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100% satisfaction

Posted by (Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico) on

I wasn't sure where in the forum to post this, but I settled on Tourist Scams. I'll explain why at the end of this post.

Can you name any travel company, whether it provides a product or a service, tour company or hotel or online business or you name it, that has a record of 100% satisfaction? Zero complaints ever? Not a single dissatisfied customer?

Not even Rick Steves can boast that record.

It seems like there has been a proliferation of dissatisfied customers posting about their experiences on this forum. Often this comes with a warning: "Don't trust ...." or "Don't do business with ....."

It's all well and good to learn about bad experiences people have had with various travel-related businesses, but based on one person's experience, are we all to turn our backs on businesses that have generally provided good products and good service?

Every business slips up from time to time. And let's face it: sometimes it is more cost effective for a company to have one dissatisfied customer than to go to extreme lengths to make them happy. We'd all like to think that every company we do business with cares about us above all else, but that's simply not the case. They have to make money first and foremost, or they won't survive.

We should certainly strive to give our business to companies that have good customer service, but we should also realize that good customer service does not come cheap. You get better customer service at Neiman Marcus than you do at Walmart. So do your research. Be very diligent when making a purchase, especially online, to check and double check that you are buying what you mean to buy. Understand cancelation policies. And if something goes south and the company bends over backwards for you, please share that on the forum as well as when they don't.

It would be a Tourist Scam to try to convince our fellow travelers to stop doing business with a company based on one bad experience.

Posted by
8430 posts

Lane, thanks for posting this, and I wholeheartedly agree. No one company can please everyone, and like you, I have gotten tired of the prolific threads here started by first time posters who warn everyone to boycott a certain company or guide.

Everyone is entitled to post reviews of places they do business with, but I believe reviews should be objective and let the reader make their own choice. It is a disservice to this forum to post mandates ordering readers to stop doing business with a company.

Posted by
34324 posts

and then there are the absolute rogues who stay in business by lots of advertising and who are called out on the Forums fairly frequently. One flight booking company who used illegal and underhanded ways to try to trick both the traveller and the airline, or the travel "agent" who took the money of a regular contributor and was eventually convicted, but our contributor still never got her money back.

Surely you don't expect these to slip through the net and continue to misuse trust and travellers' money?

Maybe a middle ground is what you're hoping for? Ignore individual complaints until they reach a certain number? Or only if the person complaining has a certain established track record here first?

I hear what you're saying, and a agree to a degree but perhaps moderate the name calling, "It would be a Tourist Scam to try to convince our fellow travelers" and cut innocent travellers a bit of slack?

Posted by
1953 posts

Thanks Mardee.

And Nigel, thank you also for your response, but I respectfully disagree. I never said no one should post negative reviews. But reviews should be objective. They shouldn't be posted with the intention of punishing or getting even with the business for the poster's bad experience (which in some cases is the poster's own fault).

Posted by
5696 posts

While I understand where Nigel is coming from, I agree with Lane. Yes, there are situations that definitely fit the definition of tourist scams, and these should be pointed out. However, the majority, and I think they are the vast majority, of first time posters who are on a rant over something that happened to them, often bear part of the responsibility for their own trouble. I can't begin to calculate the number of times I've thought "this wouldn't have happened if they'd just done some research before hand". They post here AFTER the fact, when they might have avoided the situation if they'd come here (-or any other reputable travel site) and done some reading or asked a few questions first.

Posted by
23660 posts

My solution is simple. Post your experience. Let us drawn our own conclusion if we should or should not avoid the vendor. I see many of these so called evaluations as nothing more than a rant designed to hurt the business. I believe that there is rarely a one sided story. Every story has another side. Unless I have some way to evaluate the poster's posting, I just ignore it. A long time poster would get more credibility than a first timer. Having read a couple thousand student papers, I think I have a pretty good eye for the fake or less than real stories. We recently have had a couple of good ones but the web master likes us to be nice to the first time posters even if it is a bsf rant so I skip pass them.

Posted by
395 posts

Posted by Frank

I believe that there is rarely a one sided story.
Every story has another side.

There are three sides to every story:

What I say happened.

What you say happened.

What really happened.

Posted by
635 posts

Tammy, I love your comment. I just saw them perform and thought exactly the same thing (and BTW Mick is 80).

Posted by
4708 posts

I believe reviews should be objective and let the reader make their
own choice. It is a disservice to this forum to post mandates ordering
readers to stop doing business with a company.

My first reaction to posts that tell me what to do such as do this or don't do that is to dismiss them as not being credible. I find those are buzz words for a post that won't be objective and will not state all the facts that allow me to make up my own mind.

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