"This hotel looks like a prison"

It's one thing to read damaging negative reviews about your business on an independent website - quite another to show them, or link to them, on your own website.

Our headline is a quote from the feed on a hotel's own website (as are the other two shown here). Now we all know that consumers want reviews, but we cannot think of a single positive benefit to be gained from showing reviews fed by external sites. 

Even if your business looks great today, are you sure the review posted tomorrow is not going to be a 'killer'?

We can see the initial attraction, but given that a single adverse review can put off customers in significant numbers, we always advise our clients against this strategy.

Is there any way of quantifying the effect?

The straight answer is 'No', potential customers are not going to contact you to tell you they have been put off using your business, but you might like to try replacing the feed with Dialogue for three months and measure the change!