Reviews Policy

Consumer Reviews Policy

1. Definitions

1. The following defined terms apply to this Consumer Reviews Policy: 

Agent (we, us, our)	Beacon Hill Farm
Booking	a consumer’s reservation of the Property.
OTAs	Online Travel Agencies used by the Agent.
Owner	the Property owner who is deemed a trader under consumer rights legislation.
Property	the property provided by the Agency on behalf of the Owner for the Booking.
Reviewer (you, your)	the consumer leaving, or considering leaving, a review.
Service	the agency service provided by the Agency.
Third Party Review Platform	any third-party platform used by the Agent (or Owner) to obtain, manage or present consumer reviews and review information.
Website	www.beaconhill.co.uk

2. Who can submit a review

2.1 We welcome reviews about your experience with us and your stay at the Property, directly and via Third Party Review Platforms.

2.2 We send all our customers who have made a direct Booking with us an invitation to submit a review. For more information about leaving reviews, please see the How to leave a review section.

We also welcome reviews about your experience by submitting a review via Third Party Review Platforms. You can leave a review about a recent experience with us even if you haven’t made a Booking. You can review the Service provided by us (for example, you can review how we handled your enquiry). These reviews need to be placed on either Google or Facebook as the UpFrontReviews platform is exclusively for guests who have paid and stayed.

2.3 You must be over 18 to leave a review.

3. We do not incentivise reviews

3.1 We do not offer any incentives for reviews (whether positive or negative).

How to leave a review

3.2 To leave a review with us directly about your stay at the Property, you need to respond to the feedback request provided via email at the end of your stay at the Property. You can also request a feedback email to be resent. If you have any questions, please contact us via the contact details on the Website.

3.3 We also use Third-Party Review Platforms to collect reviews about the Service. Information about the Third-Party Review Platforms we use, including links to guidance produced by the Third-Party Review Platforms on submitting reviews can be found at the end of this policy.

3.4 Links to our Third-Party Review Platforms are either:

3.4.1 sent automatically via email to consumers who make a Booking;

3.4.2 accessible via the Website; and/or

3.4.3 provided directly by the Third-Party Review Platform.

3.5 If you booked your stay via an intermediary, the intermediary may request your feedback directly. The intermediaries’ review collection process and policies will apply. Links to guidance produced by the intermediaries’ we use on submitting reviews can be found at the end of this policy.

3.6 You can also leave feedback via publicly available websites such as social media channels and Google public review function.

4. Review Standards

4.1 Your review must:

4.1.1 Reflect your genuine experience (both positives and negatives).

4.1.2 Not be incentivised in any way.

4.1.3 Not relate to a product or service you are connected with (for example, because you (or someone in your family) has a financial interest in or works for the business that provides it).

4.1.4 Not manipulate ratings (for example, you cannot submit multiple reviews for the same product or service).

5. Where and how we display reviews

5.1 We do not publish any reviews on our website.

5.2 Reviews for our Service or Properties made via Third-Party Review Platforms or directly with intermediaries’ may appear on the Third-Party Review Platforms/ intermediaries’ website. Our website also links to reviews made on some Third-Party Review Platforms.

5.3 We may display review information such as an overall rating by averaging the ratings received. Where such information is displayed, we explain what information is being displayed and the calculation, or this can be found in the review platform guidelines.

5.4 We reserve the right to hide all reviews (whether genuine or fake) and cease taking reviews at any time.

6. We may use your review in our marketing

6.1 We may include all (or a representative part) of your review in our marketing material in any media (for example, on our website, in a brochure or in advertising). Your identity will not be revealed.

7. Please report suspicious reviews

7.1 All reviews must comply with clause 4: Review Standards.

7.2 If you think any review is fake or otherwise does not comply with clause 4, please report to us via the contact details on our Website.

7.3 If you think any review submitted to a Third-Party Review Platform is fake or otherwise does not comply with clause 4, please report to the Third-Party Review Platform via the Third-Party Review Platform website. Please see the end of this policy for useful links.

8. How we investigate and deal with suspicious reviews

8.1 If our own monitoring or a report from you or someone else suggests that a direct review does not comply with the Review Standards, we will promptly investigate.

8.2 Our investigation shall commence on notification (clause 8.1) and we will use reasonable endeavours to complete the investigation within 30 days]. Investigations shall be conducted by 60 days.

8.3 We may:

8.3.1 immediately remove it (or not publish it, where it has been detected before publication). We will do this where we are certain it is non-compliant.

8.3.2 investigate it further (which may involve contacting the reviewer for evidence that it is compliant) and flag it as a possibly fake review until our investigation is complete or remove the possibly fake review until our investigation is complete. If we then determine the review is non-compliant we will permanently remove it.

8.4 If we identify one review as non-compliant we may remove all reviews submitted by the same reviewer and refuse to publish any further reviews from the same reviewer.

8.5 If we remove a review or are investigating it, we will not include that review in any aggregated review score.

8.6 If you disagree with our decision as to whether a review is compliant, you can contact us via the contact details on our Website. We will deal with the issue you raise in accordance with our customer complaints procedure.

8.7 Where we host reviews regarding the products or services of other traders (e.g., reviews about the Owner and/or the Owner’s Property) and, on assessment, deem the trader responsible for the banned reviews, we may take the following additional steps if we deem necessary on an assessment of the facts:

8.7.1 notify consumers that the trader has benefited from banned reviews by putting a clear notice on the website;

8.7.2 terminate the commercial relationship with the trader; and/or

8.7.3 notify the CMA of the trader’s breaches of the banned practices.

8.8 For information on how the Third-Party Review Platforms sanctions people who submit fake reviews, please see the Third-Party Review Platform’s website.

8.9 If a review is removed from a Third-Party Review Platform or otherwise does not comply with our Review Standards, we will remove it from our website.

Schedule 1 – Third Party Review Platforms

Platform	Use of the Platform	Link to guidance provided by the Platform
Third Party Review Platform
Trip Advisor	Reviews of the Service	Trip Advisor
Facebook Google	Reviews of the Service Reviews of the Service	https://www.facebook.com/policies_center/community_feedback/ https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/7400114?hl=en

Internal risk assessment

Governance
Who in the business will take ownership of the internal review process (and this risk assessment and policy)?	Alun & Christopher Moore
How frequently will you conduct a risk assessment?	Annually
Where will the risk assessment and investigation details be stored?	In the beacon Hill Cloud files
Detection
Who will conduct the detection process e.g., checking the website for fake reviews?	Alun and Christopher Moore
How frequently will the detection process happen – this could be a minimum or approximate.	We check every review that is placed on the three platforms declared above. This would be approximately 30 days.
Do you have, or plan to use, any software to assist with detection?	No, we only have three platforms to check and only a few reviews each month.
Will you involve a third party in the detection process? E.g., if you outsource your marketing.	No.
What indicators will you use to identify fake reviews?	We read the reviews and if we don’t recognise them we ask Trip Advisor or Google to remove them.
Investigation and escalation
Who will conduct the investigation if a suspected fake review is found? Does the outcome of an investigation need sign off from another person / more senior level?	No.
What would be a reasonable time frame for deadlines with investigations?	60-90 days, as platforms like Google and Facebook can take a long time to respond, if they ever do.
What steps will be followed during an investigation?	We would decide iif the review was fake, if it was it wou;d stay removed, if it wasn’t it woud be reinstated.
Removal and remedial action
What criteria will be used to decide whether a review should be removed or amended?	Honesty.
How will you ensure reviews are removed from all displays? E.g., website, social media, aggregate totals.	We will do all we can to remove any fake reviews. How that may affect aggregrate totals will be down to the platforms operating proceedures.
Incentivised reviews
Do you offer (or plan to offer) incentives for reviews? If so, in what form?	No.
How will the incentivised nature of reviews be clearly disclosed?	N/A
What controls ensure incentivised reviews reflect genuine experiences?	N/A
Publishing processes
How do you publish reviews? What is the display process?	We do not publish reviews
How are aggregated ratings, review counts or rankings calculated?	We have no part in this.
Complaint management
How can consumers raise concerns about reviews?	Contact the owners, detailed above.
How will complaints be handled?	Fairly and promptly, we are in the holiday business. In forty years of getting reviews we have never had a fake one or disputed a guest review. We have over 1400 reviews to date.