10-04-2020 01:42 PM - edited 10-14-2020 03:03 PM
UPDATE 15/10 - @JanVanHaver interviewed me recently to discuss this very topic! You can listen to his podcast here but I am also including the video that I made just below here for your viewing pleasure! Enjoy!!
Yes, this is Version 2 of the original post: Easy tips for rating venues and writing structured reviews! You should definitely check out the original post because this Version 2 builds on that post with some overlapping information.
Changelog
Rating a place
The original post has more details but here’s the quick overview of the FAACTS methodology plus updated explanation of the 1-5 stars,
F = Food/Drinks
⭐ - Very poor
⭐⭐⭐ - Average
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Exceptional
A = Ambiance
⭐ - Very poor
⭐⭐⭐ - Average
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Exceptional
A = Accessibility
⭐ - Very poor: completely inaccessible by someone with mobility issues
⭐⭐⭐ - Some areas accessible but not all
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Exceptional: all areas are accessible
C = Cost
⭐ - Very expensive and/or poor value for money
⭐⭐⭐ - Affordable
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Bargain and/or good value for money
S = Service
⭐ - Very poor
⭐⭐⭐ - Average
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Exceptional
The rating scheme is now consistent for the majority of the categories with further explanations for Accessibility and Cost. Tips is not something used for rating but serves as a reminder for us to add useful information you may not find elsewhere (e.g. websites) and that you’ve only learned from actually being there.
This method helps you to easily remember how to rate a place by their categories which you would then use to calculate the overall average rating.
Writing the review
At Connect Live 2019, the key message that they showed during presentations on quality contributions was to keep it brief and contextual.
In my previous method, I would write 1-2 sentences for each of the categories, resulting in a very long review. Not a lot of folks want to or have the time to read long reviews. The advice I would give now is to focus on 1 (or 2, if you really have to) category that really stood out for you for better or worse and then write briefly about it.
The individual ratings provide a really good context to the public on what your opinions are of a place. Adding a few sentences to further explain the main highlight/disappointment is all you need.
Which leads me to…
What makes a good review
In my humble opinion, you can think of a good review as embodying the following:
Some general best practices
I would also like to mention a few general best practices about reviewing a place and this cover taking photos/videos too. These are my personal guidelines/understandings so they work for me but may not for others but hear me out:
📸 Photos
✏️ Reviews
📽 Videos
Examples
Here are a couple of reviews that I wrote recently. I still struggle with being concise: I always have so much to say! But I am trying my best to keep it short, sweet but still useful and impactful.
Update (05/10): If you're wondering why I put the text "(Detailed review below)" at the start of my review, it's because Maps will truncate long reviews and usually only the star ratings are showing. Viewers won't know that there is actually more info below the star ratings so this is me giving them the heads up!
Well, I hope that you’ve found this post and the original post useful! And I certainly hope that it helps you to be better at rating/reviewing. I still think having the 5 separate categories to rate a place is very useful as it really highlights the strengths and weaknesses of a venue. And yes, always be concise, informative, objective, contextual and constructive!! I welcome your feedback, thoughts and ideas about this! See you in the comments section below! 😎
10-04-2020 01:59 PM
Hey @AdrianLunsong 🥳
Great post! Thanks so much for the update on what is working for you!
I enjoy the way that you do the star rating. This way the owners will understand what they are doing right or wrong, or what is great or what can be improved.
I also see from your examples and better understand that we are not necessarily reviewing every single point, but as you said taking one or two points into consideration for a short concise review below the stars.
I find your approach to writing reviews very helpful as I sometimes get anxiety about writing a review especially if I know it will be under five stars.
Your technique seems great and I will begin to implement it!
Thanks again 🤩
10-04-2020 02:13 PM
Hello @AdrianLunsong
This is a very good and informative post. I followed the first article so its easy to continue up from ther,thank you for sharing with us..
I hope my reviews have improved really. We have a major problem at hand here in west Africa, accessibility is still a major challenge so it's hard to rate most places when it comes to accessibility. Rating for services and prices are okay.
I have mentioned once in a post here on connect about what measure does Google have in place to check if reviews are true or not? I came across a hotel that was reviewed to say nice swimming pool once,whereas it wasn't true when I got there.
There are also a good amount of wrong photos like selfies and group picture etc on the maps these days. Wonder can the system be programmed to reject such,as well as duplicate photos!!! Anyway keep up the good work.
Cheers
Liberia, Love of Liberty brought us here
Proudly Nigerian but loves Ghana.
Warm greetings from W.Africa.
New on Connect? Please see my welcome-card
Selected Connect posts: My local guide lamp | Nigerian Digital History Museum | West-African dishes | Gwarimpa/Abuja Food Crawl | My first post on Connect | I'm a community builder | Find all my Connect posts here
10-04-2020 03:29 PM
Great guide @AdrianLunsong so many tips to improve our contributions on Maps, to make these more helpful for others.
I like your version of reviewing with de stars before the text.
I like to take photos and sometimes (many) I forgotten to record videos 🤷🏻♀️
I'm a newbie enthusiastic of 360 photos, I upload these through Street View app, I'm trying to improve my 360 photos every day.
Thanks for this helpful post!
Greetings.
Silvy 🇦🇷
10-05-2020 12:50 AM
@TheRealKristin @SholaIB @SilvyC
I've made a minor addition to my post since you've replied:
Update (05/10): If you're wondering why I put the text "(Detailed review below)" at the start of my review, it's because Maps will truncate long reviews and usually only the star ratings are showing. Viewers won't know that there is actually more info below the star ratings so this is me giving them the heads up!
Just so you know about it! 😊
10-05-2020 01:08 AM
@TheRealKristin Thanks 😁 Do give it a try and it'll be interesting to see how you get on with it. For me, it feels more time consuming because it's quite thorough and I really struggle with being concise. I can waffle on forever.. and a short review feels so incomplete to me but I have to trust that the star ratings will do most of the talking for me and my text review will just expand on different points where necessary! Well, that's the hope!
10-05-2020 01:09 AM - edited 10-05-2020 01:31 AM
@SholaIB Do share your reviews in the comments here if you want any of us to give you feedback on them. We all have to learn and improve and what better way than to get the community to help out 😎. With regards to accessibility, I also have the same issue. UK is pretty good at incorporating accessibility features but it's a very mixed pot anywhere else in the world including Malaysia so I understand where you're coming from. I have also debated this internally on whether it's fair to rate so many businesses (usually) a one star for accessibility but here's how I've reasoned it out.
Accessibility is an important factor regardless of where we are in the world because it's an issue that affects everyone. It's not something that only affects people born with it but includes folks who have temporary/permanent physical damage as well as the elderly with reduced capabilities. That's actually quite a significant portion of the population. And having accessibility features benefits everyone.
So even though it affects the overall rating score of the business, by having separate categories to rank (food/drinks, ambiance, accessibility, cost and service) people can see that a business may score a 5 star for all but accessibility and it gives them a better understanding of your rating/review. So, they may choose to focus on the food rating if that's all they care about. Or if accessibility is important to them, then they would want to find a place that has a good rating score for it.
Plus, it explains to the business what they are lacking and hopefully encourages them to go the extra mile to include accessibility features.
Oh, by the way, if you come across poor quality reviews/photos/videos, do report them on Maps. You can flag them up with different reasons to explain why you think they should be removed.
10-05-2020 01:15 AM
Hello @AdrianLunsong
That's a good suggestion will try to do that sometime. Will paste in a review of a place I have done. Will love to hear the comments and corrections and criticism as well.
Thank you for the offer. I suppose you could also check on them on my profile as well🙂
Cheers
Liberia, Love of Liberty brought us here
Proudly Nigerian but loves Ghana.
Warm greetings from W.Africa.
New on Connect? Please see my welcome-card
Selected Connect posts: My local guide lamp | Nigerian Digital History Museum | West-African dishes | Gwarimpa/Abuja Food Crawl | My first post on Connect | I'm a community builder | Find all my Connect posts here
10-05-2020 01:41 AM
@SilvyC I also always forget to add my videos! 😅 So let's try to encourage each other (and others) to always remember to add videos! What are you using to take your 360 photos? I've done a few but it's very time consuming and sometimes after spending an hour of walking around taking 360 photos, when I go home to review them, I find that the quality is quite poor so I can't upload them! That's the frustrating bit for me! 😑
10-05-2020 08:52 AM
Well @AdrianLunsong I only use my old Huawei mate 9 (yes, 9🤷🏻♀️) for photos and videos and I added an small 360 camera of the same brand: Huawei 360 Envizion I couldn't take 360 photos with the camera in my phone, I'm poor in patience, frame by frame, following an orden, looking for those points, no, is not for me. The Huawei 360 camera is not the best, I know it but works to me so far.
I never got any 360 videos yet.
Greetings.
Silvy 🇦🇷