Social media reviews can make or break a restaurant, especially in post-pandemic times when people are increasingly used to digital research and interactions with brands before making purchase decisions. As a result, the reliance and attention to online reviews have grown tremendously over the years. This is especially true of younger generations who have a tendency to research restaurants and make dining decisions based on peer reviews rather than critics’ reviews. Let’s take a look at some stats to set the mood:
- 92% of diners read restaurant reviews.
- 77% of consumers look up more on peer reviews compared to critic reviews.
- 35% of guests discover restaurants through online reviews and the restaurant’s website.
- 90% of guests research a restaurant online before actually going there.
- And the big one, 33% of diners won’t eat in restaurants whose online rating is lower than 4-stars on review sites, examples of which include Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Google.
Honestly, you can’t afford to not have a social media presence these days. If people find unsatisfactory reviews on your restaurant’s page, there’s enough competition and restaurant options out there with perhaps the same type of food but better ratings—what’s stopping people from going for those instead?
Now consider this: what if there was a way you could intercept and negative guest feedback before it went to a site like Yelp?
It’s actually easier than you think and can be incorporated as a part of your guest interactions on a regular basis. Here are 3 ways how Tattle partners have successfully turned a guest interaction into a positive public review.
1. Spot and respond to negative reviews internally before they go public.
Guests want to know that they are being heard. That’s why we can’t stress enough the importance of having a feedback management platform to give your customers a voice. If they take the time to leave a review through your survey, you should always let them know that someone from the restaurant is paying attention and taking action accordingly.
In the Tattle dashboard, GMs, DMs, and C-level operators can spot negative feedback from guests in real-time and instantly respond, mitigating any issues before they become public. Similarly, when guests have a good experience, Tattle users can encourage guests to post to Yelp, increasing the star factor for their business.
Managers can easily see the timeline of each correspondence, and understand if a customer is satisfied with their treatment at the end of the day. This effectively creates transparency and accountability within the team.
What’s even better, all of this could be automated based on the ratings a customer leaves. For example, customers leaving a 5-star review will automatically receive an email prompt to write about their experience on Yelp, while those leaving 2 stars will receive an apology email and perhaps a free item for their next visit.
These insights are applicable, regardless of your business type. Whether you’re a restaurant operator, in the hospitality sector, or even in the cannabis/dispensary space like our partners 3Fifteen. They found that being able to respond to guests directly from the dashboard dramatically changed their online presence.
Asking for feedback instead of waiting to see a review pop up online gave their customers a chance to be more thoughtful with their evaluations. 3Fifteen now has an 89.6% rate for 4-5 star reviews.
“The Dashboard is so easy to manage as well as read. That right there saves us a lot of time and effort to see the data, respond to customers, if necessary, as well as communicate effectively to the rest of our team,” says Dom Cassisi, Marketing Analyst at 3Fifteen.
2. Ask your top customers to leave positive reviews!
Positive online reviews are one of the most important aspects of running a business. Not only are they useful for boosting your online visibility, but also they will likely be the biggest reasons why new customers would give you a shot for the first time.
The good news is there are many ways to get them. The most effective way is by appealing to someone that you have a relationship with and just asking. You’d be surprised how effective this is!
“The concept of getting people to review us while their experience is fresh in their minds is a game-changer. People don’t always think to hop online and provide a review, but when you can ask them in a non-confrontational way, they appear to be more than happy to give details about their experience,” said Jeremy Johnson, Director of eCommerce at 3Fifteen.
For example, below you can see a guest who’s perfectly satisfied with every aspect of the service. You can easily prompt them to leave a Yelp review—either manually or automatically.
3. Thank your top fans with a rewards program
If you have a rewards program, you can easily offer discounts or rewards for a future visit. Through Tattle’s integration with many loyalty program providers such as Punchh and Thanx, you can easily attribute guest recovery and measure the effectiveness of different retention campaigns within Tattle.
When incentivizing positive reviews, please be mindful of various review sites’ policies around incentivizing positive reviews. However, our data shows that while incentives work, most of the time people simply want to talk about their experience even in the absence of an incentive. For example, although some Tattle partners offer incentives for completing a Tattle survey, the redemption rate is less than 5%! Your customers simply want to get heard—incentives are almost secondary.
Conclusion
The role of a technology platform is to make your job easier and improve your productivity. While the 3 steps listed above can be done by any brand starting from today, using a Customer Experience Improvement (CXI) platform like Tattle can supercharge your results and efficiency.
If you want to see how Tattle’s easy-to-use, fun and engaging surveys work, so that you can see an average survey completion rate of 94% and 20X your feedback data, definitely fill out the form below to get in touch with us!
