At 6 am I received a phone call from a very upset customer in Barcelona. His family just got off a very long flight and could not wait to get to the hotel. There was just one huge problem with the transportation.
The problem was that clients needed to be transported from the airport to the hotel in a nice minivan that I booked for them through SunTransfers.com. I used this company before without any problems so I felt confident about them getting the job done correctly. At the beginning, I chose SunTransfers.com based upon highly praised customer reviews online.
Every review that was written on the website was outstanding and spoke very highly about the company stating there were no problems and everything about the business was excellent, which was not the case in my personal experience.
Upon booking the transportation services I had to make sure they had larger vehicles to transport the family of five landing in Barcelona. The company stated that they have minivans available. I booked a very nice minivan that fit the family to make sure they were comfortable.
When the flight landed and the family was ready to be transported I received a phone call from my client saying the driver was forty-five minutes late. Driver was expected to be there early, waiting. In addition not only was the driver late, he also came in a regular taxi with no air conditioning instead of the minivan that was booked. With this being considered, a family of five was forced to be crammed inside of a taxi, resulting in very unhappy customers.
Also the transportation service was ordered the same day for another family, and the same driver returned to give them a ride as well, it was unbelievable. As a result I started to do extensive research on the reviews that were written about how everyone was so happy and how smooth everything went using this company.
Reviews are very important to make a financial decision
In today’s modern age, when a person is interested in doing business with a new company or trying anything new in general, online reviews are usually the most essential way to get an idea about the quality a company provides.
Online reviews tend to give people reassurance about doing business with a new company based on prior customer experience. Although the important question is, how reliable are the online reviews and can they be trusted?
With my personal experience using new companies and making my decision to do business with the company based upon online reviews would really make you question the authenticity of reviews that are written online about the company you are interested in using.
After researching, I came to find out that the reviews on transfer company website have to be approved by the administrators of the website and not every review will be shown, nor are you allowed to post freely. Of course, they would only keep the positive reviews listed on their website to falsely ensure the customer that nothing could go wrong.
A few words about how trustful is the most respected sources in travel. An article written about the TripAdvisor website by The Independent stated that a town in Italy made a nonexistent restaurant and put it on TripAdvisor, then followed to add 10 perfect scored reviews.
In less than a month this imaginary restaurant was ranked the best restaurant in Moniga del Gara, and even out beat another different high quality restaurant that had 300 reviews (201 of the reviews mark it as excellent). The magazine showed that the system was flawed and fake reviews could easily take your business higher in rankings.
Also I found a website called Fiverr.com which lets you purchase 5 star reviews for five dollars to make just about anybody appear to be trustworthy. With that being said, can you really trust reviews that you see online about companies or is it all staged just to earn your trust and get a product or service sold.
Do you trust online reviews?
Tips are a few ways to avoid being scammed by fake online reviews
- Talk to your travel agent about the company and ask if they have heard about it or have heard recommendations.
- Always read reviews on more than one source.
- Avoid clichés, real reviews would be more detailed rather than artistic.
- If there is not one negative or mediocre review there is a good chance the reviews are fake.
- If the review seems vague and doesn’t have descriptive details about the product itself, it may not be genuine.
- If the review only has one or two words like “excellent” but no description of the product with 5 stars there is a high chance it is fake.
- Search if that user has written more than 1 review on whichever website you’re in.
In Conclusion:
I was not able to write negative review for Suntransfers.com. Even on Facebook. Moderators removed all reviews that I wrote about them. They offered 10 euros in compensation for bad experience my clients experienced. Reason? Driver has to be paid.
Suntransfers.com didn’t take responsibility for their mistakes: wrong car assigned, broken air conditioner at 100°F, late arrival for 45 minutes. None. They care about driver who has to be paid.
Customer? Who cares! There are many customers around the world that they can foolish with their fake reviews. Be aware! Avoid to be one of them.
If you need a travel advisor that you can trust, you are welcome to be my client!
Contact me at (772) 777-1337 or fill out form above.
Talk to you later!
