Trust, Transparency & Reviews

Many events platforms proudly display third-party review widgets showing scores such as “4.9 / 5 - Excellent” based on thousands of reviews. While this can look very reassuring, these headline ratings do not always tell the full story.

Invited vs “organic” reviews

Most major review platforms collect two broad types of feedback:

• Invited / “Verified” reviews - where a business asks a customer to leave a review using the review platform's invitation tools. “Verified” usually means the review is linked to an invitation or transaction - not that the platform has independently verified the accuracy or balance of the opinion.
• Organic reviews - where customers choose to leave a review without being prompted.

This distinction matters because businesses naturally tend to invite their happiest customers to leave a review. By contrast, people who feel disappointed are far more likely to leave a review organically. When invited and organic reviews are blended together into one headline score, the overall rating can become artificially inflated.

Paying review platforms and “flagging” negative feedback

Many review websites operate on a commercial subscription model. Businesses can pay these platforms for advanced features such as marketing tools, branding widgets, analytics, and reputation-management services.

This can also include the ability to flag negative reviews for formal assessment under platform rules. While review sites state that removals only occur when guidelines are breached, paid tools and managed processes can still result in:

• Greater visibility for positive reviews
• Delays or scrutiny applied more heavily to critical reviews
• A public profile that looks cleaner than the real customer spread

The end result is that some very high public scores can reflect not only customer satisfaction, but also the business's level of engagement and spend on the review platform itself.

The problem with the word “Verified”

The term “Verified” is often misunderstood by the public. It usually means a review was left via an invitation or linked to a transaction - not that it represents a balanced sample of all customers, and not that it has been independently fact-checked in a journalistic or regulatory sense.

Disappearing filters and loss of transparency

Historically, some review platforms allowed visitors to filter by “organic” versus “invited” reviews. As platforms evolve commercially, these distinctions are sometimes reduced or removed from public view. When those filters disappear, it becomes impossible for users to easily judge how representative a 4.9 / 5 score really is.

Why Eventsense chooses Google Reviews

Eventsense uses Google Reviews because Google does not sell reputation-management subscriptions, promoted review profiles, or paid review suppression tools in the way many dedicated review platforms do.

There is no financial incentive for Google to elevate a business's review score based on paid plans. Reviews are tied to real user accounts and displayed alongside wider search visibility, which helps keep them grounded in genuine customer behaviour.

How we believe reviews should be used

We see reviews as a useful context - not a marketing badge. A perfect star score should never replace proper due diligence. We always encourage organisers to:

• Read a mix of recent positive and critical reviews
• Look for detailed, balanced feedback rather than star counts alone
• Notice how a business responds to criticism
• Most importantly, speak directly to the supplier before booking

Our position at Eventsense

Eventsense is built around direct relationships and transparency, not curated reputation scores. We do not pay review platforms to manage our public reputation, suppress criticism or promote star ratings.

We believe the most reliable trust is built through real conversations, clear terms, and fair dealing between organisers and suppliers - not paid reputation tools.