Listen up. They're talking about YOUR restaurant.
by Rudy Vener
October 1, 2007
Everyone's a critic.
And on the Internet, they can all publish their reviews.
This is both good and bad. Good because it is so easy for you to get a great looking web site. It can be full of wonderful testimonials about your food, and dynamic customer service, and photos of happy customers having a great time in your dining room.
Bad because it is just as easy for a disgruntled customer to post a scathing review, which he has just created for the sole purpose of blasting your restaurant.
Like unwelcome house guests, bad reviews tend to linger. And like those house guests, they can discourage potential friends from visiting you.
If you want to see what people are saying about your restaurant, point your web browser to www.google.com and do a search for the name of your restaurant, your city and state.
If you have never done this, you might be surprised at the results. There are a lot of web sites dedicated to dining and exchange of reviews from the highly organized www.chefmoz.org to the free for all of www.chowhound.com to www.dinesite.com and more.
I just tried a google search for the Rustic Oak, one of my favorite local restaurants. The third search result was the > local.yahoo.com page for the Rustic Oak, which had five user reviews. Two reviews were lengthy complaints about rudeness and unsatisfactory food. One was a detailed description about a bad experience when the customer's party agreed to be seated in the bar during the holiday crush. And Two were complimentary but very brief testimonials that both mentioned good fireside seating. Most people know intuitively that someone is more likely to complain about a bad experience than write an unsolicited testimonial for a good one. So in that respect, the presence of positive reviews is a good sign.
Nevertheless, since the complaints were so long, detailed and painstaking, they have an undeniable impact on anyone researching dining locations.
So what can a restaurant do?
Several things. The first is to recognize that you have a golden opportunity to identify a potential problem with your restaurant. If 3 reviews all say your steak is tough, then you evidently have a problem. Now you can take steps to correct it.
Once the problem is fixed, you can add a comment to the reviews. This lets you take ownership of the problem and the solution.
Acknowledging the problem and presenting your solution makes you look pro-active, responsive and on the ball. Most importantly it removes the ill effect of the review.
In the minds of readers the problem is now gone. You were told about it, you fixed it and wonder of wonders, you went online and told them about your solution.
Anyone can screw up, but it takes the right stuff to make things right again.
At the other extreme, suppose you decide a review is completely unwarranted? You probably have your share of customers who you just cannot please no matter what. Every restaurant has at least one. You'd think if they were so unhappy they would go elsewhere, but they never do.
If such a customer has decided to vent his or her spleen at your expense, you may be looking at a multi page online rant.
Perhaps it is so off the wall that you are sure no one in their right mind would believe it, but do you want to ignore it? If not you have some recourse. On the local.yahoo.com pages there is a button to report abuse for each review. If you can justifiably point out that the review is harassing or otherwise unwarranted, you should be able to get it removed.
The Internet changes all the time. It is a good idea to be aware of what is being said about your restaurant.
One of the best ways to do this is with a Google Alert. Rather than performing a search regularly on your own, Google can do it automatically and email you the results. To create an alert, visit www.google.com/alerts and fill out the form using the same key words you used for your previous search.
Once you have verified your email address, you will receive a daily or weekly email containing any new search results.
You cannot control what others say about you, but you can take steps to protect your restaurant's good name and reputation, by ensuring that potential customers know your commitment to quality and customer satisfaction and making sure they hear the whole story.
89% of people research restaurants online these days. A little effort on your part can ensure that more of them decide to give you a try.
