Sometimes retailers ask me: “how do I get good restaurant reviews?”
The answer is quite simple. But before giving you the answer, let’s take a look at some (negative and positive) Yelp reviews. Or TripAdvisor, if you prefer.
What are the topics that most customers refer to in these reviews?
In reality the topics almost always end up being about three subjects:
- food
- service
- price
Okay. But you’re probably thinking,
“I already make good food, we try to be friendly to customers, and try to keep prices low, and I still don’t have many positive reviews.”
The problem lies between reality and perception. Your restaurant may have good food, good service, and good prices. But if the customer doesn’t think that way, nothing matters. Perception is reality.
Let’s look at each of these three points in detail and see how this works.
The food doesn’t need to be extraordinary.
It just has to be good or even okay. And there are ways to make the customer feel the food is better than it actually is. And this is achieved with the help of the menu. Obviously, it will be impossible to turn bad food into good food.
Do your employees try to persuade customers?
If yes, this can be one of the problems.
A large number of customers don’t like service because waiters try to insist to order more items (and more expensive). And thus, clients become more defensive, and think waiters are trying to deceive them.
Waiters don’t have to insist on customers to order more. The menu, if well designed, makes the customers order more.
It’s probably you who make the customer think about prices and money.
The way most restaurant menus are designed, make the customer think about item prices and the money they’ll pay.
This problem also have a solution.
Use the menu to have more happy customers
It’s amazing what you can do with a well designed menu:
- Customers will order more – sales will increase.
- Customers will be more happy – and many will write positive reviews.
Basically this is what you have to achieve.
- The customer is happy with the meal (this includes food and service).
- The customer thinks the price paid for the meal is fair.
If the customer is happy with the food and drinks, the service, and the environment. And if in addition, the price he paid is fair, there’ll be several customers who will write positive reviews on Yelp, TripAdvisor, or Google Business.
How to increase (even more) the chances to get good restaurant reviews?
At the end, on the ticket, ask people to rate the restaurant on Yelp, TripAdvisor, or Google Business. This greatly increases the chances to get good restaurant reviews.
Write a short message, such as:
“It’s very important for small restaurants like ours to have good reviews on Yelp, TripAdvisor, or Google Business. If you could spend a few seconds evaluating our business, we would be grateful.”
But of course, don’t forget. The customer has to be happy with the meal and with the price.