The Feedback Company provides feedback for a large...

The Feedback Company provides feedback for a large number of companies. You guarantee that the reviews are from real customers, that there is no manipulation, that the data can be verified and that complaints are handled.
At the end of 2016 we booked a cruise of Friendship Cruises, partly based on the positive reviews. Our experiences during the trip were disappointing. This company also uses your feedback software. If you want to read more information about the guarantees you give, you cannot open those parts. When inquired by me, the software turned out to be incorrectly set up by the company. Friendship Cruises has still not changed this (3/2/18).
After reviewing the reviews on the Friendship Cruises site, from the start in November 2014 to 2017, 269 reviews appeared to have been posted on the site. Only of 5 trips I found more than 10 reviews. Of 21 trips I found between 1 and 8 reviews. There are so few that they should be disregarded. The Mekong trip scores 1 eight and 3 tens. When I look at the scores per year, there are only 2 reviews of the Mekong trip. When you see 2 reviews with a 10 about a company, you still question it. Many of the reviews were published on the site on the same date? The suggestion that follows is that a number of positive reactions are knocked down by an employee?
If you submit a review with a score lower than 3 stars, that review will not be published immediately. This gives the company time to add a response. It makes little reference to the comments made. Your review will be compared with the outcome of the survey forms submitted by your fellow passengers. Only the company knows how many surveys are involved, what information those surveys contain and how the information has been converted into a concrete figure. This is not transparent.
Most reviews (more than half) score 5 stars. You have to assign them yourself, but that sometimes goes wrong. I came across a review in which someone writes that he has 3 stars for the cruise. However, does it give 5 stars? Perhaps it is better to let everyone fill in a number. Now people score 5 stars, while their review shows that there are some things wrong. Incidentally, reviews with a score of 5 stars are debatable. After all, there is no excellent, there is always something to improve. If you disregard the scores of 5 stars, Friendship Cruises only scores a 7.1.
When writing a review, the question about recommending the company is set to yes by default. You have to consciously change that to no and this is often forgotten (17x). I can't imagine recommending a company while just giving the cruise a pass. After all, they have promised 5-star quality.
In my opinion, you can question the reviews on the Friendship Cruises site. The numbers per trip and per year are too small for this. Since the company itself manages the software, it is possible for them to fill the file themselves. To top it off I found out yesterday (3/1/18) that 2 very bad reviews had just been removed (9/15/17 and 2/13/18). I therefore wonder what those guarantees from you are worth to consumers.