Explore Kirklees Reviews Policy

Explore Kirklees are dedicated to ensuring that consumers can trust any review that is published on our website.

All businesses and reviewers that use our website must follow our guidelines and review policy.

Reviews content guidelines

Posting a review

Our review service offers consumers the opportunity to rate and review their genuine, first-hand, experiences with the businesses they use. Specifically:

• A consumer can only review a business with whom they have had a direct, first-hand, experience. Not based on what they heard from friends or relatives.

• For clarity, our definition of an experience is where a business has been actively engaged as part of a buying process or delivery of the service. A consumer can only review a business to the extent of their direct experience, e.g. a consumer who obtained a quote from a business but did not accept the service can review their experience with obtaining the quote but cannot review the delivery or ongoing support for the service.

• In addition, you may not write a review about a business:

1. That you or any family member have any financial interest in

2. That you are employed by or otherwise work for

3. That is a competitor to a business that you or any family member have any financial interest in, are employed by or otherwise work for

4. In exchange for payment, or where your interaction occurred more than 12 months before submitting the review

• Consumers can post a review across a range of different devices/channels – desktop, mobile and app.

• As a minimum, consumers need to provide a rating (1-5 stars) of a business

• Our advice for consumers is that if they have had a bad experience with a business, they try to explain to them why in their review. Genuine negative feedback is fine, but constructive criticism is much more useful to the business and potential customers than an angry rant.

• The personal details of users will never be shared with the subject of their review, or 3rd parties, without obtaining permission, unless we are required to share them related to a court or government order.

• We do not permit abusive or offensive behaviour, towards businesses or other users. This includes the use of profanities; threats; prejudiced comments; hate speech; and/ or, sexually explicit language. All user generated content material posted on our website, must comply with both the guidance in this Reviews Policy and Explore Kirklees Terms and Conditions.

• We respect our users’ privacy and do our utmost to protect it (see our Privacy Policy for more details). We expect users to join us in protecting people’s privacy and for reviews to be unbiased and objective. Mentioning the celebrity owner of a bar/restaurant is fine, but detailing personal information such as full names, email addresses, mailing addresses; phone numbers; as well as bank and card details for, individual members of staff, or any other individual, is strictly prohibited. If a review does contain this type of information, it may be removed.

• Anything posted should be a reviewer’s own, unique work. This includes not uploading images/ videos or using content in videos to which someone else owns the copyright, such as music tracks, snippets of copyrighted programmes or videos made by other users and unattributed quotes. Content may be removed, without notice, if we receive a complaint from the copyright owner.

• All reviewers should be aware that the content they submit becomes visible to anyone who visits our website, so they need to check what they are posting meets our Terms and Conditions.

Responding to a review

• Businesses maybe informed whenever any new review is posted against their business.

• Anyone, who has registered for a Explore Kirklees Business Listing, can respond to a posted review on their business.

• When the business responds to a review they will be highlighted as the business name

• Any comments should be constructive and written in a non-biased way. They also need to adhere to policies associated with ‘Posting a Review’, other than the need to provide a star rating.

Reporting a review

• We do not edit, pre-vet or review any third-party material before it is published on our website. We actively encourage any party to report any review, that they believe go against our policies by using the ‘report review’ link in the review section.

• When a review is reported, we will assess the review against our policy. If the review is not in breach of the policy but is believed by the reporter to be posted by an individual who is not recognised as someone who has had an experience with the business, we will contact the reviewer within 2 working days, via email, and provide 3 working days for the provision of further information to support a decision being made around the veracity of the review. In the absence of a response, the review will be withdrawn as unsubstantiated.

• Where a review is reported as defamatory the person reporting the review will be advised of the outcome within 10 working days of the email being sent to the reviewer.

• If the veracity of a reported review is substantiated it will remain in place, irrespective of Explore Kirklees relationship with the reviewed business. Substantiation will be based on Explore Kirklees being ‘satisfied’ that the review meets our policies. The only exception to this is if the reviewed business decides to suppress the review functionality from their listing altogether. In this case, all review data both positive and negative is removed, and the business can no longer receive any reviews.

How reviews are accessed and reflected in a business’s listing

• We will ascribe an overall reviews star rating for a business, using an algorithm that looks at volumes of reviews by star rating.

• Star ratings will feature against a business’s listing, and within their business profile

• Specific reviews will be accessible via a business’s profile page.

• In some cases, Explore Kirklees Business Directory reviews are also published in 3rd party search results e.g. Google.

Reviews policy

• We monitor and review most reviews – We do not monitor, censor, or moderate all reviews. We provide an option only for users to post reviews about businesses featured on our website.

• Reviewers may not write a review that:

1. They have been paid to write by the business or a competitor of the business;

2. Does not describe their personal and direct interaction with the business;

3. Is not factually correct;

4. Violates laws regarding defamation, harassment, discrimination, racial vilification, sedition, blasphemy, bullying or contempt;

5. Is abusive, offensive, indecent, pornographic or obscene;

6. Advocates illegal activity or discusses illegal activities with the intent to commit them;

7. Is intentionally or unintentionally false, misleading, deceptive, inaccurate, incorrect or unreliable;

8. Infringes intellectual property rights including copyright of any third party;

9. Is inappropriate, off topic, repetitive or vexatious; or

10. Compromises the privacy or data protection rights of any person.

• Businesses may not do any of the following which could damage your online reputation or be interpreted as misleading consumers:

1. Pay for reviews of your own or a competitor’s business;

2. Review your own or a competitor’s business; or try to have negative reviews removed leaving only the positive reviews.

Changes to this Review Policy

This Review Policy was last updated on 5^th July 2021