What Review Express does well
It is free, it is Tripadvisor’s own, and it works the way Tripadvisor wants a request to work: upload the emails of guests who have stayed, and Tripadvisor invites them to review. No code to print, no staff sentence to remember. Tripadvisor’s own figure for the programme:
Review Express users see an average uplift of 28% in Tripadvisor reviews (an earlier release put it at 33%) — Tripadvisor
If your property is on Tripadvisor and you collect guest emails, use it. This page is an argument that it covers one moment, and the stay has others.
Two moments, not one
Review Express reaches the guest two days later, in an inbox, on Tripadvisor only, and only if you have the email. Review Systems reaches the guest at the bar while the drink is on the table, on Google as well as Tripadvisor, with no email needed and no login — and it tells you which spot the review came from. The two are not in competition; a property that runs both asks twice, at the two moments a guest is most likely to say yes.
The same standard
When a property uploads a list, Tripadvisor asks it to certify it has not been selective:
“It’s a great idea to ask guests to review your property” — but it is prohibited to be “selectively soliciting reviews (by email, surveys or any other means) only from guests who have had a positive experience”
Review Systems is built to the same rule. Every guest sees the same buttons at every rating; nothing on the page asks how the stay went before deciding what to show.