By Annika Tourlas, Contributor
It's not simple to promote your restaurant business, especially with the countless digital marketing channels and techniques that are required to spread the word about your business. However, there’s one frequently disregarded avenue that can offer excellent value for your money, and restaurateurs may not be utilizing it to its maximum potential — customer reviews.
Every business needs positive customer feedback. In fact, 90% of customers look through reviews before doing business with a company. Reviews and ratings from guests have the power to make or break a restaurant. You're losing money if you don't monitor your online reviews, or if you don't try to make them better.
Keep reading to discover more about how to solicit positive customer reviews, how to respond to them, and how to handle the unfavorable ones so you don't lose any potential customers.
5 Ways to Receive Positive Reviews
1. Provide an Excellent Guest Experience
It doesn’t matter how good your food tastes and how strong your drinks are. If your customer service is next to nothing, the effort you’ve put into your menu won’t count. Customer service is what makes people want to come back. It’s what differentiates an okay restaurant from a fan favorite.
You should provide a positive customer experience from the second they walk in the door to the second they walk out. There are a few key tips you can follow to ensure your customers have an unforgettable experience:
Greet excitedly yet appropriately
Make sure your team is knowledgeable
Don’t overbook
Be patient and careful when taking orders
Recognize special occasions
Keep information online up-to-date
All of these tips should be used simultaneously. Guests have expectations; it’s important to not only match those expectations but exceed them.
2. Ask for Reviews From Happy Customers
Although it might be awkward to ask, 76% of those who are requested to give a review will do so. After a while, you'll feel more at ease asking, and as you find out more about your customers and their preferences, you'll be able to ask for reviews with more confidence.
The most important thing is to implement a strategy that you can scale as your restaurant expands. Your strategy should include multiple ways to contact, proper times to contact, and proper principles to keep your strategy consistent:
Keep it short
Explain why you’re asking for a review
Say thank you
Make it easy
Explain how long it will take
Show them you read reviews
Ask at appropriate times (after transactions, experiences with customer service, returns to business, etc.)
Take these basic principles and use them on a range of platforms like email or social media to reach out to clients and improve your chances of receiving a review.
3. Respond to Positive Reviews
Although you may be inclined to leave the good reviews be, writing a response to a favorable review is an opportunity to honestly represent your brand. Reiterate their compliments, and if they name a particular person who impressed them, let them know you'll pass it on. If you’re impressed with the review, ask to share the review on social media. Try using this positive feedback template to help you respond to your satisfied customers.
What to Look For In a Good Review:
A positive review is great, but a well-constructed positive review is even better. These reviews will include a variety of details that allow potential customers to gain an understanding of their experience and their sentiment.
If you’re trying to spot a well-constructed positive review, you can look for the following:
A detailed explanation
Clear writing
Unique talking points (how the service/business went above and beyond)
4. Respond to Negative Reviews
Negative reviews can drive people to make rash decisions and responses. But, nothing looks worse than a bad review and an even worse response from the business owner. Take a breath and try to understand where they’re coming from. Use this negative feedback email template to help you respond to unsatisfied customers with empathy so you can resolve the situation.
If there's nothing you can do to fix the issue, explain how you'll make sure it doesn't come up again. Sometimes the reviewer may want to discuss things further if that’s so ask them to continue the conversation privately. It’s important to follow through with any accommodations discussed and leave the review up to showcase your dedication to customer service.
What to Look For In a Bad Review:
A bad review typically carries a negative sentiment toward your business. Whether the person was disappointed in their meal or upset that they didn’t receive the attention they believe they deserve, they’re inclined to tell the world about it. Their bad review may also consist of the following:
Unclear descriptions
Missing details
Basic overview of their experience
Emotionally driven word choices
5. Keep an Online Presence
Today an online presence is an essential aspect of any successful business. While it’s not absolutely necessary, odds are an online presence will boost your business’s performance. Being active online and on social media gets your name out there, makes it easier for people to leave reviews, and helps people follow along with your business’s journey.
You don’t need to be posting numerous times a day, but you should remain active and stay on top of your social media presence. Your online presence should be accurate and honest all while promoting events, new menu items, and more.
Here are a list of online platforms that can boost your performance and give customers at outlet to express their opinions on your restaurant or bar:
Yelp
Instagram
Facebook
Twitter
How to Ask for Reviews Through Email
Emails can be automatically generated and scheduled to go out after certain customer actions like check out. You should keep the email friendly and inviting, great customer service shouldn’t end after they’ve walked out of your restaurant. It should continue beyond the doors of your restaurant. Your email should consist of every point previously mentioned: be short, explain why you’re asking, say thank you, explain how long it will take, and more.
We understand that it’s difficult to include all of these aspects in a brief email inquiry. Luckily there are resources out there, like this review request email template from Smith.ai, to help you stay professional and inviting at the same time.
Guest reviews are a great way to showcase your business’s efforts and achievements. Hopefully, these tips and tricks will help you understand how to deal with and manage customer feedback. Now it’s time to clean the tables, get the drinks pouring, and be ready for an influx of customer reviews.
About the Author
Annika is a content writing intern and student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. As she approaches her last year of her undergraduate Annika begins her journey in the mass media industry creating written content for businesses wanting to improve their online presence.