1. Which is best: a 3-star hotel or a 3-star restaurant?
2. How swayed are you by user reviews?
3. Who do you count on for book reviews, film reviews, and eating recommendations? What are the alternatives to using a review site?
4. Do you ever write customer reviews?
5. What's the minimum star rating a business must have before you use them?
6. How robust are review websites in your country? In the UK, there have been several recent cases where traders have been able to write their own reviews, using family members and friends as "satisfied customers".
7. What do you think the role of a reviewer is?
• To tell the truth whatever, that’s what reviews are for.
• To be diplomatic and not say if something was really bad.
• To make something sound good, even if that is not the case.
8. Describe a time when you experienced good/bad service.
Read article here: User Review Reading
9. What is your reaction?
10. Do you have any sympathy with the restaurant that went out of business?
11. Is this an issue that law courts should decide on? Does their ruling create a precedent that all user reviews can be held legally responsible?
12. Some restaurant critics are now more famous than the restaurants themselves. Is this a good thing?
13. Do you agree that there is no such thing as bad criticism, and that any kind of feedback is useful to the service provider?
14. Amazon now employs reviewers to test products - they are sent free goods in return for detailed reviews. Does this undermine the role played by product-buying customers?
15. Should online reviewers be forced to give their real identities?
16. Who gives out ratings to hotels and restaurants in your country?
17. "If you are in a good mood, you are less aware of bad service." Do you agree?
18. Is your company given a star rating by an industry authority?
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Situation
You are the lawyer representing the Coco Roco restaurant. You're holding a press conference after the court's ruling. Justify your client's position and answer any of the questions from the awaiting journalists (your teacher).
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Discuss quotes
"I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success."
- Tennessee Williams
"When the reviews are bad I tell my staff that they can join me as I cry all the way to the bank."
- Liberace
"I've got beautiful reviews for all my books, and I'm very well thought of in the tiny circles that know me, but I'm really starving."
- Leonard Cohen
“You need a high degree of corruption or a very big heart to love absolutely everything”
― Gustave Flaubert
“I've been all over the world and I've never seen a statue of a critic.”
― Leonard Bernstein
Student Handout PDF: User Reviews