Fed-Up Restaurant Owners Fight Back at Yelp Reviews
There was a recent article in the New York Post that describes how restaurant owners get so easily frustrated with customer comments on forums like Yelp, TripAdvisor, OpenTable and others. Worse, many of them seem to get so upset that they start verbally attacking and abusing customers. Consider these examples from the Post article:
“There is an overall douchebaggery to your review that makes me unsympathetic and ultimately content that you didn’t have a good experience. Take care,” Francesco Macri wrote after a patron criticized the sandwiches at his Midtown deli.
““If you came back, I’d kick you out again.”
“They complain about the service being slow, stupid stuff like that.”
(Source: New York Post, March 15, 2015)
Why This News is Relevant:
Restaurant Owners Need a Real Solution for Social Media
For restaurants, social media is becoming the new word of mouth, with customers sharing their dining experiences more than ever on forums like Yelp, TripAdvisor, OpenTable, Google+ as well as in Email, Facebook, Twitter and others. Here are some key statistics:
- “30% of restaurant customer post comments on social media about their dining experience” (Source: A survey by restaurant.org)
- “A one – star increase in Yelp rating leads to a 5% – 9% increase in revenue for restaurants” (Source: A Harvard Business School study)
- “Yelp reviews grew 200% in 2014, from 11 million in 2013 to 32 million in 2014″ (Source: Yelp.com Fact Sheet)
As more customers use social media to provide feedback, many restaurant owners do not have a consistent way of gathering the comments, across all these social media sites, organizing them and generating daily reports to get a close look at what their customers are thinking, so they can address and solve their problems. The current approach is to just respond back to their negative feedback, as the New York Post article demonstrates. Worse is, simply yelling back at them on these social media sites. If the customer is unhappy that the bathroom in a restaurant was stinking, yelling back at the customer is not going to fix the problem; the bathroom needs to be cleaned.
Know the Truth:
Customer Comments on Social Media are an Opportunity, Not a Problem
Customer comments on social media are an incredible opportunity for you to grow your business, as a restaurant owner. The famous book, A Complaint is a Gift, shares how complaining customers are actually customers who care about your organization and simply want you to address their problem. The truth is, if you can really listen to your customers, organize their feedback, extract key patterns and trends you will have real wisdom to address their problem. This is going to make you a beloved and winning restaurateur.
So, what is the way to do it? One approach is the Do-It-Yourself approach. You can hire people, who can everyday read the comments across nearly 20 social media sites, including Yelp, OpenTable, etc., and gather the comments, sort the comments by menu items, sentiments, what the issues are and put them into a spreadsheet, and get reports every day. The good thing about this process is, you are taking advantage about your customers’ comments to know what what they think. The bad thing is, it is not efficient, prone to manual errors and very expensive.
Is there a better way?
Find Your Way:
ChefCare Provides the True Solution for Restaurant Owners to Manage Comments on Social Media
There is a way for you to convert customer feedback into an immense opportunity. That solution is ChefCare. ChefCare was created by Dr. V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, the Inventor of Email and a Systems Scientist from MIT.
- ChefCare uses the patented EchoMail® technology to gather customer feedback across social media like Yelp, TripAdvisor, OpenTable, Google as well as Email, Facebook, Twitter and others.
- ChefCare can gather customer feedback for your restaurant or your group of restaurants.
- ChefCare can gather customer feedback on your competitors as well, to provide you key insights for your brand strategies in the pre-op or post-op stage of your restaurant.
- Comments gathered by ChefCare are then analyzed for sentiments expressed by the customer on service quality, food quality, facility, hygiene and other such aspects of the restaurant.
- The team of strategic experts at ChefCare analyzes this information and produces a super-focused report that includes Key Findings, Trends and Key Recommendations, for you to make necessary changes to your restaurant to really address customer issues.
- The detailed, comprehensive report is presented in an easy-to-understand format letting you know where you are doing well, and where you are not.
- In addition, you have the option to review every message personally, in an organized manner, by logging into the ChefCare platform if you require.
Be the Light:
Use ChefCare and Be an Enlightened Restaurant Owner
You have the opportunity to become a truly enlightened restaurant owner by using modern technology to really address customer concerns. The ChefCare Report makes this possible. Yes, perhaps you could use your own staff to do this process and even look at other automation programs. But that will be expensive, inefficient and will not include detailed analysis or expert recommendations.
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Join the Revolution:
Start Using ChefCare
If you were to do it on your own, or even use someone else to do it, a report like ChefCare will cost you anywhere between $3,000 to $5,000. However, with ChefCare, a report ranges between $75 to $199 based on the number of restaurants included in the report.
To start, fill out the form below to get a FREE One-Hour Consultation on how ChefCare can help your restaurant.
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