If there’s one thing we truly love, it’s sharing in all the great moments you have. Bouquets when the food exceeds your expectations, brickbats when the service is shocking, chronicles of your food excursions – they all count.
While we welcome your opinions and descriptions of your dining experiences, there are a few things we expect from every user on Neighbourlink. Your reviews and photos, as well as your profile and the comments you share, are all subject to Content Guidelines, our community Code of Conduct.
If your activity on Neighbourlink doesn’t match up to these content guidelines, we reserve the right to take action as we deem necessary. This could include altering or deleting your reviews or comments, or deleting your Neighbourlink account altogether, with or without notice. Neighbourlink also utilizes an algorithm to aid in removing suspicious reviews. If you feel your review was deleted in error, report it at the support forums.
If you see content that does not align with these guidelines or our policy, please let us know. We will consider all reports. However, due to the diversity of our community, it is possible that content disagreeable to you might not meet the criteria to be removed.
Consumer Guidelines
- Keep out the clutter: To make sure we collectively work towards building the highest-quality content that’s useful to everyone, reviews need to be a minimum of 140 characters long for business listing reviews. However, if any review is filled with junk, we might have to remove the review altogether.
- Keep it relevant: Please keep your contributions relevant to Neighbourlink. Accounts placing irrelevant, inappropriate, or promotional content, that solicit customers, or that spam businesses, notice.or are based on any already disclaimed or informed policies and practices of a business may be deleted without notice. If your review has been removed or moderated by us and if you repost another experience for the same business, we reserve the right to remove that review too, even though such review might be in line with our content guidelines.
- Keep it clean: Whether you’re writing a small snippet or a delightfully detailed account of your experience, keep foul/abusive/hateful language, threats, and lewdness out of it. We, just like you, hate junk and will delete it whenever we see it. This also includes (but is not limited to) derogatory comments on someone’s protected characteristics (e.g. race, gender, religion) or indication of a personal vendetta against a business and its associates.
- Keep it fresh: Only one review per business listing can be submitted and your most recent experience at a place counts. That’s what is going to help people when they’re trying to decide whether or not to go there or use their service.
- Keep it real: Write your review based on facts and your own experiences (e.g. not a friend’s or any hearsay experience or based on media reports). Please don’t exaggerate or falsify your experience. We do not take sides in cases of dispute, so make sure you can stand by your word. Content that indicates the reviewer hasn’t even visited or availed any services from the business will be removed. For example, “Never been here, never want to. Management is horrible and the food is worse!” Deceptive, fake, or misleading reviews will be removed. Accepting or soliciting a kickback – monetary or otherwise – in exchange for reviews is also not acceptable, and could result in removal of your profile.
- Don’t solicit: Identifying or promoting yourself as an official Neighbourlink admin, or using your status to solicit any kind of benefits (including but not limited to accepting money, free meals, drinks) in exchange for promotion, or at the threat of negative reviews on Neighbourlink, will not be tolerated. If reports or evidence of such instances are brought to our attention, we reserve the right to delete your Neighbourlink profile or take any other action that we may deem fit, no questions asked. Acts that constitute as ‘Solicitation’ include:
- Explicit/Implied agreement (written or verbal) to write reviews in exchange for money, free service(s), food or drinks, etc.
- Being a part of social media groups (e.g. Instagram/Facebook or any other social media platform) which offer incentives in exchange of reviews.
- Don’t steal: Plagiarism is something we take seriously. Copying others’ reviews or photos from Neighbourlink or other platforms,, or even re-posting your own in multiple places on Neighbourlink (in full or in part), is something that will not be tolerated and may be removed/ moderated.
- Tell the whole story: We love summaries, but incomplete reviews with a manually added link will be removed.
- Be yourself: Your profile is your identity on Neighbourlink, so keep it real. You’re welcome to use a screen name, but please refrain from using inappropriate names, bios, or profile images. We want to stay clean, and we might end up removing your account depending on how inappropriate your profile is.
- Don’t misrepresent: Identifying or promoting yourself as an official Neighbourlink admin, or using your status to solicit benefits in exchange for promotion or at the threat of negative reviews on Neighbourlink will not be tolerated. If reports or evidence of such instances are brought to our attention, we reserve the right to delete your Neighbourlink profile, no questions asked.
- Don’t be a bully: We take allegations of blackmail or threatening behavior against businesses and its associates very seriously. This activity is strictly against our guidelines and may also be illegal in many locations. Reviews submitted in an attempt to blackmail a business and its associates will be deleted.
- Play by the rules: The content you add should be in compliance with Neighbourlink’s Terms and Conditions, including terms and conditions of any of Neighbourlink products such as premium services, as well as the prevailing local laws and regulations. Local laws take precedence, and content may be moderated or deleted to adhere to these.
- Seek help from the right people: Neighbourlink is a website and mobile application with no claims to be a court of law or a ministry of health. If you have a dispute with a business, or if you feel a buisness does not measure up to service codes, we encourage you to contact the appropriate authorities directly. Neighbourlink is not the appropriate platform for reporting illegal activities, physical confrontations, health code violations, or anything under investigation by local governing bodies or law-enforcement personnel. We encourage that such accusations be reported to the concerned authorities rather than being mentioned in reviews.
Guidelines for Businesses
Neighbourlink is a great way for businesses to reach out to a vast community in and outside New Zealand. A few things you should keep in mind:
- Keep your listing updated: While our team makes every effort to keep information on Neighbourlink up-to-date, we appreciate you letting us know when an update is required. If your timings change and your listing is not updated, customers arriving to something else then listed won’t be too happy with you (or Neighbourlink).
- Don’t solicit reviews: The best way to get reviews is to delight customers with your business and service. Selective solicitation is a strict NO, and offering any type of compensation or kick-back for reviews is unfair, so you definitely want to keep away from that, too.
- Don’t ever offer freebies, discounts, or payment in exchange for reviews
- Don’t offer incentives for users to remove reviews
- Don’t ask your staff to compete with each other to collect reviews
- Don’t work with companies or third-party vendors/PR agencies offering to ‘fix your reviews/ratings’
- While conducting customer meetups is allowed, reviews which come in lieu of these official gatherings must carry a clear disclaimer which will help the others identify that the review is based on an invite. That being said, an invite certainly does not mean that the user needs to post a positive review
- The businesses that do best on Neighbourlink are the ones that provide a great customer experience to everyone who walks in the door without any expectation or encouragement that they write a positive review
- If we do come across any evidence (direct/indirect) of you indulging in solicitation, we will activate a disclaimer on your business listing, informing the Neighbourlink community that your reviews are suspicious.
- Respond to criticism positively: Take two deep breaths when you get a negative review. Three, if required. This happens to all businesses who have customers. These customers are always right, even when they are wrong. Take the unflattering reviews as constructive feedback and use it as an opportunity to fix things. Whether you agree with the feedback or not, take the criticism in good stride. You can reply with a management response to show you care, but please don’t use this as a platform to hit back or offer the customer an incentive to edit their review. Your response can’t be edited after posting, so choose your words well.
- Be accountable: Neighbourlink will not moderate any questionable activities about your business posted in reviews. Neighbourlink may also not moderate or delete any reviews where any third party service provider is involved. Such a review may be retained if it falls within our guidelines. This business requires thick skin – stating the perceived attitude of owners or employees and reporting of individual actions are not considered personal attacks.
- Don’t entertain: Fulfilling the demands of customers who ask for benefits at the threat of bad reviews or ratings, sends a message that this behavior is tolerated. Similarly, inviting users who have reviewed and given a low rating back to the business for a complimentary service or product, invites false negative reviews. These issues affect the entire community and require everyone’s participation to curb their prevalence. Please report users who engage in such activities at the support forums.
- In a concerted effort to maintain the neutrality of content on Neighbourlink, business owners, employees, and any affiliates with business interests are no longer permitted to write reviews on Neighbourlink. We understand that being in the industry, you are truly passionate about your product or service, and would love to share your experiences. But when you’re unavoidably invested in your business, it becomes hard to leave emotions (and bias) at the door. This is a step towards maintaining neutrality – and quality – of the content on Neighbourlink.
It’s also important to note that we (Neighbourlink) have no employees or affiliates who are paid to review. If any guest identifies themselves as an official blogger, review employee, or associate of Neighbourlink, it’s not true. Employees of Neighbourlink are contractually and ethically forbidden from using their status to solicit free products, services or receive special treatment. If you observe any such practice, report it at the support forum. Appropriate action will be taken against the user or employee if evidence can be provided.
Neighbourlink Employee Code of Ethics
Employees of Neighbourlink are expected to adhere to and uphold the highest standard of ethics and integrity. This includes acting in accordance with our core values and the below listed policies at all times.
Neighbourlink employees are prohibited from using their employee status to solicit discounts, freebies, or special treatment at businesses. Unless visiting for official business, Neighbourlink employees are to refrain from identifying themselves as employees of Neighbourlink.
All Neighbourlink employees in client facing roles including but not limited to Sales, Sales Support, Neutrality, Media Content and Client Servicing across all transaction/ business/function at Neighbourlink are prohibited from writing reviews and/or giving ratings for experiences on Neighbourlink from either their personal or Neighbourlink accounts. They are also not permitted to influence others to write biased reviews or give ratings.
Neighbourlink’s review and photo moderators are required to always act in favor of keeping Neighbourlink a neutral platform. They are required to use their best judgement in implementing moderation guidelines and are prohibited from giving preferential treatment to businesses. Deleting any authentic review from a bsuiness listing is in violation of our policies. Similarly, keeping reviews, which are proven to be unauthentic, is in violation of our policies.
Please report at the support forums if you witness any behavior not in compliance with this code as it is in direct violation of employee contracts.