How to Make Restaurant Reviews a Positive for Your Business

It’s a Friday night and a group of friends are discussing where to go for dinner. Unable to reach a consensus, they use their mobiles to browse reviews of nearby restaurants, quickly learning that one of their top choices is poorly rated. They immediately rule it out and head instead to a 4.5 star pick that’s just around the corner.

Checking reviews for restaurants before heading out is just a part of life in the digital age. You can’t blame customers for this attitude. Going out for dinner should be enjoyable – nobody wants to have their night ruined by bad food and/or bad service.

These days there are many ways for critics and regular customers to review your restaurant or café. New technology has meant that the average Joe can now review your restaurant. This can often be a daunting prospect, as reviews can make or break your restaurant.

Sure, negative reviews can affect your business. But more important – and potentially more impacting – is how you respond to these reviews.

The benefits of restaurant reviews

Reviews in the Good Food Guides, glossy magazines, lifestyle websites or on websites like Yelp, Dimmi and Zomato can be the best marketing tool a business ever uses. After all, reviews are exposure and exposure can be good. Just one positive review can influence potential customers.

Crowd-sourced review websites can also help independent restaurants compete against chain restaurants by getting their name out there and providing a guarantee of quality to potential diners.

It’s important not to devalue amateur reviews versus professional reviews. That person Instagramming their meal may have more followers than a professional food critic has readers!

Even negative reviews can have a positive impact on a business, since they’re the perfect feedback channel to help you change your venue for the better. The only restaurants to really suffer from poor reviews are the ones who refuse to fix what is truly broken.

Dealing with negative reviews the right way

The absolute worst thing you can do is respond in anger to negative reviews. Nothing looks worse than a business having a meltdown. Even if your frustration is justified, it pays to behave professionally online.

Did you know that for every one customer who complains, 26 others don’t? What they’re likely to do instead is simply not come back. That means you really need to consider negative reviews as feedback so you can improve and make not just one customer happy, but 27!

Yes, there are some people you will never please, but for these customers, it’s all about appearance. If it seems as if you’re doing all you can to remedy the situation, those customers will appreciate the effort.

There are a few ways you can win people over in your responses to negative reviews. When responding to an online review, you should always introduce yourself as an individual who is representing the business.

People are much bolder if they think they are talking to a faceless entity. This helps to make the exchange conversational instead of confrontational.

Be thankful for the feedback and make sure they know that you take it seriously, no matter how nit-picky.

Tell them you plan to remedy the situation. Sincerely apologise and ask them for their email address or phone number to continue to discuss the issue further, away from prying eyes.

Maintain your positive rating

Be proud of your positive reviews, but don’t stop working. Keep trying to improve the restaurant, keep serving good food and treating your diners with respect.

People tend to only review something if they really like it or really hate it. So, it’s a good idea to encourage all of your happy customers to leave a review.

Positive reviews help to get people in the door, so it’s important to promote positive reviews on your social media. The bigger the outlet, the better. Positive reviews in Broadsheet and the Good Food Guide can do wonders for your reservations book. So share these reviews and, if it’s really good, consider framing it.

For more handy tips to help your business thrive, check out the Impos blog.