Establishing a positive online presence for your restaurant can be challenging enough, but maintaining this presence on a day to day basis can be a full-time job. Restaurant reviews are a huge piece of the puzzle when it comes to mastering digital marketing for restaurants.
Learning how to manage your restaurant reviews effectively, however, takes time, energy, and some digital media savvy. There’s actually a lot that goes into it, including courting positive reviews, responding to negative reviews, and keeping a close watch on how your brand is being received out in the wild.
Tarik Qahawish decided to launch Localyser, as a way to help alleviate marketing stress for restaurant operators, especially after watching his brother–an independent restaurant owner–struggle to field the deluge of customer reviews. As a digital marketing service, Localyser helps restaurant operators easily manage online reviews from every corner of the web, gather actionable customer feedback, address complaints in real time, and more.
“I look at my brother, he's a chef,” Tarik explained. “He doesn't really know much about the marketing aspect of a restaurant.”
For operators like Tarik’s brother, digital marketing is “a daunting task"– a sentiment that is likely true for quite a few independent restaurant operators.
So how, as restaurant operators, can we better leverage online marketing channels for business growth? How do we improve our presence across the digital ecosystem? And perhaps most importantly, how do we manage unhappy customers?
Tarik shared a few of Localyser’s trade secrets with us to help other operators learn to improve their digital marketing through enhanced review management.
Reviews play an absolutely vital role in digital marketing for restaurants. Good reviews drive traffic and bad reviews can turn off prospective customers.
“You really have less than a second to impress a customer while they're scrolling through Instagram or Google Maps or Tripadvisor or Yelp to make a decision,” said Tarik.
Restaurant reviews are a lot like food. The fresher, the better. This means you can’t get complacent about your 5-star Yelp rating.
When it comes to online reviews, Tarik has noticed a common mistake among many restaurant operators.
“Just because they are doing well now as a restaurant doesn't mean that this is going to be the case over time," he said. "A lot of customers only read the last two weeks worth of reviews.”
This means it’s imperative to draw in a steady stream of regular positive reviews from your customers.
"We make it easier by creating custom QR codes and feedback landing pages for each of our clients," said Tarik. "This makes it easier to request, collect, and cross-post fresh, glowing customer reviews.
When it comes to finding the right restaurant marketing strategies to implement, the truth is that you can’t simply opt out of certain channels. Customer reviews will crop up on many of these channels regardless of how active you choose to be.
“Google is king, but if you look at all the other platforms–TripAdvisor, Yelp, Uber Eats–it could influence somebody's decision because that's what they're used to using," Tarik said. "In other words, you have to make sure to meet them where they are.
Finding ways to track, read and respond to reviews from every platform all in one place make this seemingly gargantuan task much more manageable.
Happy customers are a source of brand equity. A good review can go a long way toward doing the marketing for you. But it’s not enough to just wait for the good reviews to come to you.
You have to go out and get them. Don't be afraid to be bold and seek out your satisfied customers to leave you positive reviews in public places. When somebody leaves a positive review, use it as an opportunity to express your appreciation.
"With a continuous review feed–a way to take in the massive amount of review data created across the web," said Tarik. " You can channel reviews into opportunities for greater online visibility, improved brand reputation, and ultimately, a robust growth trajectory."
"A proactive approach goes both ways," said Tarik. "Collecting feedback also catches unhappy customers so you can have a private conversation with them offline before they go public. This gives you a chance to try to resolve it, reduce your total number of negative reviews, and boost your star rating.”
When somebody leaves a negative review, use it as an opportunity for resolution. Responding to negative reviews is a vital but often overlooked aspect of a restaurant marketing strategy. It’s important to look at a negative review as a chance to change an unhappy customer’s experience as well as demonstrate to future prospective customers that you are receptive and responsive to customer input.
We may be living in a digital world, but today more than ever, customers expect direct personal engagement. Indeed, customers often write reviews–both good and bad–because they wish to be heard. Make sure your customers know that you’re listening.
You need to find the right balance between automating navigation of this vast digital marketing landscape and keeping it real with your customers.
“Restaurant operators are busy," Tarik pointed out. "And customers don't want you to replace the human element with automation, but they want you to replace the time-consuming element of human error.”
When it comes to automating your marketing efforts, there is no one-size-fits-all approach that works for every restaurant. By assessing your priorities and business goals, you can find the restaurant marketing strategies that work best for your business.
And there are plenty of solutions on the market to help you achieve your goals. From platforms that assess marketing analytics and data to loyalty programs (and everything in between), there are bound to be tech-driven solutions available to help you boost the marketing efforts for your restaurant.