By Jill Goodwin, Contributor
Think back to the restaurants that inspired you to become a restaurateur and recall the establishments that made an impression on you more recently. There’s more to those places than food alone, isn’t there? What else impressed you? Was it the staff? The atmosphere? Something else?
A great eatery depends on its staff, environment, and business’s values as much as it depends on the food—and in this day and age, that restaurant culture must also exist online.
As Devin Morrissey points out in his Next Restaurants’ article, Creating & Maintaining Your Restaurant’s Culture Both On & Offline, restaurant culture isn’t a once-off creation that is then enshrined for all time. Instead, it’s something that arises from a process that’s ongoing because times, food, customers, and staff change. The culture that informs your establishment should create the ideal atmosphere for all of those elements.
The space within your restaurant’s four walls shouldn’t limit the atmosphere that your customers experience. Instead, your existing patrons and potential guests should also experience it online, whether they’re interacting with a post on your Facebook page, or reading your response to a negative review on a ratings platform such as Yelp.
With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at how you can go about creating a restaurant culture online.
Understanding Your Restaurant Culture
In the Sling team’s blog post, 4 Tips For Building A Stronger Restaurant Culture, the team wrote that the best way to understand such a culture is to look at the meaning of organizational or company culture in general. The short definition is that it’s the typical behavior within a company and what people understand that behavior to mean.
That behavior doesn’t happen of its own accord. This is real life, not a sci-fi movie wherein hordes of people suddenly start behaving strangely because of a mind-control ray. Instead, various factors contribute to that culture; factors such as:
Company vision and values
Mission and organizational strategy
Employee (and owner/manager) habits
Company symbols and systems
Language, beliefs, and assumptions
Writing in Company Culture Doesn’t Just Impact Well-Being — It Also Impacts Productivity for Forbes Magazine, John Hall explained that workers who feel uncomfortable in your restaurant culture are more likely to be less productive and have worse interpersonal relationships with other employees. The opposite is true for workers who gel well with the existing company culture.
As a glance at any restaurant review platform will tell you, staff attitude is one of the important factors that determines customer experience. Diners served by churlish, disinterested, or disgruntled staff are likely to remember their experience in your restaurant for all the wrong reasons.
Likewise, if you keep up with industry trends and with the expectations and needs of your customers, and if your customers can see that your employees are happy, you’re showing them that you value them and your workers. They’ll see that the culture is guest-centric without losing sight of employees. Now, this is all fine and well, but what does it have to do with building an online culture for your restaurant?
Online Restaurant Culture is Important
The online experience may never match what customers get when they’re eating at a table, but that’s not to say it’s unimportant. Taking your restaurant culture online is a vital aspect of growing your business, which is something you need to do if you want your establishment to thrive—provided, of course, that the culture is positive.
According to a BrightLocal survey, 92% of customers read online reviews when looking for restaurants or other businesses or services. The firm also found that 94% of consumers think about buying something from a business with at least a four-star rating, 87% wouldn’t support a business with a one- or two-star rating, and 80% trust online reviews as much as they do recommendations from friends.
Reviews and your responses to them are a massive element of your online restaurant culture, but they’re not the be-all and end-all of it. The content you post on your website, blog, and social media accounts also express that culture and help promote your business online.
Let’s explore this in a bit more detail.
Dealing with Online Restaurant Reviews
Your responses to reviews are part of your online restaurant culture, which should have values such as:
Integrity
Honesty
Respect
Innovation
Inclusivity
Customer service
Use these tips to create an online culture via your review responses:
Respond to good and bad reviews. As mentioned above, reply to all your reviews, whether or not you like them.
Respond to reviews ASAP. A speedy response to reviews lets loyal and potential customers know that you’re genuinely interested in their experiences and feedback. It emphasizes your focus on customers.
Thank your reviewers. Whether they contain praise or complaints, all genuine reviews of your restaurant are important. Be sure to thank the reviewers and let them know you value their feedback.
Ask for details. Whether they’re accompanied by one or five stars, some reviews won’t say much more than “I hated it” or “I loved it.” Get in touch with the reviewer, and if they respond well, ask them for more details. Use the information they give you to correct wrongs, praise staff for jobs well done, and to get a better idea of what works and what doesn’t.
Be professional. Maintain an air of professionalism in all your review responses, regardless of what the reviewer had to say.
Use Spell Check. The language you use in your responses should be in line with your brand’s personality, but whether that’s cheerful vernacular or the queen’s English, you must spell everything correctly. Use Spell Check to review your spelling and grammar before posting responses.
Content & Online Restaurant Culture
The content you make for your brand’s web presence is another way to create an online restaurant culture. Let these tips guide you:
Use social media. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are great social media platforms on which you can really express your brand’s personality and restaurant culture online. Do this via personable engagements with social media users.
Create innovative content. From short films to branded merchandise, innovative content is another avenue where you can build an online culture for your restaurant.
The hints and tips in this article aren’t exhaustive, but they can help you create an online restaurant culture that truly reflects your establishment’s core values, ethos, and overall offering.
