Archive for March, 2012

Does impartiality make TripAdvisor’s reviews less honest?

I made the mistake of booking a car recently and then googling the hire company. The second organic link, after the hire company’s own website, was from TripAdvisor. The page title was ‘AVOID Via Kiwi car rentals’ (name changed). My heart sank. Clicking through to the whole post, though, the picture became clearer. A couple [...]

Would you rather – some sales or more enquiries?

When I was a kid we had a wonderful and slightly disturbing book called Would You Rather? by the brilliant illustrator John Burningham. It was fun choosing between supper in a castle and breakfast in a balloon, but there were also more alarming choices: which wild animal would you rather be killed by? Everyone knows that good kids’ books need a dark undertone…

The would-you-rather that Fluent comes up against repeatedly with clients is: would you rather have some sales or more enquiries? Usually the question relates to the hiding of key information. Tell prospects everything and they might not buy. Conceal something vital and they’ll have to get in touch.

For example, in the hunt for more bookings, one hospitality client is being tempted to remove the availability calendar. The reasoning is twofold: first, that an empty calendar might scare people away; and second, that forcing an enquiry form request gives the company an opportunity to sell alternative dates or holidays if the original dates are not going to work out.