How To Manage A Bad Restaurant Review

Statistics show that 70% of people are influenced by online reviews, so your business needs to take both good and bad reviews seriously. Professionalism is key in these situations.

How to Handle a Bad Review Publicly

Bad reviews, when they’re public, are a stain on your restaurant’s reputation. It’s important to not snap back at the customer. The customer wasn’t happy with the service — it happens. Your next actions are very important.

Note: Responding to a review too late is an issue, but you do need to let your temper or emotions settle or let your PR executive handle it. Make it quick though because most restaurant owners claim that it’s best to reach out to unhappy guests within 24 hours.

Faster responses tend to show that the restaurant cares about the review and is paying attention to the concerns of the reviewer.

A proper response shouldn’t be a defense — the customer was not happy. When you come back with a very defensive response, this is not fixing the problem. You should respond in a way that shows that the customer’s response is important to you.

You also have the option of offering a free meal or discount right off of the bat. This shows that you’re willing to make the customer happy, so inviting them to give your establishment another try is very important.

Always ask your customer the following questions:

• Ask what day and time they came into the restaurant
• Ask the waiter’s name

All of these comments need to be taken seriously because there may have been very real issues that the customer experienced.

Never respond to negative restaurant reviews with a canned response.

This is not how to respond to a bad review. Canned messages don’t have the personal nature of a real response that was crafted directly for the complaint.

You need to dedicate the time to responding to negative reviews personally, or the negative reviews may start to cause you to lose customers. Genuine responses that address the customer’s key complaints work best.

Positive reviews should also be acknowledged.

A simple, “Thank you. We hope to see you again soon,” is sufficient enough. Any time someone leaves a review, they’ll be happy to get a response back from you. Make responding to reviews a part of your normal work day, ensuring that your response is done in a timely, professional manner.

Research the Customer

Conduct your own research on a customer. Look at the previous reviews that the person has made. You may find that the customer is impossible to please and this is represented in the person habitually leaving bad reviews.

What you do with a review will set your restaurant apart from the competition. In the case of cold pizza, you’ll want to do some of your own research. Find out why the pizza was cold, and make sure that the issue is corrected as soon as possible.

People aren’t looking for your restaurant to be perfect.

These restaurant reviewers are looking for an honest response that shows that their opinion and experience matters.

I suggest monitoring reviews on your restaurant, responding to bad and good restaurant reviews equally.

Source: https://mcdonaldpaper.com/blog/how-to-handle-bad-restaurant-review