Restaurant businesses, just like any other business, are greatly influenced by what the customer says. An online customer review is important because it shapes the mental picture potential users will have about your business and your brand; it also determines if potential customers will leverage your service or not. According to a Zendesk survey, positive online reviews influenced the buying decision of 90% of the participants while negative reviews influenced the buying decision of 86% of them.
Customers are generally quick to tell about their bad experiences than they are about their good experiences. A 2013 Zendesk survey revealed that customers who had a bad experience with a company, product or service are 50% more likely to share their negative experiences on social media platforms than those who had positive experiences.
In other words, sharing positive reviews seldom come naturally to most customers, it is the responsibility of the business to induce customers to share their positive experiences and leave positive reviews. You can generate more customer reviews simply by asking customers to leave a review and also leveraging several other strategies as pointed out below.
How to generate good customer review
- Ask Customers to Leave a Review on Your Service
One of the reasons why several restaurants do not have a lot of positive customer review is because they do not ask. Simply asking customers to leave a review on your service can increase customer review by several factors. Customers understand how important positive customer reviews are to your restaurant business and they will be more likely to respond when you ask them provided you provide an excellent service. For example with the Wiremo Manual Review Request tool you can easily ask your customers to write a review by sending them a direct link to your Yelp, Google Review or any other platform page. This will bring you more and more reviews in a shorter time.
- Remove Obstacles in Leaving Reviews
Most customers will simply give up if the review process is difficult or complex. With the exception of customers who have negative reviews to share, a lot of customers will simply not bother about leaving a review. Even if you ask them to leave a review, they may find it inconveniencing if the process is difficult. This is why you not only need to ask them to leave a review but also you need to make the process easy for them. Put links to your review profile in your email newsletter; make it accessible in your restaurant and in your app.
- Give Incentives but don’t buy reviews
Even when you render an impeccable service, some customers may not leave a review until you incentivize them. However, you need to make sure that the customer understands that the incentive is not for leaving a “good” review but for leaving a review.
- Use Printed and Digital Receipts
Printed and digital receipts are a good way to remind your customers of the experience they had with your service. It is also a good way to point them towards leaving a customer review on your service. You can point the receipt to your Yelp page to make it easy for them to leave a review.
- Create Profiles in Several Review Sites
Customers will probably visit a few renowned review sites to see what others are saying about your business before visiting your restaurant or ordering for your services. To get more positive customer review, the first thing you need to do is to set up profiles in several review sites relevant to your business. For a restaurant business, you may consider Yelp, Yahoo Local, Angie’s List and many others.
- Leverage the Power of Social Media
Social Media makes reviewing easy. Moreover, restaurant owners can easily request reviews from their customers by sharing their review profiles in social media.
Responding to customer reviews is a good way to tell the customers that you are committed to them and that you appreciate them for doing business with you. If you don’t have enough time to spare in this, you can hire someone who is competent and understands your brand and business. The response does not have to be lengthy but it has to show you appreciate them for visiting your restaurant.
Conclusion
In conclusion, positive reviews can produce a dramatic increase in your revenue. According to a study conducted by the Harvard Business School, an increase in just one star of a restaurant’s rating could result in a corresponding 5% to 9% increase in their revenue. This shows how important a customer review is to restaurant businesses and also, unlike most other businesses, restaurants do not have to wait for a year or a month to know how satisfied their customers are, they can know right after the service. This makes it easy for restaurants to fashion their services in such a way as to garner more positive reviews and minimize negative reviews with a resultant cumulating effect of revenue increase and increased customer traffic.
