[WHY] Why are star ratings driving Korean restaurant and bar owners bonkers?

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[WHY] Why are star ratings driving Korean restaurant and bar owners bonkers?

Published: 06 Jul. 2024, 08:00 Updated: 07 Jul. 2024, 15:23

LEE JIAN
lee.jian@joongang.co.kr

[PIXABAY]

On a recent Friday evening in Yongin, Gyeonggi, a city on the southern outskirts of Seoul, 28-year-old taco joint owner Sohn Geon-heung was busy preparing orders flowing in through delivery apps. After completing each order, he checked the receipt one last time and tossed an extra soda can into the plastic bag of food, now ready to be handed off to the delivery man.

The free soda is part of his effort to win the favor of customers, but more importantly, he was also following up on an informal “deal with the customer” who promised through the delivery app’s additional request box to rate his restaurant five stars in exchange for the extra food.

Only about half the customers actually do end up going on the review board, but he still thinks the soda giveaway is worth it. So do many other establishments on the app. Customers who place their orders through delivery apps in Korea will frequently find some extra food with a sticker that humorously says “bribe.”

Free food with a sticker that humorously says “bribe.” [LEE JIAN]

Restaurant-slash-bar owner Jin Ho-sup, 39, said he checks his reviews on his phone at least once a day and posts replies to each one. “It’s stressful, especially when a customer gives a bad rating without a reason, or any good reason, at least.”

Locals call this “star terrorism,” equating low ratings to terrorist attacks. “It just means they can do that much damage,” Sohn said.

While stars are used by diners around the world to evaluate their restaurant experiences, the simple grading system is often a source of chaos and anxiety in Korean society. Restaurant owners reel excessively over their star average and a constant stream of news about consumers taking advantage of that reveals a broken system. Society plays the blame game between the government, private review platforms and malicious consumers, all without an effective solution to a simple question: how much pressure are we willing to exert on local business owners for a simple box meal?

A delivery man is leaving a fried chicken store with pakaged food [YONHAP]

Death by one-star: How it all started

The issue with star ratings was brought into public focus in 2021, when a gimbap store owner in Dongjak District, southern Seoul, fell unconscious from a brain hemorrhage while dealing with a customer who ordered from Coupang Eats, a local food delivery platform.

The customer had complained that one of his three shrimp tempura pieces "looked weird" and the owner provided a refund. But the customer still took to the delivery app’s review section to post negative claims about the restaurant and give it one star, the lowest rating on the scale.

The picture and comment of a of a one-star review complaining that one of the fried shrimp pieces arrived "looking weird" on Coupang Eats in 2021. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Similar allegations by local business owners subsequently inundated the internet — of customers who gave establishments a low ratings for subjective reasons like “the malatang was too spicy for me” or “the fried chicken wasn’t hot enough.”

“I’ve personally contacted customers who have given my restaurant a low star score and asked them to change or take down their ratings,” Jin said. “They were unfair comments and I thought it was just a waste of my energy to fight with them, so I gave them free food and asked if they could take the ratings down. I held in my rage and frustration for my restaurant’s star average.”

The phenomenon is not just limited to delivered meals either. Owners of regular restaurants, clinics, taxi drivers and even authors have come forward in recent years as victims of star terrorism.

A delivery man rides a motorcycle to deliver food to respective customers. [NEWS1]

Lee Ye-ji, 27, used to be a frequent user of delivery apps but her orders have tapered over the last several months. Among the reasons for her fallout with these platforms was her user experience, which she described as “ingenuine” and “transactional.”

“I knew star ratings weren’t reliable as someone who has given a perfect score on an establishment in exchange for free food,” she said. “I didn’t feel that I could be honest. Even if I didn’t like the food, I wouldn’t give it below four stars because I know how much stars stress out business owners and it is not my intention to victimize them.”

“Star ratings, compared to written reviews, give a very straightforward score of a product or service that consumers can see in a single glance, but they can be very subjective,” said Lee Eun-hee, a consumer science professor from Inha University, “But more and more, we are seeing that the system is almost dysfunctional."

Why the stars lost their shine in Korea

Restaurateur Jin believes the high number of independent retailers and business owners, and the subsequent competition, are to blame for Korea’s grievances with the five-star scale.

“The rate of self-employment is higher than other countries, and small business owners feel those numbers every day,” he said. Jin is a self-employed restaurateur of 10 years. “Many fall behind in the race and end up closing shop.”

Shuttered stores in Myeongdong, central Seoul on July 1 [YONHAP]

Korea has the seventh highest number of self-employed workers among 38 OECD countries, with 23.5 percent of the country’s labor force found to be working without a salary in 2022, according to Statistics Korea in January.

Research by Hankyung, a local news outlet, using data from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s restaurant data, found that one in 10 local businesses or independent retail stores across the country closed shop last year. The number marks a nine-year high.

“There is no question that Korean customers have more than enough choices for their meals,” Jin said. He added that it isn’t necessarily about which diner sells tastier or cheaper versions of the same food, but about reliability.

“Little sets these establishments apart, which is why even just one bad review can affect sales. As a restaurant owner, you can’t not care about them.”

Consumer science professor Lee blames Korea’s gapjil-ridden society. Gapjil, defined as abuse of power per the Oxford Dictionary, is a uniquely Korean social phenomenon stemming from the country’s patriarchal roots.

“The star system essentially gives way to the fundamental gapjil embedded in Korean society,” she said. “It makes it too easy to abuse workers in Korea where many people still think that customers are king and they know owners will listen with stars on the line. Delivery apps and review platforms should seriously take this social characteristic of Korean consumers and take appropriate actions to prevent it from happening, or protect the users.”

Delivery apps: Can and should it be doing more?

Food delivery apps enjoyed a meteoric rise to success during the pandemic; Koreans spent at least 12.2 trillion won ($11 billion) ordering food via delivery apps in 2020, some 74 percent up from the previous year’s numbers, according to estimates by WiseApp and Wise Retail.

But with such quick growth came structural issues, especially with its then-protocols to communicate with the apps’ registered restaurant owners.

Civic group People Power discovered that the gimbap shop owner in 2021 had not only been wrestling with the troublesome customer but was also dealing with Coupang Eats, which reportedly put pressure on the owner to refund the food and better deal with the customer.

Coupang Eats eventually made a public apology for its actions, admitting that it did not sufficiently address “certain users’ gapjil, unreasonable refund requests and ill-intended reviews.”

Local small business owners protest against delivery apps' protocols that do not sufficiently protect them and their businesses from fake or wrong reviews, in front of Coupang Eats headquarters in Songpa District, southern Seoul, in 2021. [YONHAP]

The platform, along with several other delivery app platforms like Baedal Minjok and Yogiyo, made tweaks in their review systems. Now, owners on most delivery apps can make a public reply to a comment intended to give them a chance to explain a bad review and request apps to temporarily hide certain customer comments they feel aren’t fair. Over the next 30 days, owners can contact the reviewer and ask them to change or take down the rating.

No review app is completely clean, but its policies are much more conservative than those of other review platforms, particularly outside Korea.

Resy, an American restaurant reservation and review platform, also utilizes the star system, but it reviews all ratings before making them public. Customers who reserve through the platform get an email after the meal, asking them to rate the establishment on the star scale and write a review. Resy reviews them before adding their ratings to the average, according to the application’s policy page on the official website. Individual star rates are not revealed.

Yelp, an American review platform, lists reviews in an order generated by AI, which ranks them from the most to the least reliable. Rants, fake reviews and suspicious activity are included in the “not recommended” category of reviews and do not affect the businesses’ overall star rating.

Boxed food at a restaurant waiting to be picked up [NEWS1]

Korean delivery apps say that they struggle to balance the customer’s rights to express their opinions and protecting restaurant owners.

“We have introduced and operated a variety of procedures and systems to best consider the perspectives of everyone who uses the service, including the owner and customers,” said Woowah Bros, which operates market share leader Baedal Minjok.

But companies also say their ability to protect businesses is limited legally. Korea’s Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection considers reviews copyrighted content owned by the writer. Apps, therefore, cannot unilaterally delete them, even if they are unjust or even false. Reviewers have been sued for defamation, though these legal processes are lengthy and expensive for the company and the business owners.

Baedal Minjok and Coupang Eats instead allow the owner to report a review through its customer service center. The review will be “hidden” for 30 days, during which time the owner can ask the reviewer to change or delete the rating.

Baedal Minjok said it has no plans to eliminate the star system. Two other widely used delivery apps, Coupang Eats and Yogiyo, also maintain the stars.

“Reviews and star rating systems are meaningful means for customers to communicate with store owners, and due to the nature of delivery apps where orders are made without seeing the food in person, they have a significant impact on users' trust and decision-making,” it said.

Is the five-star scale irreplaceable?

Naver Place, which came under fire with the delivery apps in 2021, is the only review platform to have taken meaningful action and actually got rid of the stars altogether. It replaced the ratings with “compliment words” allowing customers to select up to five positive phrases describing their experience about an establishment.

It has since seen positive feedback from both customers and business owners.

Naver Place got rid of the five-star rating system in 2021 and replaced it when positive key phrases which customers can choose to describe their experiences. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

“Reviews are subjective and people have different standards when they give out stars,” Naver Place said. “These keywords allow users to really narrow down their searches to the types of restaurants that suit their individual needs and purpose.”

Restaurant owners are happy as well because they can learn what their guests like about their stores and further improve on those points.

“We think the change was meaningful in that we are now able to better connect customers and restaurants while also relieving some of the immense stress that local businesses are under.”

Lee frequently uses the Naver Place review system these days because it allows her to support local business owners while also being honest.

“I’m thankful for these people, because otherwise, I would have to be cooking and that food would be worse than anything at a low-star average restaurant,” she said, half-jokingly. “I want to support local businesses but the current emphasis on stars almost gets in the way of that."

And at the end of the day, it is all just about a single meal.

"Imagine ranking your mother's dinner out of five stars and then telling her."

BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]

korea joongAng daily

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[WHY] Why are star ratings driving Korean restaurant and bar owners bonkers?

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