Tripadvisor Reviews

A trawl around Tripadvisor reveals that ,allowing for the fact that you can't please all of the people all of the time, most heritage railways get pretty good reviews . However, some do better than others so; is a positive Tripadvisor review helpful? Should a negative review set alarm bells ringing? Where the cause is obvious should this be taken up with the staff involved? Does your railway use Tripadvisor as a gauge of customer satisfaction?

 

The Statfold barn has started taking note of trip advisor, especially as we were in the top 10 to begin with. I'd say it speaks well to the customer service side of the heritage railway "market'" that we are able to put on a good show and people want to review us positively.

 

Trip Advisor; very much a double-edged sword, but you can use it to your advantage.

Perhaps the worst thing to do is ignore it, as people will still leave reviews, even if you are not involved. The L&B has a link on its website home page, and has to date 401 reviews - 346 of which are 4 and 5* and only 10 1*, which is fairly good. The L&B does actively respond individually - particularly to negative reviews - explaining what they are doing to resolve any issues, how most visitors are more than satisfied, but that they understand how people have different expectations. A polite, considered response can do much to dissipate the effect of a bad review and show to all visitors (and more importantly, potential visitors) that you are keen to listen constructively to what they have to say.

Negative reviews are quite often given for strange or unrelated factors. One, for example, because he was expecting to see the Jurassic Coast (about 50 miles away and on the South Devon coast!) and another because Woody Bay Station was closed when he turned up!

Trip Advisor can also be useful in spotting trends. The L&B recently received a few negative reports in quick succession on an aspect that was normally high-scoring, so were able to take action to improve the service offered.

 

I remember reading a one star review for Bressingham.

Complaints of trains not running, and the only staff being rude, unhelpful builders.

The museum replied that as it was mid winter the museum had not actually been open that day, or indeed would be for a good few months. As had been stated on the website, all publicity material, and signs leading in to the museum...

 

I believe there are a few spurious or downright mischievous reviews on TA so it must be looked at with care. I can imagine one hacked off ex member of a railway posting bad reviews out of spite. I look at TA for things other than railways and if there is less than 10% bad reviews I'm not bothered . To give an example the B&B I stay at in Fort William got two bad reviews in a row which is nonsense as it's basically faultless ( the only place I've stayed where I have had to request a smaller breakfast as I can't get through what's normally served up). They later discovered that they were put on there by a rival establishment!

 

You do get some idiots leaving completely unreasonable trip advisor reviews. The best way to deal with it is to leave a polite and factual response.

The IOWSR gets a few complaints about the “rip off” £5 charge to enter the Haven Street site, even if you’re not going on the train. “I only wanted to go in the shop” etc etc.

The IOWSR have a very good response to this, listing all the things there are to see. Museum, Train Story visitor centre, C&W workshop, play area, Falconry Centre, views of passing trains etc etc.

They finish by saying they’ll leave it up to other readers to decide if £5 is a rip off for all this.

 

I wouldn't use TripAdvisor to determine whether or not to visit a heritage line but I do read the reviews occasionally just out of interest. I think compared to restaurants and pubs and other places of entertainment heritage railways seem to score pretty well. It's the main line companies that seem to suffer as both Steam Dreams and RTC have a lot of terrible reviews. These are generally of the "I booked a steam train and a smelly old diesel turned up" variety. Non-enthusiasts are far less forgiving when things don't go according to plan. Bad reviews on heritage lines are frequently about Santa Specials - I've read several about grumpy Santas which have made me chuckle!

 

Similarly, you get reviews which are five stars for everything and lots of OTT superlatives like 'fantastic service', 'amazing staff', 'the best day out I've ever had' which are very obviously written by those with a vested interest in said attraction having positive TripAdvisor reviews. These are every bit as justifiably ignored as those which are at the far end of the scale.

As with everything in life, the reality is invariably somewhere in between the two extremes. Nowhere is perfect and, equally, nowhere is unremittingly crap with no redeeming features at all.

The TA reviews worth taking notice of are those with a sensible, balanced view of pluses and could do betters, with neither shouty damnation nor hysterical praise. (Note to Johnb... use of the word 'faultless' is a guarantee that I will discount the veracity of a TA review. No attraction on the planet is faultless )

 

I don't count a B&B as an attraction but in the days of the Highland Steam Bash, the lady got up at 5 am to cook breakfast which was always more than any normal person could eat and if it was a cold day there was a glass of single malt in the spotless room on my return. That's as near faultless as you can get and it's why I will be staying there again next week.

 

I think the Santa Specials get more bad reviews than normal services for various reasons:

• The railways carry a lot of people in a short space of time - (the SVR for example carries c30,000 in December) which inevitably leads to car parking stresses and queues.
• The parents will be of the modern "I must have it now" generation who are accustomed to rushing to Twitter etc to share everything and anything which offends them in any way.

 

I think the trip advisor reviews are very important. Whilst it wouldn't necessarily put me off for a preserved line, it definitely does for accommodation. (and I always check before I book). Even with preserved lines sometimes you wince at the bad comments as being a volunteer we have all seen that the gripes are often deserved. I am planning a trip to the Battlefield line for the first time soon and there is quite a lot of bad reviews of it.
I do like that trip advisor has photos that visitors have uploaded as it shows what you are likely to see if you haven't been before.

Often with the bad reviews people get upset at the following:-

1 No steam only DMU running ( so need to state this on the website)
2 Rude/Unhelpful staff members
3 Travelling some distance and then finding no trains running.
4 No facilities to buy food.
5 Lack of organisation of events, especially when they have paid more for things like driver experience.
6 Lack of staff being friendly
7 Little to see other than the train journey etc

Lines should pay attention to it and try and put things right, particularly if a number of reviews have said the same thing.

 

I often take a gander at TA after I have stewarded a mainline trip. I often wonder if the reviewer was actually on the same train as I was. Complaining about a lack of steam is one thing, but at times you must wonder if these people ever travel anywhere (even by car) as they seem everything to work perfectly all the time.
The worse TA review however was when we were staying at the Station Tavern adjacent to Grosmont Station. Came down to dinner and there was group were having a drink in the corner. They finished the drinks deciding to go elsewhere for dinner, later in the evening my wife was going to post her review she noticed a review was posted saying how bad the food was, other parts of the review allowed it to be identified as that group that had posted it, pure fiction!

 

I tend to use TA if I am in a place I haven't been to and am looking for somewhere to eat (or things to do).

In my 'real' work we are being encouraged by our bosses to have a lot more visible responsiveness 'You said, we did...' Of course the problem is working out what is a real issue and what is the user being obtuse, unrealistic, stroppy etc. Responding to problems and issues raised is useful.

I think things like TA can be useful for recognising 'repeated' problems - if you get comments about rudeness or unclear signs this flags up an issue.

Sometimes it is vexatious and spurious.

Santa reviews are interesting - perhaps it is because you get a lot of people who don't usually use the railway or aren't necessarily railway enthusiasts - and they represent a very distinct and different demographic to the usual punter. They have different demands and expectations.

There maybe an element of 'Mumsnet' about it as well.

But perhaps one thing to think about is managing expectations. As others have said - making sure it is clear that

 

Quite a few bad tripadvisor reviews can be discounted their problems would have been avoided if they checked the timetable beforehand, with regards to what sort, if any, trains are running, although that of course assumes that info is readily available. Having just checked tripadvisor for the GWSR my new favourite complaint ever is someone who turned up midweek late September on a steam railway and was dismayed to find the train largely full of old aged pensioners!

 

To be fair, when he was alive, my then 91 year old grandfather objected to the idea of a care home because 'it is full of old people'. I have an 85 year old friend, who due to his love of vodka has had a number of falls recently, when social services suggested he might like to come to the day centre, he got very irate for much the same reason.

 

I'm always slightly loathe to blame issues on the users though. The typical heritage railway website or leaflet has a confusing mish-mash whereby to find out a train time, you generally have first to consult a calendar to get a key for a particular day (red / yellow / blue etc); then cross-reference that to a timetable, which may well be on a different web page or elsewhere in a leaflet. All of that in an era when I suspect many people never use a conventional timetable anyway: if they travel by public transport at all, they are likely getting their information from a combination of an app (just enter start and finish and press "go") and station display boards. In the circumstances, hard not to feel a little sympathy for someone turning up on a day when trains aren't running.

As for blaming the user - on another thread, late running is being blamed on the presence of passengers...

So however simple we cognoscenti may find such things, my view is that any adverse Tripadvisor comment, however seemingly silly, is an opportunity to consider how you could do things better.

Tom

 

I hear what you say Tom, hence my caveat, and I agree I rarely look at timetables for mainline trains, although not so much for buses. But what more is a railway to do other than print their calandar and timetables as clearly as possible? My main point though is that the 1 or 2 * reviews on tripadvisor that consist of this don't really reflect on the actual attraction.

This is a well established fact surely? It certainly is at Cheltenham racecourse on a busy day anyway.

 

You know exactly what I mean, that's being pedantic for the sake of it.

Many people aren't quite as evidently motivated by their stomachs and will base a TA review on a myriad other factors. Did you run your finger along the tops of the picture frames to check the high dusting?
My point remains, on TA I treat OTT praise with every bit as much caution as OTT damnation.

 

I disagree with you I'm afraid. Being open when the customer wants it to be is a key issue for any business, and the point doesn't go away just because the potential customer did not do his or her homework - they obviously wanted to visit at that time. A related issue for railways is lack of frequency and too short a running day, making it difficult to fit in a return trip and again frustrating potential customers. There may be some operational justifications, but the point remains. Also, I am not sure how you can separate one aspect from another. If you are running say a restaurant and you make it difficult for people to actually find a time when you are open, that is just as detrimental to the bottom line as poor food or morose staff.