who has the login and password to their My business page. Often I see that the images loaded are from an old address or the business has been rebranded. It would be great to be able to tidy these up for businesses.

[YanniY]

@BlancheMc Thanks for doing this! As a Local Guide you can report the photos by clicking on the "flag" icon on the Google Maps Mobile or "Report a problem" on the photo on web browser. This way, you can help businesses refresh pictures and keep the place updated.

If the business still has "Claim this business" feature in the listing, it means that it has not been claimed by any owners yet. In order to claim the business, the owner will need to go through a process to verify the owners. If you do know anyone who would like to verify and claim the business, they can check out this page. 

[Nigel]

Well, I always write positive things about my experience even on okay quality restaurants unless that experience included getting food poisoned..

[BlancheMc]

Thanks @YanniY I am already doing this, however with the photos the options given as to why the image is inappropriate, are very limited . e.g  no option for an old logo or old signage outside building