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The Double Sidedness of the Review Systems on Delivery Applications
  • 최보윤 수습기자
  • 등록 2021-08-30 23:58:50
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  One of the most popular services since the social distancing period started due to COVID-19 is delivery service. In keeping with social distancing regulations, delivery service became a necessary offering for people who run their own restaurants. With the sudden growth and spread of delivery services, the utilization rate of delivery applications has increased. Also, the review systems are actively used. In particular, the function that lets consumers share information with one another and give some feedback to the restaurant is popular. However, it doesn’t always function positively. Recently, the negative aspects and damage from these review systems are becoming a social controversy. Let’s talk about this in detail.

 

  At first, the delivery application’s review like giving a star rating was helpful when customers choose foods to eat. Customers can view restaurants based on their high star ratings. Therefore, people can select restaurants which other people enjoyed. Through this, customers share information and get help about choosing which restaurant they should order from. The review system is also helpful to the owners of the restaurants because they could promote their restaurants and attract customers using the review system. The owners develop a marketing strategy on the basis of the reviews. Sometimes a witty review becomes a discussion point and makes the restaurant famous. Furthermore, the owners are able to immediately find out what needs to be improved and strengthened through the reviews from the customers who use the restaurants. It helps them manage the problem quickly. As you can see, if we use the review system properly, it could benefit both the owners and the customers. However, since people who abuse the review system have appeared, the aforementioned negative aspects of the review system are being highlighted.

 

  Recently the case of overusing one’s power by abusing the review system has become a social controversy. A gimbap restaurant that has started using the delivery application ‘Coupang Eats’ got an unreasonable demand from a customer. He told the owner “Refund one deep-fried shrimp”. After the owner got that call he collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage and eventually died. In the process of demanding a refund, the customer said one of three deep-fried shrimp’s color is strange and used swear words toward the owner. Additionally, he wrote a review for the restaurant, “The owner is arrogant and thoughtless” and gave the lowest star rating. He complained continuously saying the owner was being rude at first. Even though the owner refunded the cost of the deep-fried shrimp and apologized to the customer, he complained again demanding a refund for the full price of the meal. Also, the head office of Coupang Eats called the restaurant and asked the owner to refund the full price of the meal. The owner was so heartbroken with this that he collapsed and died of a cerebral hemorrhage. As we can see from this example, the review system carries the dangerous possibility of giving a voice to malicious customers even though it started for the customer’s convenience and the owner’s promotion. Even some customers give extremely low star ratings with illogical reasons or demand too much service on the condition that they write a good review. Between these customers who are called ‘Black consumers’ and inflexible, only customer-friendly responses from the head office, lots of owners are suffering. Surprisingly, this is not the only problem. Most of the owners hold ‘review events’ nowadays. It means that the owners provide a small amount of extra food for free to the customers who have promised positive reviews and high star ratings. The event is a management strategy to raise the rank on the delivery application. Also, it is a promise between the owner and the customer. Therefore, the customers have to write a positive review and give high star ratings even if the food and the service are worse than they expected. Because of this agreement, there could be a difference between practical satisfaction and the content of the review. Furthermore, some external problems such as the unkindness of the delivery man and the delay of the delivery are included in the reviews. It means that people cannot necessarily judge the degree of satisfaction about the restaurant itself. In this way, the reviews can often not be trusted or they may even make the owner feel victimized. It is the most fatal weakness of the delivery applications.

 

  In order to compensate for the defects of the review system, companies that run the delivery applications are trying to introduce slightly different types of review systems. The public delivery application of Gyeonggi-do, ‘Special Delivery’ divides the star rating sections into three categories: the taste of the food, the amount of the food, and the satisfaction of the delivery. In addition, the customers can evaluate the restaurants using only the star rating, without any words or photos. This method could prevent malicious customers from using abusive language toward the owner or writing mock reviews to some degree. Another delivery application, ‘Baemin’ introduced a function called ‘Review that can be seen only by the owners’. With this new function, normal consumers can only see the star rating, and the owners can only see the written review. Through this system, it is possible to disclose the problems only to the restaurant owner so that they can suggest their opinions and prevent other customers from avoiding using the restaurant at the same time.

 

  However, the application companies still allow the customers to rate the restaurant and most restaurants have the same marketing strategy like a review event. From this point of view, this kind of system has logical limitations. It is time for strong regulations, such as introducing a system where owners can blacklist customers who have written vicious reviews or a ban on rating adjustments through review events. Prior to regulation, even at the individual level, consumers need to have basic morality so that they don't make unreasonable demands on the restaurants or write reviews that distort or exaggerate facts due to being blinded by small interests. The essence of the review system is to provide useful information to the consumers, so the owners should abstain from trying to control the reviews to raise the rank of the restaurant.

 

  A review system that benefits or damages only one side shouldn't be operated any longer. First of all, we should listen to the voice of the owners whose living is swayed by the reviews and prepare a flexible countermeasure from the head offices of the delivery applications. The owners and customers should make an effort together as well. As a result, it is essential to try to understand each other so that the review system can benefit both parties.

 

 

75th Reporter · HAN SONG HEE · shhan0509@hanmail.net

76th Cub reporter · CHOI BO YOUN · invierno.y@kyonggi.ac.kr

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