Headquartered in the Netherlands, Booking.com is a travel fare aggregator and metasearch engine for lodging reservations. With over 29 million listings worldwide, this comes across as one of the most widely used OTA platforms for the guests to visit and book accommodation for themselves. It is evident from the research that “travelers are more likely to trust property with 20 reviews than one with 2 reviews –” Thus along with the quality even the quantity of reviews matters!
But when it comes to removing reviews, Booking.com has its own set of rules and guidelines under which it processes the request for deleting the reviews.
But before diving deep into Booking.com review removal, it is important to understand that Booking.com allows reviews only from the verified users, unlike Google and TripAdvisor. That means the hotels get to verify if the user has stayed at their property and only those users can leave a review. In a way, the reviews are 100% genuine. But since a review is nothing but a subjective opinion of the customers, some content might be irrelevant or might not just be in keeping with the guidelines provided by the site.
[Note: When comments are removed due to a breach of policies, the score will remain online.]
Is There a Way Around?
1. Win Over the Customer
You can attempt to get in touch with the customer by whom the negative review has been written and if something is not accurate, you can politely request them for a review removal since only a user has the authority to edit or delete a review from Google. Not just this, but while engaging in a conversation with the customer politely explain to them about the faults if there are in the reviews. In fact, there are certain best practices that you can resort to while responding to online reviews to win over the customer’s trust by letting them know that you value their feedback and are willing to do whatever it takes to improve their experience in the future.
• Contact Booking.com by phone (here they can find the phone number for their country) or login into their account.
2. A Sincere Follow-Up to Convince the Disgruntled Customer
3. Reply Even to a Negative Or Possibly Fake Review
Hi (the reviewer’s name),
We thank you for posting your review and at the same time, we apologize for any dissatisfaction that you might have experienced. Unfortunately, we do not have any recollection or record of a customer experience befitting this account. Again, we apologize that we are unable to verify anything about your identity from your name in our records. We take these issues very seriously and we humbly request you to contact our executive (name) immediately at (email address) to allow us to look into this matter and resolve it immediately if you were a client of ours.
Thank you,
(Hotel’s Name)
(Name), General Manager
In a nutshell,
• Verify your records.
• Thank the customer and respond to the review (Yes, even if it’s fake)
• Address the complaint and apologize for the dissatisfaction they might have experienced.
• State that you can’t seem to trace them in your records or are unable to verify their identity.
• Offer them to reach out to you by providing your contact details.
• Once you’re convinced that the review is fraudulent, report or flag it!
Additional Tips
b. Amplify your positive responses by playing your role in providing the customers with a great experience which, in turn, will help you fetch more reviews.
• Get a Reputation Management Solution to save yourself from the peril of fake or negative reviews as it allows you to check and respond to your reviews timely by bringing them all in one place.
No business owner can afford to see his hard-earned reputation getting tarnished in a day by one disgruntled customer. Hence it is important to stay ahead in the game and take the necessary precautions before the situation blows out of proportion.
Removing a review from Booking.com might not be an easy task and might take some time as the platform receives a large number of reviews per day. But with the right technique and patience, your business will surely see the light of the day in the form of more positive reviews. In fact, one of the best ways to combat negative reviews is to strive for getting more positive ones. Hence it is important to invest in a good reputation management solution that will help ease your worries to a great extent.
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