Once upon a time, a shill was an employee of a venue who acted as a customer with the intent to enthuse the unwitting genuine customer into parting with their hard earned cash. What makes this different from public relations you may ask? A PR agency does not write your reviews for you and certainly they would not plant false news stories. For a start up hospitality business the temptation to write a fake review of your own place is very tantalising. All those good things that people should be saying about me are only waiting to be written by someone else, so why don’t I …

A great example of this was a place that went out to do this very thing on an internet restaurant review site.

* Mistake 1 was to do it in the first place.
* Mistake 2 was to use their real names
* Mistake 3 was to write down a few competitors with poor reviews.

The upshot was that unpaid creditors, disgruntled ex-employees, other local hospitaliers and disappointed customers swooped and set the record straight. Further “planted” and very long winded reviews came out in quick succession, all of which compounded the low credibility of anything published. As a result of threats of legal action, outbreaks of truth and being fully exposed, the venue dropped all their reviews. A number remained from annoyed guests which pulled their live rating down to a very low standard.

Any form of internet based commentary has to be ethical and genuine. The medium is too quick and too widely spread for you to get away with anything less. Hospitality is a trust business, fall short of the truth and you will lose customers. If you want fair write ups of your establishment, point customers towards the review sites or even invite critics aboard. Should you be doing a good job then the reviews will reflect that. Honesty will win you space in the press, an expert opinion and loyalty.