Reputation Management For Restaurants

Updated September 1st 2013 

No such thing as bad publicity? Even when it comes to your business’ reputation? You’ve worked hard to earn a good reputation and many restaurant, hospitality and hotel owners live in fear of someone using the internet to ruin their business or post false information about them.

The culinary industry thrives on word-of-mouth.  It takes more than a restaurant’s advertising campaign to bring customers in, as hearing about a great little bistro joint from a friend of a friend goes a long way in bringing in business.  The hospitality industry relies on its ability to deliver. When people hear about great service they are inclined to want to experience it for themselves. In contrast, when people find out that there is much to be desired in the food or service they are less likely to ever go in the first place.  With this in mind, you cannot afford to ignore your online reviews.  By monitoring and responding to online reviews, you can improve and sustain your reputation, increase bookings and increase profits.

Online reputation management is a process by which companies and individuals can monitor, influence and improve feedback that people leave about them on the internet.   Managing the reputations that are posted online about your restaurants can increase booking conversions by up to 90% and has therefore become crucial in the hospitality industry.  Your online reputation management is crucial and is not solely about safeguarding what you already have; it is also about using your online reputation as part of your marketing campaign to encourage new business and customer sales.

In today’s modern digital age, information can be circulated very quickly.  Due to the technology we have at our fingertips, negative information is spread just as rapidly which prompts the question: Do you know how to handle negative reviews? Knowing how to handle negative reviews online is extremely important.  As a restaurant owner you have very little control over what someone says online, but you are in charge of how you react and handle the bad publicity.

Some of the most popular restaurant review sites include: Foursquare, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Zagat, Google+ Local, Around Me and Opentable.  Other sites include: Dine, Urbanspoon, Gayot, RestaurantRow, MenuPages, Menuism, and Restaurantica. It is very time consuming to manage all of them and therefore even more important to define priorities. But a general guideline is to answer reviews within 48 hours.

Online Reputation Management Best Practices:

Never ignore negative feedback. 

The well-known saying “Nobody is perfect” also applies to any business. You can’t be perfect all the time. However, you need to have a clear procedure and system in place to react to a negative review about your restaurant.  First and foremost, never react in a hostile way. Engage with the complaint in a clear, polite and positive fashion as this will help to show you and your restaurant in a good light with potential customers.  The way you respond to negative feedback has the potential to turn any negative attention into an opportunity to strengthen the credibility of your restaurant.

Pause and Reflect

When being attacked, the natural response for anyone is to promptly defend yourself. Here lays a problem.  If you react immediately, you have not taken the time to think it through.  Take the time to pause, reflect and walk away before you respond to any criticism.  Maybe even take the day to think about it or sleep on it.  Allow yourself enough time to remove any pent up frustration or enraged adrenaline.  As soon as you are cleansed of angry thoughts and calm again then you can come back to dealing with the criticism.

Criticism is an Opportunity

Whether a critique is good or bad, accept it for the opportunity that it presents to grow and develop. If the customer review is glowing and good, it will help to highlight the strengths of your restaurant.  For example: If they really enjoyed the food and commented on how good their meals tasted and were cooked to perfection, then you know that you’ve got a chef doing something right in your kitchen. If they liked the customer service and overall service experience they received from a waiter/waitress, then you have a waiter or waitress that could teach the other members of staff a few things.

Analyze Exaggerations

When reading a negative review, the regular assumption is that it is exaggerated. Do not immediately dismiss a negative review even though it is true that people have a tendency to heighten and blow things out or proportion. Instead, you should carefully read and acknowledge what was said. Did they complain about a certain waiter/waitress, was the noise in the restaurant too loud, or maybe their cutlery was dirty. When people over exaggerate, they are want to highlight and make a point; therefore there is always an underlying reason for it.

Remain cool and respond

After you have had some time to digest and acknowledge the problem, now is the time to respond to the criticism. Most reviewing sites offer a way for the business to respond, either by posting to the same review board or by personally contacting the people who have posted the review.

Remember; don’t open a response with an attack. Be apologetic, thank the person for coming and offer your sincere wishes to address the concern and improve their experience if they choose to return.  The one time you should walk away for the situation is when it appears to be escalating and turning into an internet nuclear war.  If you decide to become involved in a confrontation, it almost always ends up with your business looking like the bad person. Be polite and courtesy, apologize, let it go and never exaggerate. Try to avoid playing on the same level as the ones criticizing your business.

Don’t just focus on the negative

Any handling of reviews is time consuming. But if you spend all your time dealing with complaints this is a sure sign that something in your business needs to be seriously evaluated. Even if you try and address the situation and offer amends, some people just want to vent their anger, and others can never be appeased.

It’s easy to be distracted by negative comments and reviews, but don’t let that monopolize your time. If a customer leaves a good review, thank them for the experience and for taking the time to write the review.

Recent studies have concluded that bad reviews give consumers a reason to believe good ones, and, that in some instances, negative information can accentuate positive information.

By taking the time to relax and address concerns with a clear head, you’ll show that your business is not only professional, but cares about its customers as well.

Encourage your customers to leave positive reviews. 

It is a well-known fact that customers are much more likely to leave a review or share their opinion if they have had a negative experience. So be proactive in getting people to leave positive recommendations.

Whatever you do, don’t be tempted to try and post “fake” reviews. 

If your business is failing to connect with customers and make people happy in the first place, fake reviews will not help.  When the public find out that you’ve been deceiving them – they’ll have a tough time trusting your company ever again.  Many companies have tried posting false reviews on websites like TripAdvisor, and there is now a growing list of blacklisted companies. Do not be tempted, you will be found out. It is just simply not worth it!

Remember that what happens online; stays online.

Did you know that comments you leave on a blog can come up in search engines if someone searches for your email? Or that those comments will be there for years into the future? Everything from a tweet to a comment can appear for literally years into the future whether you like it or not, so watch what you say.  It pays to remember that every comment, every status update, every response is captured and stored on a server someplace so Google can link to it—and they do.

Written by Daniel Grossmann & Julie Cole