Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Programs: MR LT Titanium, IHG Plat.,UA Premier Silver, & PA/OH Turnpike Million Miler
Posts: 2,320
<BeginRant> Not excusing the behavior of the property. Trying to buy ratings is indeed unethical and wrong. Now the rant.... Part of the problem is brought on by the fact that even though ratings are on a 1 to 10 scale, anything less than a 10 is considered a failure. So this effectively degenerates down to a pass/fail rating system. So there is no room for differentiation to recognize outstanding versus good performance. IHG is not the only culprit. I believe Marriott's rating system is similar though leaves some room for differentiation (e.g. 8 to 10 are passing grades). My car dealership is the same way, The Service Adviser's pay is tied into if they get all 10's on their customer satisfaction surveys. This is ridiculous and puts the consumer in a bad position (e.g. either rate everything as perfect, don't provide feedback at all, or provide honest feedback but wind up hurting employees and/or franchises that shouldn't be hurt (e.g. a 9 is interrupted as terrible and someone gets a bad performance review or becomes ineligible for bonus pay, etc.). <EndRant>.
--Jon