Can you be punished for writing a negative online review?
In a suit that reputation management and hotel industry professionals alike will be following closely, a Quebec-area hotel is suing a former guest over a negative Tripadvisor review.
Allegedly, Laurent Azoulay and his son checked into the four-star hotel, only to discover bedbugs in their room after laying down for the night. The hotel was fully booked and unable to offer a different room, although (again, allegedly) Azoulay was offered the opportunity to go to another local hotel belonging to owner Jacques Robitaille and refused.
Here are more details, from a Montreal Gazette article by Mark Cardwell:
The next morning, a Saturday, Azoulay is alleged to have insisted on meeting Robitaille to discuss the situation.
When that didn’t happen, he checked out of the hotel and threatened to write a bad review about the property on TripAdvisor.
Later that day, Azoulay posted a review on TripAdvisor about what he termed his “nightmare” stay at l’Hôtel Québec.
“At first this hotel looks okay,” it reads, “until you wake at 3AM (sic) because you’ve been scratching all over and realize your bed is infested with BED BUGS!”
Azoulay goes on to recount his version of events before issuing this warning:
“Beware of BED BUGS! If you are looking for a scratch-free night sleep, stay elsewhere, you will be doing you and your loved ones a favour! Trust me … and that’s why the Internet is a great tool!”
The review has received 176 votes from readers as being “helpful.”
It is also one of 16 “Terrible” reviews of l’Hôtel Québec on TripAdvisor, which ranks the hotel 62nd among 99 area hotels.
Looking at it from a crisis management perspective, it’s quite possible this is a case of neglected customer service sparking a reputation crisis for the hotel. It’s a common story now; business ticks off customer, customer seeks resolution from business, doesn’t get it, or isn’t satisfied, and heads off to the ‘net to warn others. These cases are frequently easy to prevent, a little bit of tactical butt-kissing and a couple of freebies or comps do wonders to change impressions, but some organizations just don’t want to put in the work.
On the other side, there do exist individuals who make posts on review sites with malicious intent. Sometimes they’re working for the competition, sometimes they never even brought the issue to the attention of the business in question, and, yes, some of them do it purely out of a sense of schadenfreude.
Your best bet for taking care of these is to simply be a responsible, caring organization. If there are 150 reviews gushing about how wonderful you are and how you went out of your way to solve issues, then that one nasty review is going to look a lot less plausible. If potential customers see that someone shared about an issue, and right there on the same page they see your response, including effort to set things right, then doesn’t that come out as positive PR for you?
Whatever actually happened with Mr. Azoulay and his hotel stay, we’d say this lawsuit is the wrong move to make. First off, it immensely escalate the level of attention given to a review the hotel would rather have go away, a HUGE crisis management mistake. In addition, it’s easy to interpret the case as challenging the right to free speech on the Internet, a position that is likely to gain you a whole new, incredibly web savvy and active, group of detractors.
The BCM Blogging Team
https://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com