Lies, Dam Lies and Customer Review Websites

It is about that time of year for my normal rant abut review websites and how customer feedback is handled.

I have just been doing the regular trawl of Review Centre for Momentum Coach Hire (a sister company to coachcompare.com and not as some people think some hidden link) to respond to genuine customer complaints and get the spam posted by competitors removed.

Now Review Centre are great and always handle issues we have really well ... they offer to pass on our details and we also respond to all reviews asking people to contact us directly.

We have been doing this for about six months now and I have had two responses from customers.

I have noticed that you need to submit proof of booking before submitting reviews to Trip Advisor these days and this is a big step forward.

Customers want to make informed decisions but if they were to look at some of the reviews on Review Centre they would think we are a bunch of crooks.

We ask all customers what they think of us on every trip we do. This has resulted in an overall rating of 4.05 out of 5 for the Momentum network. Out of the last 40,000 trips we have a customer dissatisfaction level of 1.6%. Or more importantly a customer satisfaction level of 98.4%. We have taken the unprecedented step of publishing all complaints warts and all on two website www.momentumcoachhirereviews.com and our sister website www.coachcompare.com (which shows reviews of individual coach companies). We show all adverse rating scores and only modify the ratings for the libellous or personal comments. It should also be noted you can only publish ratings if you have actually had a trip. 94.8% on time and satisfied – please take note airline industry.

So let's put the issues into context - a sample of 1.6% of customers have issues and I would actually say it is only the occasional individual (or competitor) complaining from this 1.6% it does not really give an insight into the company. 

That is why coachcompare.com gives customers an insight into good and bad reviews from a wide range of customers - they can make informed decisions and not be swayed by the noisy minority. 

Coach Hire In August and For The End Of 2012

So we are over the crazy season in the coach industry and we have all enjoyed the Olympics.

This is a great time of year for the coach hire industry because we can focus on getting everything done for 2013, planning our marketing, looking at customer service improvements and general business planning.

What would we say the industry needs to look at doing in 2013?

1. Continued focus on customer service, improving service levels and complaint handling on the day.

2. Customers will keep on getting more demanding and they are more likely to complain online, so get a good complaints process.

3. 2013 is going to be an important year for the coach industry with changes to the way we market ourselves, more comparison websites, more social media activity, mobile and data integration.

An interesting time to be in the industry.

Limited Availability In July

We are about to hit the peak season for coach hire and it is important customers realise that availability is limited. This is then going to be followed by the Olympics which will also reduce availability.

The important thing to remember is that ideally you should always plan your trip in advance, the old saying to book early to avoid disappointment is true.

If you do need a trip then you have probably got to work harder than ever to find a suitable supplier and don't just go for someone who will just try and take your money.

Service levels are just as important as price when comparing coach hire companies.

Continued Growth For Coach Compare

It is interesting to see the continued growth on CoachCompare.Com; Google just loves the semantic mark up and the fresh content that comes from the reviews.

The CTR levels on the CPC are really good and it just shows how customers want the combination of coach hire reviews and detailed company information.

It also goes to prove the belief that customers want to be able to select quality coach hire and the market needs to stop this focus on cheap coach hire.  If you keep on selling a cheap service then what else will people expect when they buy from your business.

Coach hire is a service and not something to be ran into the ground by coach hire comparison websites pretending to sell cheap leads but they are just damaging the market.

The creation of long term value comes from investment in marketing and technology innovation.

Remember you always get what you pay for.

The Reasons Customer Give Reviews

This is an interesting infographic for anyone wanting to understand the value of the customer reviews on coachcompare.com and the benefits you get when comparing coach hire companies using the system.

Review Websites & Coach Hire Comparison

I was looking at a number of review sites this week for general market research and a few things really struck me. 

1. It is amazing how many company generated reviews are live on the websites, customers always complain about service and praise people.  Talking about business models and over elaborate descriptions are a sure sign of spam. 

2. The companies providing the review websites make a big noise about the usefulness of reviews but don't take any real care about where the reviews are coming from. 

3. How useful are the reviews? We often find that the reviews are from both extremes, very happy or very unhappy but 80% of the customers get a satisfactory service and don't feel the need to talk about it. 

4. It is said that happy customers will generally tell one person and unhappy customers tell 8-16 people; so the simple maths give you an idea of the distortion people see on review sites. 

Customers are making decisions based on a small percentage of people making a lot of noise. 

So we have a market open to exploitation by business, full of spam and one that is distorted by a small group of people making a lot of noise. 

CoachCompare.Com only collects coach hire reviews for customers we know have actually booked a coach trip with the company.  We also make sure that the overall score reflects the customer feedback but that the review is useful for the customer. 

So when customers use CoachCompare.Com they can compare coach hire companies on service, price and quality. 

What A Difference A Driver Makes

I have just been looking through some of the latest coach hire reviews on CoachCompare.Com and the perception of quality service.


'The driver Hue, was a lovely man.'


'Nick our driver was brilliant. Very helpful and constantly contactable.'


'The driver was very nice to the children.'


'Waiting for us on arrival, drivers were very helpful and friendly.'


'Driver helpful with disabled passenger.'


'The driver was great - looked after us very well and got us to destination in good time. Thanks'


'The coach was on time the driver pleasant and knew where he was going.'


All the good reviews always come from customers experiencing good coach drivers.