Guest comments on websites

[Normandy Cow]

You are all probably going to think that I am MAD, but I have now just started entering the results of our feedback forms onto my blog - and I am not filtering out ANYTHING, it is all there in black and white, including a recent comment that the house was not spotless on arrival for one guest.

When/if people make negative comments, then I am entering our response, so that it shows that we are taking on board peoples' comments and acting upon them.

I wasn't sure whether or not to do this, maybe I am naive and/or stupid, but I thought I would enter into the spirit of openness on the web. (I didn't have the nerve though to put them on our main website, just on the blog...)

EDIT...

Catherine, a bit off topic but how does this work? ... in order to visit with this level of frequency, you must be turning bookings away.

How weird! I was writing this post without realising that goat was writing one too!!! Anyway, to answer your question goat, yes, we do turn a lot of bookings away because we visit every half term and for a week at Easter, Summer and New Year - and of course those are our peak weeks!!! As I know that I could always sell all of those weeks, in effect we are losing about £2500 each year because we are out at the house when we should be letting it out. But hey!!! You only live once - and we can only go out in the school holidays so if we didn't then we would never visit

[A-two]

Thanks, I agree with you that the online guest book ought to be for testimonials about us, not anyone else, so I'm going to review the whole thing.

You are all probably going to think that I am MAD, but I have now just started entering the results of our feedback forms onto my blog.

Actually, I don't think you're mad, but I would not do it personally because we state at the top and bottom of our feedback form "We do not share this information with anyone else" If future guests know that you are using it anywhere online, it may influence comments. We value honest feedback very highly, so I wouldn't compromise that for anything.

However, I quite like the idea of putting restaurant reviews, fishing charter reviews etc. in a blog. That seems the perfect place for them (if I had one...

EDIT: Started deleting restaurant references, then stopped half way through. This is trickier than I expected. Vineyards are a BIG part of our appeal, so I am really reluctant to remove reference to them, and if not them, why restaurants? Things that are proving a problem are along the lines of "We've always gotten fish at Brauns, but this time we got their lobsters to go - what a treat!"......"enjoyed local wines and tasted at Paumanok and Lenz Wineries!" ......"We recommend going to Frisky Oyster and Old Field Vineyards, both were fabulous" and "A sail out in the bay in Captain Marty's yacht charter was the highlight of the trip" (or words to that effect) and so on....

If I remove all of the above, it's going to completely dessimate my review pages, removing all character and color, so I'm now having second thoughts about doing this.

Are you sure it's best to omit it all?