By: MJ + PJ
TRIP ADVISOR
TRIP ADVISOR is quite well known in travel circles, and frequently shows up in searches when looking for activities to do in places. Although we use it sparingly, we do use it for one particular aspect of our travel: Reviewing tours and guides.
We have found it very common for tours and guides to request feedback and a review on the website, which in turn acts as their customer service profile, and employee recognition system. Occasionally a guide will give us a Trip Advisor feedback card, and this is handy as it’s easy to forget to review when simply asked. It is easy to write a review for a person who did a great job. Giving back to them is the least you can do, and the travel community also benefits.
GOOGLE LOCAL GUIDES
We have reviewed places quite extensively in the last few months on the GOOGLE LOCAL GUIDES platform. It is not as ideal a place to review tours or guides, so we just review some of the impactful places we vist. What this means is if we aren’t driven to review a place, then we don’t do a review just for the sake of it.
When picking places to visit and reading reviews ourselves we look for a few things in particular and hence also try to include them in our reviews:
- What was the experience or feel of the place?
- How was it suitable for a small traveling family?
- What barriers or nuances may be useful to know before visiting?
- What educational programs or opportunities are available?
- How long does it take to visit, and what influences duration of stay?
- Specific advice that you won’t find on the company or business website.
The owners of businesses may respond to your review, to either clarify or acknowledge your feedback or experience. In addition, the community can ask questions and Google asks for clarifications on location specifics to help users, which you can answer as a Local Guide.
We have over 50 place reviews posted, with over 26,000 views on the reviews to date. Our photos of these places have an additional 21,000 views. Hence, your reach and assistance to others can be quite substantial if you provide a review with a bit of thought.
PAYING IT FORWARD
We also perform other minor public service acts when we can, since we don’t have a single physical community anymore. These actions and gestures include the following:
- Picking up trash/rubbish that is clearly easily removed and spoiling an aspect of an experience.
- Pointing people towards where we found answers, if we don’t have an answer ourselves.
- Offering to take photos for other travelers if they are struggling to get that one particular shot, or for those in a group.
- Being the smiling face in the queue for frontline workers if there are more difficult customers around.
- Notifying people and helping them out if they dropped or forgot something and we notice it.
- Letting people do their job – if they know what the better deal or price or way to do something is, then we happily take their advice.
- Offerring random compliments. AJ is particularly good at this.
- Holding doors open for the entire tour group to pass through, because it just makes sense.
It’s not rocket science, but it is good karma.
It’s not required, but it is appreciated.
It’s an easy way to create happiness, and we all need that.
