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Do you fill out a Survey? Something I learned...

Do you fill out a Survey? Something I learned...

Old Jan 29, 2020, 1:08 pm
  #31  
 
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I spent 15 nights of december in 6 different marriott properties (8 check-ins), received 0 survey.
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Old Jan 29, 2020, 1:19 pm
  #32  
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Originally Posted by Jon Maiman
Semi-related topic, I hate the whole anything less than 8 is a zero metric. Other companies are worse where anything less than 10 is a zero metric. If the object of the survey is truly to gather information and grade it on a 10 point scale, the acceptable rating criteria need to match. E.g. for me, anything is rarely a 10 or even a 9. A good property will be mainly an 8 with possibly some 9's or 7's. Okay property would be 7 and 8 with perhaps some 6's. Anything less than that is bad and it is a degree of how bad. Other people I am sure calibrate their ratings scale differently. If only 8, 9, and 10 are okay, than do a 3 or 4 point scale (e.g. below standards, barely meets minimum standard, fully meets standards and may exceed slightly, generally exceeds standards). The current metrics are crap and just gaming the system. E.g. so they can report high numeric ratings on websites.
Don't play along, but the metric is designed that way for a reason. It's specifically aimed to identify propensity to recommend, and in general we don't do around recommending places to our friends that we'd score an 8 (sorry small town Sheraton).
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Old Jan 29, 2020, 3:43 pm
  #33  
 
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This is for Hilton but after a recent stay at WA AMS I got a follow-up call. Turns out that I'd filled in a survey and just one of the things was marked '8' (everything else 9-10). The woman who phoned me said that if anyone marks even a single item as 8 or less it has to be followed up in person via a phone call. Heck, it wasn't even that big a deal and I wondered what their reaction would be if I'd put something as a '3'.
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Old Jan 29, 2020, 3:53 pm
  #34  
 
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Originally Posted by Jon Maiman
Semi-related topic, I hate the whole anything less than 8 is a zero metric. Other companies are worse where anything less than 10 is a zero metric. If the object of the survey is truly to gather information and grade it on a 10 point scale, the acceptable rating criteria need to match. E.g. for me, anything is rarely a 10 or even a 9. A good property will be mainly an 8 with possibly some 9's or 7's. Okay property would be 7 and 8 with perhaps some 6's. Anything less than that is bad and it is a degree of how bad. Other people I am sure calibrate their ratings scale differently. If only 8, 9, and 10 are okay, than do a 3 or 4 point scale (e.g. below standards, barely meets minimum standard, fully meets standards and may exceed slightly, generally exceeds standards). The current metrics are crap and just gaming the system. E.g. so they can report high numeric ratings on websites.

So now you have a choice, either play along with the silly rating metrics or most likely hurt the properties unintentionally. Guess there is a third option, don't play. Of course than no information is conveyed. Off soapbox...

--Jon
Its called the Net Promoter Score (NPS). If you want to read up a little about it, check out this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter

There are plenty of other non-Wiki sources too.
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Old Jan 29, 2020, 4:17 pm
  #35  
 
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So the companies are just scouting for people who will recommend them/refer customers to them rather than truly soliciting feedback to help improve their services. Then they are being very disingenuous with the surveys which isn't a surprise.

As far as the don't play along, I skip the post review section of the MR surveys (and other similar companies: IHG, etc.). The only time I did post a review it was for an IHG property that should have been deflagged. I made sure I only used proper language (no swear words, no obscenities, etc.) and kept it strictly factual. My review never made it to the IHG site. Researching it a bit after words, it was fairly common for IHG to filter and never post negative reviews. I don't know if Marriott is guilty of the same filtering. In any case, I find the signal to noise ratio in reviews to be poor. I tend to look more at third party review sites for trends (Flyertalk, TripAdvisor, Yelp though not so much for hotels, etc.). The reviews on the hotel chains own website are generally worthless. The only thing I have found I can conclude from them is if the property doesn't have very strong reviews it is probably bad. Good reviews must be taken with a large grain of salt.

I guess I will continue to respond to surveys using my own scale calibration. Since they are obviously not anonymous, they can ultimately decide not to send them to me if they don't like my ratings scale.

Side note, a service department at a car dealership (that I no longer use), the service advisors always asked if there was any reason you couldn't give them all 10's. There pay was tied into receiving perfect survey results. I didn't play along at all there and didn't do the surveys because I couldn't in good conscious give them all 10's nor did I want to dock a portion of their pay. The dealership was a mixed bag. They did do some good things for me in the service department but there were other times I thought I was getting ripped off. On top of that, their service pricing was also high even for a dealership. So between not fully trusting them and the higher pricing I started going to a different dealer 30 miles away even though they were only 3 miles from my house.

Enough of my ranting for now... Back to your regularly scheduled thread on filling out surveys.


--Jon
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Old Jan 29, 2020, 4:34 pm
  #36  
 
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FT excepted, I find that the reviews on Google Maps are the most accurate and the least likely to be gamed or selectively filtered. Same applies to restaurants too.
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Old Jan 29, 2020, 5:15 pm
  #37  
 
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Originally Posted by yurtripper
FT excepted, I find that the reviews on Google Maps are the most accurate and the least likely to be gamed or selectively filtered. Same applies to restaurants too.
I haven't found the accuracy of Google reviews to be any better nor worse than some of the other third party review sites. I think all of them can be and are gamed to some extent. We have gone from the era of limited information (pre Internet and WWW) to the era of information overload. The net result is the same, trying to get accurate, useful information in a concise form and in a timely fashion is difficult.

jrich7970 Yeah I have heard of NPS before but didn't recognize that was what these surveys actually were measuring. We have them at work couched as employee engagement surveys. The results are always presented as NPS. Let's just say I am not a big fan of NPS as a predictive tool. I know I am in the minority versus general industry embracement of NPS. Oh well....

--Jon
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Old Jan 29, 2020, 10:37 pm
  #38  
 
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Originally Posted by Jon Maiman
The only time I did post a review it was for an IHG property that should have been deflagged. I made sure I only used proper language (no swear words, no obscenities, etc.) and kept it strictly factual. My review never made it to the IHG site. Researching it a bit after words, it was fairly common for IHG to filter and never post negative reviews. I don't know if Marriott is guilty of the same filtering.
Marriott definitely filters the reviews on their website. I posted one for a Courtyard which definitely was nowhere near meeting brand standards, visible mold everywhere due to water ingress + bad HVAC, thin walls, no fridge/microwave, common areas were a mess. Staff were generally friendly and tried to work with the lemon they had before them. The irony was that the room had a note asking people to talk with the manager before leaving a negative review online. I did get to talk with the head of housekeeping, and she was painfully aware of the property's drawbacks. Funding was a major problem, and it showed. I left an honest review as part of the survey. It never showed up on the website.
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Old Jan 30, 2020, 5:57 am
  #39  
 
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Originally Posted by KRSW
Marriott definitely filters the reviews on their website. I posted one for a Courtyard which definitely was nowhere near meeting brand standards, visible mold everywhere due to water ingress + bad HVAC, thin walls, no fridge/microwave, common areas were a mess. Staff were generally friendly and tried to work with the lemon they had before them. The irony was that the room had a note asking people to talk with the manager before leaving a negative review online. I did get to talk with the head of housekeeping, and she was painfully aware of the property's drawbacks. Funding was a major problem, and it showed. I left an honest review as part of the survey. It never showed up on the website.
Not terribly surprised to hear that Marriott also filters reviews. I guess the naive traveler might believe the reviews. For anyone else, they know buyer beware....

--Jon
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Old Jan 30, 2020, 6:49 am
  #40  
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I'm now 2 for 2 on reviews sent to me by e-mail that I've honestly filled in [one bad, one good] and neither appeared on the respective hotels' websites. When I peek at the review section of any hotel site, I always see sections for guest age and status level, but I've never had the option for filling those in in either survey. Thinking about just giving up on filling these up in their entirety.

khabah
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Old Jan 30, 2020, 8:29 am
  #41  
 
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I've filled out three reviews over the last couple of years. Two were positive and one was negative. None of them were ever posted. I don't bother filling them out anymore.
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Old Jan 30, 2020, 11:25 am
  #42  
 
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Did you know that in addition to curated offers, Marriott now has curated reviews for the discerning traveler

--Jon
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Old Jan 30, 2020, 9:19 pm
  #43  
 
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Originally Posted by Jon Maiman
Not terribly surprised to hear that Marriott also filters reviews. I guess the naive traveler might believe the reviews. For anyone else, they know buyer beware....
Interestingly, I just looked up the Crappy Courtyard I stayed at and left a less-than-stellar review for on Marriott.com and TripAdvisor. Somehow the TripAdvisor page for that property was reset in November of last year and the reviews are mostly glowing. Ironically, the reviews on Marriott.com are much less enthusiastic than the ones on TripAdvisor. As a result, the property's rating on TripAdvisor is higher than on Marriott.com, which surprises me.
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Old Feb 4, 2020, 7:22 am
  #44  
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We once stayed in a 5-star boutique hotel in India. We overall had an excellent stay. At check-out, we received a questionnaire to rate our stay. We said we had had an excellent stay, we would certainly recommend the hotel but that we had no time to fill in this document.

Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to leave the hotel until we had completed this. Check-out was done in a separate office and when we said that we didn't want to complete the whole form (I think it were 3 pages in total) the guy who had carried our suitcases went to the office door to block it. It was clear that he wasn't going to let us out. As we didn't have much time I quickly started completing the questionnaire with a mix of 9's and 10's but when I handed back the form the receptionist called the manager and he started discussing every item I marked less than 10.

We didn't have time for this and it was clear that he did not want to hear our opinion, the only thing that he was interested in was a 10-grade. I changed all my scores to 10, the manager shouted something to the guy who carried our bags he opened the door with a big smile and the managed wished us a good journey and gave us a firm handshake and a broad smile.

Definitely the most awkward check-out experience I ever had.
(It was not a Marriott property)
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Old Feb 14, 2020, 10:39 am
  #45  
 
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I received a survey which allowed me to Reuter’s a very good review of Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit. However my stays at Sheraton Towers Singapore and Le Meridien Angkor were less than expected. No survey and according to Marriott customer service, no way to manually receive a survey.
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